Whatever the state of your health, please spare a thought for the hearing impaired individuals out there. They all suffer the kinds of problems which I have encountered. Like me they live and work in a sort of limbo between the hearing and deaf communities, neither one thing or another. As many of us have late onset hearing problems we will struggle to sign well enough to be able to integrate with the very strong deaf communities and culture. And yet at the same time we’re frequently treated as hearing by hearing people because we can hear something. The stories I could tell you about that.

If you know someone who is HI please remember that despite it being often invisible to you, their particular disability has an impact on every aspect of their lives, 24 x 7. How many times a day do you have to say ‘sorry, I didn’t hear that’?

Lastly, if you use earphones, headphones, got to see bands, DJs or play any kind of instrument look after your hearing and if in doubt get it checked. It’s more precious than you can imagine and when it’s gone it will never come back.

As always I’d particularly like to hear from other HI individuals and anyone with a link to deafness or acquired hearing loss. Please email my contact address if you want to talk – I’m always happy to.

If you want to know how this compares with ‘normal’, if your hearing is good those lines will be around the zero, 10, 20 marks (yes, up at the top of the chart!)

Here’s a very good site with more than you’ll probably want to know about audiograms:

American Audiology Awareness Campaign