My Story
I have had this auditory disorder for over two decades now. What I wrote below was for an auditory disorder forum. Sometimes I tend to think people can't believe anyone could have something as unusual as this. There has been this sort of distant look as I have tried to explain. And I was hesitant to share it here, but life is short and it could help someone in their own yet different and prevailing struggle.
It was late 1993. I woke. It was about 7:30am on the first Saturday in October. Surely it was a civil defense siren down the street. It was sounding but not oscillating. But wait. This was inside my ear. I called my wife. She came into the bedroom. I told her this was something different. I told her to talk in my ear. She kept saying I love you. The voice changed. It was in a tin can. It trailed out. I love you as inaudible now as talking on a piece of metal foil. The I love you was the last I heard there from my wife. It is like my ear had died and yet it seemed to live on in another world. A sheet of tinnitus. Hyperacusis, perhaps. Feedback in its split-second delays from a thousand sounds that enter my good ear nimbly but the brain doesn't get it. It's like it is trying to sync with a lost left ear gone to another planet. The ear plug in the good ear helps reduce the feedback effects as sleep is hoped for, but the other settled drone of sounds remains in their normal fashion. It is ethereal. It is distant yet close. It is like the outer edge of what mythology or poetry may depict as some realm of shades; the sound of a cave emitting its transient yet constant yet almost mechanical echoes. The best of Johns Hopkins doesn't know. Over twenty years and many tears.
I am a radio commentator. I am a pastor. I am a grateful husband, father, and now grandfather. By the grace of God I live to love and serve and teach. There is much to be thankful for.
I have had this auditory disorder for over two decades now. What I wrote below was for an auditory disorder forum. Sometimes I tend to think people can't believe anyone could have something as unusual as this. There has been this sort of distant look as I have tried to explain. And I was hesitant to share it here, but life is short and it could help someone in their own yet different and prevailing struggle.
It was late 1993. I woke. It was about 7:30am on the first Saturday in October. Surely it was a civil defense siren down the street. It was sounding but not oscillating. But wait. This was inside my ear. I called my wife. She came into the bedroom. I told her this was something different. I told her to talk in my ear. She kept saying I love you. The voice changed. It was in a tin can. It trailed out. I love you as inaudible now as talking on a piece of metal foil. The I love you was the last I heard there from my wife. It is like my ear had died and yet it seemed to live on in another world. A sheet of tinnitus. Hyperacusis, perhaps. Feedback in its split-second delays from a thousand sounds that enter my good ear nimbly but the brain doesn't get it. It's like it is trying to sync with a lost left ear gone to another planet. The ear plug in the good ear helps reduce the feedback effects as sleep is hoped for, but the other settled drone of sounds remains in their normal fashion. It is ethereal. It is distant yet close. It is like the outer edge of what mythology or poetry may depict as some realm of shades; the sound of a cave emitting its transient yet constant yet almost mechanical echoes. The best of Johns Hopkins doesn't know. Over twenty years and many tears.
I am a radio commentator. I am a pastor. I am a grateful husband, father, and now grandfather. By the grace of God I live to love and serve and teach. There is much to be thankful for.
keep teaching and keep serving and keep loving 
Member
