My name is Jeff Swartz. I was born and raised in Los Angeles,
California. I have three younger
brothers. I would say my temperament is
intuitive, giving, and choleric. I
struggled in middle and high school with learning disabilities. I didn’t excel in school until I entered
college. I completed degrees in
theology, business, and instructional design with high honors in each one. I am the only one in my family who is deaf.
I began my professional life as a pastor for five years, from
age 20 to 25. My training in seminary
focused on crisis counseling, marriage counseling, and counseling individuals
suffering from depression. I always
believed I was more mature than my peers and more knowledgeable about how to handle
difficult situations. In my five years
as pastor I learned a lot and helped many people. Still, I was young and didn’t want to do
ministry for a lifetime. I decided to follow my interests in education and
helping people develop their cognitive skills. For the past ten years I have
worked for Universities. I decided to complete an undergraduate degree in
business and then a graduate degree in instructional design, an area I feel
passionate about. Instructional
designers often use technology and multimedia as tools to enhance
instruction. Instructional designers
help teachers create and analyze best practices to support student learning.
I now live in Atlanta, Georgia, with my wife and two incredibly
beautiful girls (12 and 10). I was brave
in taking a big leap from the West Coast to Southern comfort. I have to say it was a good move. My wife was born and raised in Georgia so she
was familiar with the culture.
One morning in April 2012, I woke up and my hearing was gone
completely in my left ear and almost gone in my right ear. I had to rely on
lipreading for two months at work and at home.
I thought it was just a cold, but after an emergency hospital visit in
June I found out it is permanent. I have
had many sinus and ear infections over my 41 years that may have led to my
hearing loss. I spent countless hours on
the Internet searching for reasons why I lost my hearing since the doctors
couldn’t figure it out. At one point the
pain was so severe I would pass out. The
pain has not gone away, though I am better able to cope with it now.
The pain happens whether I wear my hearing aids or not. I have to remove my hearing aids if noise
gets too loud, even though my audiologist has carefully tweaked the
settings. I have seen several
specialists looking for relief but to no avail. Not everyone with hearing loss
has recruitment or hyperacusis, so little information is available, and I am having to discover my own self-help
techniques. I find the the only remedy
is to go to my room, close the door, turn off the lights, and wait several hours in silence until the pain
subsides to a bearable level.
My website, “World of Silence” chronicles my experience
with sudden hearing loss, pain, and recruitment. “A person with recruitment will hear a
relatively soft sound (loud enough for them to hear, of course), as “soft” but
as the loudness level increases, then suddenly, just a few decibels above a
level where the sound was comfortable, the sound is perceived as uncomfortably
loud.”*. Sometimes it can cause the range of useable hearing to be very narrow
and can complicate hearing aid fitting. Recruitment differs from hyperacusis in
two ways: first, hearing loss is present with recruitment but not with
hyperacusis, and second, generally only loud sounds are uncomfortable for
persons with recruitment; persons with hyperacusis tend to experience soft or
moderately-loud sounds as painfully loud, as well as truly loud sounds. If you
do not have a sensorineural hearing loss, you cannot have recruitment. The way
I explain it to people is it is like taking a mug (representing me) and water
(loud sound) and each loud sound I hear, you pour a little bit of water into
the mug until the water spill over, and I faint or scream. The thing is, the water never dries up but
always remains at that level for the day.
I try to monitor my sound level daily and have to visit my audiologist
frequently to adjust my hearing aid settings.
Losing my hearing has given me a new perspective on life and
has led me to build new relationships on Facebook, become a better writer,
start a blog “World
of Silence”, and start to learn ASL. I have seen my family grow
closer, and I have been able to share my experiences with friends and tell them
about he necessity for ear protection and proper ear health.In just the past 8
months I have learned so much about the deaf culture and love the beauty each
person has shared with me and helped me learn.
I believe I am at a point where I can give back and help others find hope and healing and peace in
silence. The social web has given me a
connection to both help and find help in the deaf culture. Some of my favorite places such as DeafandHOH.com,
Deaf-Insight.com,
and SayWhatClub
have let me share my stories and share in weekly online discussions. Sometimes when I have felt bad about my ears
I would jump online and read other people’s stories and leave comments, and
that is how I have developed rewarding new connections in the deaf and hard of
hearing world.
I blog weekly every Tuesday at http://www.deaf-insight.com/world-of-silence.html as well as here. Please come and visit as often as you would like.
Footnote
*This abnormal growth in loudness perception is a fairly common
accompaniment to sensorineural hearing loss and is caused by the same inner ear
sensory cell dysfunction (damaged or missing hair cells) that caused the
hearing loss. It can be present in varying degrees in people with sensorineural
loss. It does not always present a problem but in some cases it can be just as
bothersome as hyperacusis.” (Acenta, 2003)
Reference
Acenta (2003). Sensitivity to Loud Sounds. Retrieved
October 24, 2012 from , Arkansas Center For Ear Nose Throat And Allergy
Website: http://www.acenta.com/audiology.soundsensitivity.asp
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