living with hearing loss
hearing health foundati o n
A Community, Shared
An educator diagnosed with a hearing loss later in life finds meaning in sharing his experiences with those just starting on their hearing loss journey. By Michael Miles I was first diagnosed with mild hearing loss around 1999, when I was in my early 40s. At the time I was the CFO of a publicly held company and was attending a lot of board meetings. As the youngest officer of the company, I typically sat at the far end of the board table, away from where the CEO and chairman sat. However, I started noticing that I was missing a few words here and there, including one time when they were directed at me. So I gradually started moving toward the middle of the table at future meetings. But I didn’t think it was serious enough to get hearing aids. I went back to school in 2004 to become a math teacher and noticed I was not hearing a lot of the lectures clearly unless I was near the front of the class. My wife also had noticed a change in my hearing. So I went to an audiologist, and after reviewing my audiogram results she sent me to the ENT (ear, nose, and throat specialist) at her practice. The ENT requested a CT scan, and it turned out I had otosclerosis in both ears. Otosclerosis is a bony overgrowth in the middle ear that prevents the ear from hearing properly. Thought to have a genetic component, this cause of hearing loss is not that common and I next saw an otolaryngologist experienced in treating otosclerosis, Thomas Willcox, M.D., at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. The stapes bone in my left ear collapsed first, and I had a successful stapedectomy on that ear in June 2006 performed by Dr. Willcox. The stapes in the right ear collapsed in 2015 and another stapedectomy was done. I had to go back in a few months because I was hearing a clicking in the ear, but the surgeon corrected it and I was fine afterward. As a result of the otosclerosis, I have a mixed hearing loss, a combination of conductive (middle ear) and sensorineural (inner ear) hearing loss. The conductive loss has been handled pretty well by hearing aids. But the sensorineural loss has gotten worse and I have progressed to wearing the most powerful aids I can find to handle soft voices and noisy environments. When I was diagnosed, I knew no one personally with a hearing loss, so I was pretty much on my own for a few years. Then I learned about the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) in my internet searches for hearing support or education groups. That was when my hearing loss world really changed. I started attending the HLAA’s annual convention, meeting others with hearing loss and learning about hearing-related products to help me. I joined a local chapter and the Pennsylvania office, so I now had support groups where I could ask questions and get advice. Little by little I learned more about my condition and the assistive technology to help me (my current favorites are the speech-to-text apps on smartphones). I became more involved with the HLAA, conducting outreach at senior events as well as giving presentations at senior centers. It was at an HLAA convention where I first heard someone from Hearing Health Foundation talk about the Hearing Restoration Project (HRP). I was hooked. I love learning about new technology and research and the potential for something to help us in the future. In October 2019 I came to New York City to attend the New York Academy of Sciences conference on the topic of hair cell regeneration, where Peter G. Barr-Gillespie, Ph.D., the head of the HRP, was the keynote speaker. More recently, this past October I watched HHF’s inaugural Hearing Health Hour webinar on age-related hearing loss. I 8
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