In My Cocoon: Flying With Hearing Loss

Image by Nikhil Kurian from Pixabay

“You would’ve thought they’d have learned the first time, wouldn’t you?!” commented the stranger in the seat next to me after tapping me on the shoulder. “Sorry?” I responded with confusion. “Them over there,” he said pointing over my left shoulder to the aisle opposite from where I was sitting. “Getting married a second time!” I was obviously missing the joke. “I’m completely deaf on this side,” I explained pointing to the area around my left ear. “I miss all the gossip from over there,” I joked. The guy’s facial expression changed from confusion to understanding the situation and then the joke, and he laughed in acknowledgement and then turned to his partner who was sitting in the window seat, to, I assume, relay our conversation. 

Air travel is noisy for everyone, and I know other people have difficulty hearing well in aeroplanes. Still, I think I’ve started to forget just how little I can hear in comparison to what I used to be able to hear, before my hearing loss. 

In an aeroplane, I am able to hear the low, loud rumble of the aeroplane, and I am often aware of people chatting, and sometimes even shouting and screaming in drunken excitement as they approach sunny Spain—not naming any budget airline names! But, when it comes to hearing actual words, I am limited to hearing only the voice of the person sitting directly to my right, and even then, I need to position my ear, so that it is close to their mouth. 

With hearing loss, the experience of air travel resembles being enveloped in a cocoon of noise. I am unaware of any conversations around me, I can’t understand what the airline staff are asking or telling me, without focusing on the shapes and movements of their lips to provide clues. I generally just let the noise wash over me, with complete acceptance that I cannot hear it. 

I don’t even try to hear the conversations around me, which is actually quite a nice feeling—I don’t need to exert the effort of trying to listen. I have the excuse that aeroplanes are loud. In fact, I usually, wear an earbud in my hearing ear, tuck my hair behind my ear, so the person next to me can see it, and tune in to a podcast, or some music while I’m reading. 

When the traveller next to me spoke to me, it broke the spell. I was no longer in my cocoon, I was back in the real world where other people could overhear conversations, and I couldn’t.

I remember during the earlier stages of my hearing loss journey, missing the joke would have caused me some upset. I would have felt like an outsider, and this would have led to me feeling anxious and vulnerable. Now, I just shrug it off. I acknowledged the impact of my hearing loss in this situation, and I moved on. Did I really need to know about a stranger’s marital problems anyway?! 

Later in the flight, I became aware that the people sitting in the seats around me were looking to my left. I turned to look to see what they were all staring at. The lady in the seat across the aisle from me (the same woman who was having some kind of marital difficulty) was forcefully trying to lift up the arm of the seat, but it wasn’t moving. Her mouth was moving and it looked like she was screaming, alerting everyone around her to the situation. She obviously wanted to leave her seat but was unable to. I wondered how long she had been stuck for. All of a sudden, a stewardess came running down the aisle to rescue her, lifting up the arm with ease. Hmm, being single-sided deaf, sure does mean I miss out on some of life’s dramas.

I wonder if a cochlear implant will alert me to this kind of situation. Will there be any clarity through the implant during air travel? I certainly look forward to putting the implant to the test in difficult listening environments. I’ve been on the waiting list for the implant for nearly a year now. Hopefully, I will have my surgery soon and I can begin my experiments!