The Black Day when I lost my Hearing!

by Sushilrastogi
(Lucknow, UttarPradesh, India)

I am a musician, now in my late 50's. Somewhere back in the early 90's, I suffered late onset inherited hearing loss. Over about a year's span, I went from normal to severe loss of hearing.

Performing and recording became harder, and work became scarcer, and I fell on hard times. I bought a set of hearing aids, but they were useless - the sound was awful and they hurt my ears!

Counselors told me that I should give up music and learn ASL(American Sign Language) and that I would never be able to be a musician again.

I got into a cycle of drugs and lost my wife.


Meanwhile, a much better type of hearing aid came onto the market and I was able to play again!

Because I could now hear I had more opportunities for a day job, so I went into computers. I rebuilt my music skills and started finding work as a musician while also learning computer graphics on my own.

But after five years of trying, with a failed company and a lot of dead end leads, I am once again at rock bottom.

I have tried numerous sources of help but nothing has really worked. I hate socializing, and miss conversation, and I am just tired of "What" being the major part of my vocabulary.

I am still playing music and when I perform, I keep social contact to a minimum and just focus on playing. I need new, more powerful aids, but I can't afford health insurance, much less expensive hearing aids.