The Day I Discovered My Wife Wasn’t Entirely Wrong
A story about hearing loss, stubbornness, MRIs, and one argument I should have lost much sooner.
For years, my wife insisted I couldn’t hear properly.
For years, I insisted the problem wasn’t my hearing.
The problem was her.
She mumbles.
Quietly.
Sometimes it sounds like she’s speaking from another room while facing the opposite direction.
To strengthen my case, I pointed out that other people occasionally asked her to repeat herself too.
As far as I was concerned, the evidence was overwhelming.
Case closed.
Then one afternoon, the universe decided to cross-examine me.
I was lying on the couch watching television.
The volume sounded perfectly normal.
The phone rang.
As I lifted my head off the pillow to answer it, the television suddenly got louder.
Not a little louder.
Noticeably louder.
I lowered my head.
The volume dropped.
I raised my head again.
The volume increased.
At this point I probably looked like a confused gopher popping in and out of its hole.
I repeated the experiment several times.
Same result every time.
That’s when I realized something wasn’t right.
The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t hear.
The problem was that one ear was hearing very differently from the other.
That little discovery started a journey I never expected to take.
Hearing Loss Doesn’t Arrive All At Once
Most people imagine hearing loss as a dramatic event.
It isn’t.
It’s sneaky.
You don’t wake up one morning unable to hear.
Instead, you adapt.
You ask people to repeat themselves.
You blame restaurants.
You blame television sound engineers.
You blame background noise.
You blame poor cellphone connections.
And if you’re married, you blame your spouse.
I became very skilled at all of the above.
The funny thing about gradual hearing loss is that your brain works overtime filling in the missing pieces.
You don’t realize how much you’re missing because your mind is constantly trying to complete the puzzle.
By the time you finally notice something is wrong, it has often been happening for years.
The Plot Twist Nobody Expects
The hearing tests showed something unusual.
My hearing loss wasn’t following the normal pattern.
One ear was significantly different from the other.
That led to specialists.
Which led to more tests.
Which eventually led to an MRI.
Most people go into an MRI expecting to hear one of two things…
“Everything looks fine.”
Or
“We found the problem.”
In my case, they found a tumour on my auditory nerve.
Not exactly the souvenir I was hoping to bring home.
The good news was that it wasn’t an emergency.
The bad news was that it now had a permanent place in my medical file.
Learning To Live With Uncertainty
The thing nobody tells you about a diagnosis like that is how quickly it becomes part of your normal life.
At first, it sounds dramatic.
A tumour.
An auditory nerve.
Annual MRIs.
Specialists.
Monitoring.
Then life keeps moving.
The dog still needs walking.
Bills still arrive.
The lawn still grows.
And eventually the tumour becomes one more thing on a list that includes taxes, prescriptions, and remembering where you left your reading glasses.
Every year I go for another MRI.
Every year I wait for the results.
Every year I hope to hear the same thing.
No growth.
No changes.
Carry on.
You learn that not every problem in life gets solved.
Some are simply managed.
What Hearing Aids Actually Changed
Most people think hearing aids are about making things louder.
That’s only part of the story.
What they really give you back is ease.
Conversations become less work.
Restaurants become less exhausting.
Television doesn’t need to compete with a jet engine.
You spend less time pretending you heard something and more time actually hearing it.
The biggest surprise was realizing how much mental energy I had been spending compensating.
When hearing starts to fade, your brain works overtime trying to fill in the blanks.
You don’t notice how tiring that becomes until the burden is lifted.
The One Thing Younger People Should Know
If you’re younger and reading this, don’t dismiss the story because it sounds like old-people stuff.
I used to think the same thing.
Age arrives gradually.
It doesn’t knock on the front door.
It sneaks in through the side entrance.
One day you’re turning up the television.
One day you’re holding menus farther away.
One day your knees start negotiating every staircase.
And one day you’re lying on a couch discovering that one ear isn’t doing its share of the work anymore.
None of it happens overnight.
But it happens.
To all of us if we’re lucky enough to stick around.
And About My Wife...
I should probably end with an admission.
The hearing loss turned out to be real.
The tumour turned out to be real.
The hearing aids turned out to be necessary.
So yes, my wife was right about part of the argument.
But let’s not get carried away.
She still mumbles.
And I have witnesses.
The Recap...
I spent years blaming my wife for my hearing problems.
Then a strange discovery while watching television led to hearing tests, specialists, MRIs, and the discovery of a tumour on my auditory nerve.
Getting older has a way of humbling us. Sometimes the lesson arrives disguised as an argument you’ve been losing for years.
The Gut-Punch...
Growing older isn’t about losing pieces of yourself.
It’s about learning to adapt when life changes the rules.
The hearing aid wasn’t the important part.
The important part was finally listening.
Even when I didn’t want to hear it. 🍁
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Great analysis,Fred. You ve really captured the slippery slope into Old, whatever s the first body part to go.
I don t have a wife or even a husband, just a dog who does tell me what he decides I need to hear. Repeatedly until I get it. Whether it s a treat for himself or something past time I m supposed to be doing, he s relentless. It s been working out well but I know I m losing decibels. One of these days I ll get it checked. So many other things ahead of it.
But just be aware, with aging the first biggie is just the thin edge of the wedge.
Love ya, Fred. I spent years getting my husband to get help for his poor hearing, but eventually he discovered (!) that it wasn't me, after all. So far, my ears are still working well, but it is only a matter of time until he starts to mutter softly............Been there, done that. Liz