Ten Little Decibels

Ten little, measly decibels. That's what I lost in June. It doesn't sound like much, does it? But it has sent me reeling.

Ten decibels means that conversation in a restaurant must be twice as loud as before for me to hear and understand. It means that conversation at home must be four times as loud for me to hear about your day. It means that birds must chirp eight times as loud for me to enjoy their song. It means that leaves must rustle sixteen times as loud for me to know they've blown past me.

I knew I hadn't recovered all of the hearing I'd lost from my latest SSHL event because I was struggling to understand my husband and daughter at home, but I'd thought it was better than that. Ignorance was bliss. Knowing now about those ten little decibels is blowing me away.

Before I knew about decibels and cochleas and speech bananas, ten little decibels would have sounded negligible to me; but now it makes all the difference in the world.