- Learning to be married
- Learning to communicate with a hearing disability
- Adopting and taking care of a rescue puppy
- Having less than a month to move and find a new house
- Preparing for a major surgery
- Recovering from a major surgery
- My hubby losing his job and being out of work for 2 months
Dealing with the normal stresses of a marriage are tough, but these extra struggles have led to such a build up of stress between us in the past 2-3 months. Excuse my pity party. I know things could be A LOT worse, and I am SOO grateful for all of the wonderful things in my life but life has just been pretty rough for us the last couple of months. During my surgery recovery I was completely deaf in my implanted ear and was only able to hear out of my hearing aided ear for two whole month. This has definitely affected our ability to communicate with each other. We are both so emotionally exhausted from dealing with these extra stresses of our lives and it takes A LOT some days to make that extra effort to really listen and really hear the other person. Sometimes it is easier to just not talk and zone out in front of the TV. Or just not talk about the raw emotions that we are truly feeling. Or just not talk about the little argument that we just had. Or not talk about the ways we really want this relationship to be. Communication is exhausting and takes extra energy for us. There are so many accommodations we BOTH have to make in order to make conversation work. Before my implant and especially during my surgery recovery, my husband would have to be within 5 feet of me and directly looking at me in order to have a real conversation. If he was in the basement and I was upstair, he wouldn't be able to just yell to ask me a question. I wouldnt even be able to hear him yelling! Also, all of the emotional struggles I have succumb dealing with my hearing loss has had an affect on the people in my life, especially my husband. When you love someone you truly feel everything little thing they are feeling and it takes a lot out of you. While living and breathing a life of hearing loss is difficult for the hearing impaired individual, it is also very difficult for the people closest to you. My husband knew me when my hearing was mild/moderate and knows the fun-loving, outgoing, "I dont care what anyone things of me" confident person I used to be. Watching me become so socially withdrawn hurts him just as much as it hurts me. The best thing about my relationship is our friendship and our love for each other. I know we will find a way to work through this just like everything else we have overcome in our 7 years together! As my mother always says... "Let go and let God."
Regardless of our not so positive morning, Fras and I went out to lunch with my parents and our friend Zach. I decided to take my parents to a little Italian Bistro near my work. SO Delish!! This was actually my very first experience in a resturant since my activation and I think I did pretty darn well. The resturant was not very busy and we did sit in a more private section but I felt that I was able to follow along with conversation much better than I ever did with my hearing aids. What I found to be most difficult was when Fraser, Dad, and Zach were having conversation while I was trying to talk and listen to my mom (across the table from me). The boys sounded so loud and annoying! I sort of wanted them to shut up. ha ha!
During lunch, I asked them if other people talking bothered them. My dad said that my conversation with mom doesn’t bother him or interfere with his hearing because he just blocks out all other noise except for the conversation he is currently in. They all agreed and explained that my brain will need to learn how to shut out noise that I am not focused on. My poor brain is being overworked!
I also asked them all what it sounded like when something was really loud and none of them could explain it. Well, that doesn’t help me too much in generalizing my hearing and determining what is "normal" and what I "should" be hearing. I asked them all to try to pay more attention to this because I really want to know if what I am hearing when it is loud is the same thing as they are hearing. Sometimes I wonder if the loudness I am hearing is because something is truly loud or if it is just some interference with my Esteem since I am not used to hearing a sound this loud.
After lunch I took my parents to my office to show them around so they could see where I spend the majority of day! Nothing really new or exciting happened there, except for the fact that my dad had to walk into every single office (hello dad, invasion of privacy), my mom stole left over candy from our Halloween Party, and dad commented on how few males worked at my company (based on walking around and reading the names on the outside of each office door). ha ha. parents...
For dinner we went out to eat as well and that was MUCH MUCH more noisy than before. I definitely felt more comfortable being in a loud setting and felt that it was easier to follow conversation. I think I am generally more comfortable with my family in loud settings because they are more aware and accommodating to my hearing loss.
Fras and I are laying in bed as I am writing this and I feel like I am having difficulty understanding him so I decided that tomorrow I am going to turn up my Esteem again tomorrow. A5 here I come!
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