Losing one’s hearing gradually is traumatic.
But when entrepreneur Angie Aspinall lost her hearing within a few hours it was a living nightmare.
Angie, 47, had progressively lost the use of her right ear but was able to function with a hearing aid in her left.
But one day, Angie woke up with an unusual sensation.
Angie, of Almondbury, said: “I woke up feeling a little woozy and when I spoke, my voice sounded louder on my right side – my deafer side – than usual.
“For a few moments I thought a miracle was happening and that I was getting the hearing back in my right ear, in which I had lost the sense before.”
But later in the day Angie, who runs a publicity company with her husband Richard, felt something ‘like icy cold water’ trickling down her neck.
As the day wore on, Angie started to get a painful headache.
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She said: “I answered the phone to take a call from a colleague.
“I kept turning up the volume but to no avail. The caller’s voice simply faded away.
“To this day, I can’t remember who was on the phone or exactly what I said but I think I just kept saying that I couldn’t hear them.”
Alarmed by how she was feeling, Angie messaged her husband who took her to A&E.
Her hearing disappeared further in the waiting room – and the last of it disappeared while waiting to see a doctor.
Angie’s existing hearing loss was a result of otosclerosis, a disorder that causes progressive deafness due to the overgrowth of bone in the inner ear.
But the cause of the total hearing loss in her left ear was never pinned down.
Angie, a former Kirklees Council employee, said: “As you can imagine, it was a very distressing and isolating time.
“I kind of knew the hearing loss in my left ear was going to be permanent and I suffered several panic attacks worrying if I’d lose the rest of the hearing in my other ear just as suddenly.”
After four months of hospital appointments and even talk of surgery, Angie discovered the Phonak CROS II.
The device is a tiny hearing aid with a microphone, but without a receiver, which fits in her left ear.
It wirelessly transmits sound from the ‘unaidable’ ear to a hearing aid worn on the better hearing ear.
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This allows people with single-sided deafness to hear speech from the side they could not hear from before.
The device tricks the brain into adjusting its perception of sound, creating the illusion that the sound is being heard in both ears.
And Angie, who has a hearing dog called Sam, was amazed at what she could hear.
She said: “I remember being fascinated by the ‘click clack’ sound of my boots on the pavement.
“Then a bus went past and frightened the life out of me (because) it was so loud.
“For months, I couldn’t have imagined anything sounding loud ever again, let alone something being ‘too loud’. It was a revelation.”
For more about Phonak hearing products visit: www.phonak.com .
