26 August 2024

Life after Deaf: My Journey Through Hearing Loss and Beyond

A ListenIn Story: BHA Brisbane ListenIn stories tell of the experiences and challenges people with hearing loss face and how they overcome them. If you’d like to share your experiences and show other people they are not alone, get in touch today.

From Childhood Curiosity to Cochlear Implants – Doug Peterson’s Story is One of Resilience and Adaptation

In the Beginning

As a young lad in the 1930s, I can remember wondering at my grandmother, Alvina Wesley, not being able to hear. A strong character, she used a type of tubing for difficult conversations. People were able to speak into a small trumpet at one end which carried the spoken word along a length of tubing to an ear plug in her ear.

Mostly it was not used and people wishing to attract her attention had to touch her to let her know they wanted to talk to her. This would be accompanied by shouting or lots of gestures to communicate. Since she had had a good education, it was possible to write messages to her to communicate.

At the mealtime table, she could not follow any conversation but was well and able to assert her authority if she considered the table sitters were becoming unruly: she would just straighten her ramrod back, narrow her gaze, and stare. Everybody fell silent as Grandma ruled the roost.

All in the Family

Some years later, I became aware that my mother, Dorrie Peterson, was also having trouble participating in conversations. She consulted hearing aid operators and bought the latest up-to-date hearing aid. It consisted of a huge torch battery strapped to her thigh with leads going up to the cumbersome hearing aid in her ear, replete with a flickable on off switch.

It was a simple device with relatively no control over volume once it was switched on. Basically, it was amplified sound with no control or adjustment of individual frequencies – which we now know is important to address individual hearing loss needs. By the time she died, there had been little improvement in the technology.

And All in the Genes: Deafness Comes Home to Roost

In 1955, I failed a hearing test to renew my flying licence. In those days, audiology was in its infancy. I put it down to pressures I was experiencing in my life at the time and subsequently passed the test for my licence.

At that point, having returned to teaching. I vividly remember telling pupils that plurals ended with an ‘s’, reminding them constantly that they must sound the ‘s’ on the end of the word.

“I can’t hear that ‘s’,” I would exclaim to the class. Little did I realise that, in truth, the children were most likely sounding the ‘s’ – but I could not hear it.

This became more apparent over the years, especially when I was teaching in a classroom. My difficulty was mostly with the girls, due to the higher pitch of their voices.

The telephone in the classroom would also ring, and I wouldn’t hear it. “Sir, the telephone is ringing,” my pupils would say. Embarrassing.

I consulted an audiologist and underwent hearing tests. The worrying verdict was that I was not hearing high-pitched sounds. It later turned out that I had inherited high-frequency loss. So, what to do?

By this stage in hearing aid technology, analogue aids had been developed. These over-the-ear style aids were far removed from the type of aid my mother had worn, and I willingly moved into wearing a hearing aid, as primitive as they were compared with modern in-the-ear digital models. The aids allowed me to continue with my teaching career for several years. I learned strategies that helped me with communication, including lip reading. I used my teaching skills to develop courses in communication for hearing-impaired people.

Eventually, I was relieved from direct teaching as I reached a stage in my career where I had office staff to answer the phone, and time to use my organisational skills more in the total school program. My staff and senior officers of the Department were always supportive of me. But the strain of having to hear in an occupation that required a lot of listening started to take its toll on my health. I took long service leave to recuperate, but that proved to be a temporary release.

Hearing Comes Home to Roost

The mother of a teenage girl pupil came in to talk with me about her daughter. She spoke very softly and with her head bowed down. I could not hear her; I could not lip-read her. I had no idea what she said during those 15 minutes. That was a shock, and importantly, a wakeup call for me.

I consulted with my GP who advised that I was under great strain with my hearing loss and should cease teaching forthwith. This was a severe blow for me as I loved teaching. I took sick leave but found that the GP was correct, and at 55, I was boarded out on a Superannuation pension.

Pushing Back on Retirement

I realised I still had a life to live and subsequently found other activities such as teaching lip reading and writing courses for the training of teachers of lipreading, which were accepted nationwide. My input in these programs was acknowledged at both state and national levels with honorary life memberships in Better Hearing Australia.

My wife, Hazel, was always the rock of the family and supported me all along the way. We travelled, with Hazel having to carry most of the communication challenges.

Without that support, I might have crumbled. I started a three-day-a-week, five-year voluntary service at the Baptist Theological College as Registrar. Here, I was able to utilise my training and skills in education to assist in keeping records of adults attending the college. As they were adults, communication was less demanding than it had been with younger students.

Instead of crumbling, Hazel and I combined and found a new passion: researching and writing a 186-page history of my maternal grandmother’s family, which culminated with the “Scherf Family History” involving over 2000 names, and the organisation of a gathering of approximately 300 descendants of the family, most of whom did not know each other.

