AVSTTR’s Gill Croft has been speaking to Sandra Norburn about her acquired deafness:
First of all I hope you’re ok. Isolating is hard for everyone but can be even harder if you’re deaf.
The theme this year is ‘Acquired Deafness’ which simply means you lost your hearing at some point during your life, rather than being born deaf.
This is a lot more common than people might think. It happens to older people, but it may happen to people all through their lives and often there isn’t any explanation for it.
It happened to me in my 30s. I was a busy working mum with two teenage children. First of all, I noticed when they would shout to me from another room I wouldn’t be able to understand what they were saying. I could hear their voices, even some of the words, but not enough to make sense of it.
Later, I noticed that if I was at home with the TV on or music playing – the kids would come in and complain it was really loud.
Then at work I started having difficulty on the phone. It seemed as if everyone mumbled! If only they would speak up! And slow down! Read more of this article
