The Black day when I Lost My Hearing..

by Trishna Samant
(Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India)

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

Performing and recording any thing became harder, and work became scarcer. I bought a set of hearing aids, but they were useless- bad sound and they hurt what hearing I had.

I got into a habit of drugs and I lost my wife. Meanwhile, a much better type of hearing aid came out, and I was able to play again. And now, with the new aids, 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.

Five years later of trying, with a failed company and a lot of dead end leads, I am out of money and prospects.

I hate socializing, as I miss real conversation, and am just tired of "What" being the major part of my vocabulary.

I don't even bother to ask when I don't hear something. 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.

Like they say, if I had a break, maybe it wouldn't be as bad, but now, I just sit alone without wearing my aids, for I don't think I could endure another failed relationship or enterprise, and group encounters are stressful. I feel like I am just waiting for the boat to go under.