Security

July 2002

Today, at long last, I visited Rivka, my audiologist to receive my hearing aid. Did you know that hearing aids are actually programmed to match an individual’s hearing loss? It was news to me as well. Anyway, this takes a few minutes, and requires concentration, so I sat quietly in her office as she worked. As I waited, I found my attention drawn by a poster put out by one of the companies that manufactures hearing aids. The poster was comprised of pictures of happy people of all ages, engaged in a variety of activities, interspersed with pictures of hearing aids. Do not ask me how I knew, but I could tell that all of the people were American. It is hard to explain; there was just something so clean and wholesome about the people and the photo backgrounds that it was really self-evident.

For the first time, I found myself a bit homesick and longing for the good ol’ US of A. To be in a big country, far from enemies. I could live in the middle of the States, in Chicago, far from all borders, and not have that feeling that someone was going to attack me. If the US were invaded, it would take the invaders some time to get to Chicago, and the US would surely defeat them before they got too far. The only one with half a chance to get close would be Canada, and while they hold us in some disdain, I do not perceive them as being too much of an actual threat. I could go to the mall without anyone checking my bag and ride public transportation without checking every face (even those of the children) for a suspicious look. Just to relax, just a little. It would be so easy.

I sat in her office, and looked at all those nice faces, those happy, smiling, open faces of people who doubtless all lived in nice houses in the suburbs or perhaps even in small, friendly towns out in the Midwest…and I missed the security. I missed the feeling of feeling safe. Even after September 11th, you surely cannot know what it is like to live here. There I sat, a young-ish woman getting a hearing aid because my eardrums are shot to hell and my teeth hurt because my nerves are regenerating and my right eye gets tired and cuts out at about 9:30 every night and my body is covered with ugly scars and I am trying to get back to work but it is tough with all of the appointments and the paperwork and I want to find a job at a bigger firm and move up a bit and develop an actual career here but maybe I should stay put until the economy improves and who knows when that will be and the exchange rate has gone to hell in a hand basket and so my rent has gone up a couple hundred shekels already and after missing so much work because of the bombing who knows when I will be up for a raise again and I hope I can find another job in January and move to Tel Aviv but hey, man makes plans and God laughs and maybe I will be bombed again and so it really is not a good thing to plan too much.

I am stressed and I am tired and for the first time in my life, I really have a bit of a clue as to what foreigners perceive when they look at America and Americans. Here I am already so tired and dreaming of security and idealizing life in the United States…and I have only just started living in Israel. I am still two weeks shy of a year here.

Rivka finished programming the hearing aid. “Okay, let me show you how to use it”. I tore my eyes away from the poster, listened carefully to the instructions, booked a follow-up appointment and stuck the hearing aid in my bag and went to my home, in Jerusalem, in Israel.

I chose this home, with all that it entails. I do not regret it, but sometimes I wish that it, or I, could just all go away for a while.

____________________________________________________________________
First, a caveat…. This piece is historical; it was written in July 2002. As of today:
1) My hearing is better, but still not great. I also look completely normal. I see my scars, but you would not.
2) I have a good job at one of the big accounting firms
3) The job comes complete with a very respectable salary
4) The economy is (tfu tfu tfu) doing well
5) I live in Tel Aviv

Of course, each step to this point was laced with panic…but that is another story, or at least a separate post.

Second, this seems to be a good point to give a public thank-you to my bosses of that time, Zvi Marsh and Shea Klein, who not only held my job for me, but who continued to give me raises on schedule, without any consideration to the fact that I was barely in the office for four months. May G-d be as kind to you as you were kind to me.

Hearing

Today, I am going to jump back in time again, to an article I wrote in June 2002. And also again, I am going to start with an update, just so no one feels compelled to sob over my plight.

The holes in my eardrums are now closed. In the end, only one ear required surgery. Today, the hearing in my left ear is considered to be largely within the normal range, with only a mild hearing loss. My right ear was less fortunate. It did require surgery, and what is more, the surgery made my hearing worse and not better. The loss in my right ear is considered moderate to severe. I own a hearing aid for my right ear, and I should use it but I do not. (Do not ask me why—I really do not know). Anyway, I am in the process of looking into getting a new hearing aid—a small one that fits right in the ear. I am hoping that something small, sophisticated and comfortable might be able to breach this inexplicable mental block. In the meantime, with some minor adjustments for the disability, I function quite well sans machinery, though I suspect that my friends and co-workers would be quite happy if I start to use a hearing aid and stop asking them to repeat themselves. (Though as a reminder to any lurking friends—I still will not be able to hear you at restaurants or weddings. Hearing aids not helpful at noisy events….)

One more thing: there is no recovery process here. The recovery process is over. My hearing is not going to get better. It just is.

On the bright side, I have gotten smarter about what I tell people. Now, when someone asks me why my hearing is lousy, I adopt a surprised look, as though this seems like such a weird questions to ask, shrug my shoulders and reply: "oh, it has been that way for years". Which is true. Can I help it if they assume that I was born with a hearing loss?
______________________________________________________________
June 2002

I can hear the telephone. It goes “ring ring ring”.

The toaster also makes a ringing sound when the toast is done toasting.

Birds say “tweet tweet” and cats say “meow”. A bird is singing outside my window right now. I can hear it. The world is full of wonderful, interesting sounds, and I can hear them all.

Yes, I finally got my hearing aids.

