Thank you again @1Bluejay
It wasn’t always so TBVH…In many ways, hearing loss was probably the catalyst, in turning my life around… In my early 30’s, Bilateral SSNHL (Sudden Sensory Neural Hearing Loss) reeked havoc with my life, recruitment compounded this, and MD (Meniers Disease) was absolutely devastating,Tinnitus was just thrown in, just to make sure, I got the message
Fate, tends to kick you in the teeth, especially when you are down… And what a contrast, I went from the life & soul of the party, to a virtual recluse, almost overnight, depression kicks in, you know you are in a hole, unfortunately, you don’t know how to climb out…We didn’t even have a Audiology Department on the Shetland Isles, no private dispensary’s, the nearest one was 14 hours, overnight by boat/ferry to Aberdeen, I had no one to confide in, and worse still, my friends, where ripping the piss out of me (Severe, Karma, Catchup) in another life, I was a complete wind up merchant, it was now pay back time, because, I was deaf, I was the butt end of everyones jokes, you laugh it off, you then withdraw slightly further, it wasn’t their fault, and it was impossible for me to tell them, how bad, I was feeling on the inside, they didn’t understand, nor should they, most folks, have little or no concept of what severe/profound hearing loss entails, and the truth was, neither did I, but I was about to find out…Big Style! Once you bottom out, the only way is up, hearing loss changed everything, including how I approached life, hopefully it made me a more rounded individual, with perhaps the gift of understanding other folks plight… I should imagine, if viral flu hadn’t struck, then I would have been dead a long time ago, to put it mildly, I tended to burn the candle at both ends, the weekend started on a Thursday, and finished on a Wednesday, my hangovers where legendary, but I always made work! Nowadays, we have the information highway, trying to pick the truth from, the fiction on the internet, is becoming more challenging, year on year, but there is good & bad info out there, probably in equal measure… And this site is a Godsend for HOH, it would have made my life, so much easier back then, sometimes ignorance is not bliss…My apologies again, for waffling on, I guess the point of this post is, encouragement to soldier on, when faced with adversity, we humans are pretty special, we adapt to what life throws in our direction, the good, the bad, and the indifferent… I reiterate… We HOH, are all survivors, you adapted, be proud of what you have achieved… Cheers Kev 