Watching TV was a hazard as Hazel had overly sensitive hearing and I could not hear the TV except when it was turned up uncomfortably loud for her. I used personal technological gadgets, including loops, to hear the TV. Music, theatre, and radio disappeared from my life.

Eventually, it reached the stage where the analogue hearing aids were not helping very much, so the decision was made to learn sign language. Hazel and I persevered but were never comfortable in the Deaf world after a lifetime in the hearing world.

Luckily, subtitles and closed Captions began to develop, helping increase access to and enjoyment of TV programs.

Speech

I worked extremely hard to make sure my speech was as clear as it could be, so that even though I could not monitor my own speech, I made sure that my enunciation was acceptable and was understood clearly in the hearing world. I had noticed how people with an acquired hearing loss tended to develop a speech pattern that was difficult for others to understand. This discipline stood me in good stead when eventually the Cochlear implant became a norm.

I also found myself living a life where I was personifying several of the characteristics that I used to tell my hearing-impaired friends to avoid. I found that I was dodging outside company, being more comfortable with family and close friends. I was withdrawing socially, which meant less interaction and practice of good communication skills. It certainly gave me insight into the world of people who had acquired a hearing loss. It showed me how hard and tiring it can be to interact with people while addressing hearing loss. I never fully appreciated that aspect of hearing loss before.

Enter the Cochlear Implant

At conferences, I was hearing about this new hearing device called a Cochlear Implant. I remember seeing an experimental model where there was a sort of open connection on a man’s head. I was a bit scared of this new evolving hearing device that Professor Graeme Clark was developing. Of course, it was all at an experimental stage, and my fears were laid to rest when this newfangled hearing device became available.

In 1999, I was implanted by Dr. Tony Parker. Alas, I could not understand this distorted, electronic speech that I was receiving. I certainly could not understand Hazel at all. So began a long rehabilitation program of learning to hear and understand speech again. Exposure to a variety of sounds and a listening course bore fruit, and in three months’ time after the implant, I was able to hear and understand speech.

Other hearing, such as music, was not as critical as being able to converse with people. Adjusting to various hearing locations was a constant challenge. The minimal sign language that had been acquired was put to good use to fill in many blank spaces in my hearing ability. A constant companion was still a pencil and paper, particularly in rowdy conditions such as restaurants. But it was the first step in a more satisfying life for me.

I started to come out of my shell and to mix with outsiders again – albeit on a limited scale. Hazel was very patient and extremely supportive. Sad to say, I lost that support when Hazel died in 2009.

The Second Implant

I received a second Cochlear Implant in 2010. This was an improvement on the first one. At the same time, the initial implant processor was upgraded.

I could detect new sounds. Directions of sounds were easier to identify. Control of input was easier and more pleasant.

This was really the culmination of Life after Deaf.

Doug in 2024

My birthdate is 7 September 1924. In my 100 years I have lived almost half my life dealing proactively with my hearing loss.

I now live in a Tricare Retirement Village in a Serviced Apartment. This is luxurious for me as I had been living in a unit caring for myself. Now I can line up for meals in the dining room if I desire to do so. Instead of lining up at the shared laundry at the urging of my family, I have my washing done in the community laundry, for a monetary consideration.

I am a member of the Residents’ Committee but am considering not continuing as there is so much for me to do. I am being assisted by BSOL, a voluntary organisation that helps oldies with computer assistance, to learn how to manage my laptop computer as I follow my love of family history by writing up the history of my family of six children, 16 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren, and their forebears. I use the computer for email contact with the more distant descendants and enjoy playing computer card games in Pretty Good Solitaire.

I love playing Scrabble, billiard table games, Rummikub, 500, and whatever other activity is being held – if I have time. I enjoy walking around the garden area of the village and enjoy the ambience of the village. My church and local coffee shop are within a kilometre, and I enjoy driving myself to these places. Other family members take me to more distant and diverse places.

Different members of my loving family spoil me with visits, fixing house problems, and helping with the meagre shopping I need doing.

I love life and am never bored.

I find that I never forget anything I remember.

Doug Peterson

Doug was born in Nambour and most of his life was spent outside the capital city, preferring country life. He served in the armed forces during WWII.

Doug had a long involvement with Better Hearing Australia (Brisbane) connecting with the organisation when Doug’s Ipswich school was used as a base for classes in that area.

He later joined BHA Brisbane and started being involved in the teaching aspects of the organisation. He held the role of President of BHA for one year but returned to his first love of teaching.

Doug was instrumental in ensuring the survival of the Brisbane branch of BHA and eventually led the movement as its Executive Officer, in purchasing and refurbishing a property at West End, the sale of which forms the foundation for the present operation South Brisbane.

He wrote training programs for classes of people Hard of Hearing as well as training courses for teachers.

His input has been acknowledged at both State and National levels by awarding him honorary life memberships in BHA.

Turning 100 years of age on 7 September 2024, he lives in an Aged Persons Community in Brisbane.