They might be thinking it, but it isn’t polite to mention it. Apart from your honest-to-a-fault kids. But with them,  you’ve been practicing selective deafness for years. They can’t hear you (https://midwifemotherme.com/2024/06/23/never-stop-nagging/). You can’t hear them, but if you had to guess, they are hungry, bored and cash-poor *barely stifled yawn*. Seems normal enough!

Not so for vision. I was forever being told I was squinting and needed glasses. Thing is, I had glasses, I just refused to wear them. My vision really wasn’t that bad, and anyway, I don’t have a face for glasses. The first time I realised my vision wasn’t perfect, I was sitting at the back of a lecture theatre, unable to make out the text on the OHP (a 20th century reference to old-school tech) slides. I’d kinda assumed that no-one else could either, and that, like me, they weren’t terribly interested in the content of the lecture… I assumed that was why (like me) they were sat in the back row. One day, for a laugh, I tried on my friend’s glasses and, lo and behold, the text was perfectly legible! Still I didn’t rush to get my own lenses; the text had become intelligible, not interesting!

For driving, however, it turned out to be a legal requirement! So I kept my reluctantly-purchased frames in the car, donning them before fastening my seatbelt. And later, when I realised I was missing vital clues in my favourite whodunits on TV, I’d keep an old pair next to the remote. I so wanted to believe I’d eventually hit that sweet spot of having perfect vision before going long sighted. But that never happened; instead, I was getting increasingly short-sighted to the point even I could no longer ignore it. To be clear, I can see just fine, it’s just that your face is a pink blob until you are pretty close to me, and reading any departure board was getting tricky.

Around three years ago, I started cycling more regularly, often at dusk, and I had to conclude that if glasses were mandatory for safe driving, they would probably be a good idea for cycling. Bit by bit, I got used to the many advantages of clear sight. I still don’t have a face for glasses but, being older, wiser, and more practical (and because contact lenses fill me with irrational horror) I settled on a pair I could live with. I resigned myself to the worsening prescription but felt grateful for the fact they weren’t bifocal, not yet, at least. Then covid happened and we all had to start wearing masks. I always understood the need for face coverings. Anyone who’s ever scrubbed up for surgery will unquestionably wear a mask. Anyone who’s had to care for an immunocompromised patient has worn a mask. You keep your germs to yourself. Masks might not be 100% efficient at prevention but anything that reduces risk of transmission is a no-brainer. That doesn’t mean I enjoyed it. Being a midwife, no longer being able to visibly smile was really hard. Being a try-hard proponent of the reduce, reuse, recycle approach to waste minimisation, masks were a hideous guilt-fest as they simply weren’t recyclable or reusable (although I used cloth ones were possible).

But the worst thing about masks was the muffling of speech, which turns out to be a problem when you’ve been unwittingly struggling with your hearing. Plus, I hadn’t realised how reliant I’d been on watching my interlocutor’s whole face. Oh, and if you’re not careful, masks can cause your glasses to fog. You are now blind and deaf.

Towards the end of Covid (we were still wearing masks at work) I decided to get a hearing test. It wasn’t just the masks, but also that I’d found myself more and more dependent on the subtitles that were becoming more easily available when watching TV. Obviously I needed my glasses to read  the captions, but I couldn’t deny that properly following the dialogue enhanced my ability to identify the culprit in my favourite whodunits. I was doing just fine, with the help of modern technology and the receding of Covid, but it couldn’t hurt to check.

I came out with hearing aids. To be clear, I can hear you just fine. If it looks like I’m ignoring you, it’s probably because I’m listening to a fascinating podcast. Unless, of course, I am ignoring you. But it turns out I don’t hear as well as I might. Both can be true!

Thing is, it took me nearly 30 years (plus significant deterioration) to admit to needing glasses. I could quite happily have toddled on at minus one, not perfect, some squinting involved when staring at a computer screen, but not a biggie for a labour ward  midwife (not an office job!) using old-fashioned pen and paper. It became impossible to ignore when I we went paper-free just as my vision went downhill. It’s just that wearing glasses after all these years felt like defeat. I know that’s crazy.

And that’s how I currently feel about the hearing aids. Admitting I might actually need them means facing the fact things can only get worse, even though the logical part of me knows that wearing them can help in the immediate present. Plus they’re almost invisible, so no-one would know. But then there’s the practical considerations: another item that needs to be kept fully charged; needs to be taken on holiday along with the correct charger (on top of your phone, your smart watch, your laptop, your headphones, your kindle) and more plug adapters; needing to be kept safe because they aren’t easily replaceable… on balance, it’s vastly easier to keep them on standby for certain occasions like the theatre where the lack of subtitles or volume control can be an issue. Perhaps I’ll gradually albeit grudgingly realise that I’ve reached new depths of deafness which makes me the pariah no-one wants to sit next to at dinner – and then power them up. Or I could try to get used to them, and train my brain to ignore the extra background sounds which really are quite tiresome.

I’m undecided. I’ll have to play it by ear!