Don’t make jokes about going deaf. It’s not funny most the time.
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Many years ago I asked my husband if he would like a cup of tea and after a moment or two, apparently considering this offer, he replied, “That would be wonderful; how about next Wednesday afternoon?”. This was the very first intimation that his hearing was not what it had been. Many conversations followed these lines:
Me: ‘I’m off shopping down the street”, heard as “I’ve got nothing on my feet”.
Him: “It’s a bit cool perhaps you should put shoes on”.
Me: “I‘ve got them on. I’ll get the papers and the mail”, heard as “I’ll get a lemon and some capers and the mail”.
Him: We don’t need lemons.
This last statement made me think that something was going wrong with this conversation and we sorted it.
Another was:
Me: Did you hear that P… is getting a divorce? Heard as “did you hear that P… is getting a horse?”
Him: Where on earth will he put it?
I often wonder how many such exchanges went unrecognised as they had made sense, in different ways, to each of us.
It was, of course, not his fault - it was mine - for either muttering or going into another room and putting my head into a cupboard before I spoke to him.
I did occasionally detect his frustration when after two or three requests for a repetition he still could not catch the meaning of what someone was saying. He was so mild mannered that he just gave up trying to understand (unless it was me).
It is not really funny to be losing your hearing. It is isolating and the loss is not visible to others. Your lack of response can be interpreted as rudeness or snobby behaviour. Many with hearing loss live in quiet pain and isolation for years while their hearing dwindles away to nothing. If they are lucky, they live with people who understand and don’t say “how lucky you are that you can’t hear things at night”: they don’t shout and don’t exaggerate their speech as though you were two years old.
They don’t make jokes about going deaf. They know it’s not funny most the time.