What's that you say?

Me & Grandma King

 I am the bear/wolf Den Leader for our ward. At round table this month an old man stood up in the middle of a presentation and shouted for the world to hear, "Doesn't anybody teach people how to speak up these days?!?" Apparently, he was having difficulty hearing what the 70 lady presenting was saying in her sweet little grandma voice. Everyone kind of smiled awkwardly and she tried to speak a little louder.

Little did I know I was soon to feel a close kindred to this old man.

A few years before she died, my Grandma King lost the hearing in one of her ears because of a complication with her blood thinner. She said she bent over, heard a whooshing noise and then it was gone. For the rest of her life, she was saying, "What? I can't hear you when you talk on that side."

A few days ago I had labor in my head and my eardrum perforated (got a little whole in it). And now I sound just like Grandma King, "What? What? I can't hear you when you talk on that side." My hearing loss is not supposed to be permanant... but I'm developing a new respect for those who struggle with empaired hearing.