I have what is called sub-total perforations in both of my eardrums from the bombing. I have a mild to moderate hearing loss in my left ear, and moderate to moderate/severe hearing loss in the right. My doctors say the holes and the loss are correctable, although that will require two surgeries over the course of a year. The hearing aids are to get me through in the meantime. The surgeries are considered to be routine, as surgeries go, and the loss is not considered severe. All in all, this is a relatively minor injury. However, this “minor” injury has had a profound, and even shocking, effect on my personality.

To understand the changes, it helps to understand what it means to have a “hearing loss”, and I will give credit to my audiologist, Rivka,, for explaining this to me. Eardrums perform two major functions. One, the eardrums amplify sounds as they come into your ears. Secondly, our eardrums allow us to filter incoming sounds. Your eardrums are the tools that allow you to sit at a table and simultaneously engage in conversation with A while half-listening to a conversation between B and C and blocking out the conversation between D and E.

Put it all together, and a hole in one’s eardrum means you cannot hear half of what is going on, and what you can hear, you cannot understand.

What has this meant for me? To start with the basics, if I am speaking one-on-one with a person, I generally have to ask them to speak up and to speak very clearly. The existence of any background noise, (i.e. music, traffic or another conversation) makes it very difficult for me to hear because I no longer have the ability to filter out unwanted sounds. Even the sound of my own chewing is disruptive and I have to avoid crunchy foods when having conversations. I find that I hear best when speaking with one or a few individuals, face to face, without background noise, and without people talking over one another. It is almost impossible to have a conversation with a person if they leave the room-even if they are speaking loudly. Rivka told me that this is because I am probably doing far more subconscious lip reading than I realize. Actually, once she said this, I realized that this is why my ability to hear has picked up with the improvement in my vision. For that matter, it explains why my ability to hear English is less impaired than my ability to hear Hebrew. I have 25 more years experience in English than in Hebrew.

But if the physical aspects of hearing loss are challenging, the mental and emotional impact has been devastating. I am isolated. The heart of the social scene in Jerusalem is the Shabbat meal, and the heart of the Shabbat meal is the conversation. I cannot participate in these conversations anymore because I cannot hear well enough to follow. Even if I try to speak only with the person next to me, the conversation tends to be somewhat stilted as the buzz of the surrounding conversations impedes my ability to hear the person I am speaking with. The same limitation applies to virtually every social situation involving group conversations, be it chatting with people after services when everyone gathers outside the synagogue to shmooze, going out with friends to a café or even just having a simple get-together in someone's living room. Sure I can participate, so long as no one minds if I interrupt the flow of the conversation every 5 seconds to ask “What? What?” And that is assuming that the language being spoken is English. If the conversation is in Hebrew…well, forget about it.

There is really nothing I can do about the situation, and so more and more, I find myself sitting quietly and saying nothing. What is the point? I do not even sing anymore. For those of you unfamiliar with Shabbat meals, it is the tradition to sing songs during the meal. However, when I sing now, I cannot hear the other singers, making it impossible for me to sing with them. Sometimes I mouth the words. More often, I do not bother.

As a result, those who have met me at group events since the bombing would probably describe me as quiet and shy. And indeed, I have become shy. I no longer feel comfortable engaging new people in conversations. Admittedly, even before the bombing I lacked self-confidence with Israelis, but now I feel that way with everyone. I feel stupid, awkward, tongue-tied and boring. The fact that I am self-conscious about my looks does not help, of course. So now, when I go to group events, I no longer try to meet new people. Instead, I hang out with the people I know. If I do not know anyone, I find a corner and sit there quietly with a vague and hopefully pleasant expression on my face, catching conversations as I can, and waiting for the time that I can escape and go home.

A couple weeks ago, I was invited to a Shabbat meal hosted by an retired couple that makes a habit of inviting singles to join them for meals. The guests included a married couple, myself and four other singles my age, —two women and two men—and like me English speaking immigrants. The two women were well dressed, well spoken, attractive, and exuded intelligence and confidence. Then there was me: scars on my face which I have yet to figure out how to cover, bad hair, a stupid looking headband, glasses, and of course, half deaf. The other guests were soon engaged in an animated conversation. I could not follow. What was I supposed to do? Stand up and scream that I may look like shit and be deaf as a doorknob, but hey, behind it all is intelligent, interesting, witty person? Hell, I do not know that I believe that myself. I did try. I made an attempt to talk to the guy next to me, but I could think of nothing to say aside from “oh, you are from Toronto? What a beautiful city”.

Oh yeah! That is some witty and intelligent conversation there! My, I must be the world's biggest dolt.

Maybe I am imagining things? Maybe I was always this boring, this retreating, this shy, this tongue-tied? Why do I feel like I was been transformed into someone else? I know I used to be too aggressive, and too argumentative, but I toned that down a bit and learned to be nicer. I know I used to feel stupid with Israelis, but I thought that was just with Israelis, and that it was because of the language barrier. Was I always like this? I couldn’t have been. There is no way I could have as involved as I was in D.C., had as many friends as I did in D.C., if I were really like this. I keep trying to remind myself of that.

But now I have hearing aids. They don’t help me filter sounds, but they do amplify sounds so that conversations are easier to follow. I wore them last night when I was at dinner with my cousins. So long as the background noise isn’t too bad, I can even follow multi-sided conversations. Okay-so I have a tool to bring back my hearing. All I need now is a tool to bring back me.