By Maud O’Leary Schaumburg
At 91, I look back over a lifetime of hearing loss that could have been prevented through early intervention. I was born on September 25, 1930, at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, New York. While my mother was carrying me, she had mastoid infections. This was common back then and it was cleared up with medication.
Credit: Photo by Faye Cornish on Unsplash
As a newborn I cried for five months but my mother did not take me to a doctor because we were poor and could not afford it. Finally, my father insisted that I get checked. The doctor took me from my mother’s arms and rushed me into surgery where they operated on my left ear—and back then, they did not use anesthesia on infants.
After the surgery, my mother was advised to watch for brain damage. Soon they realized that I was deaf in my left ear because they had accidentally punctured the eardrum. When I was an adult, I had several surgeries in which they grafted a piece of skin from the back of my hand over the hole. It worked for a brief time but failed in the end.
Between 1930 and 1936, doctors performed four mastoidectomies on my right ear. The right ear was fine up until three years ago when I began to lose hearing in that ear as well. I now use a hearing aid, but I have a great deal of trouble with it because the opening in my ear is small.
Over the years, I learned a lot about coping, between the hearing loss and other serious health problems. The discrimination I have endured, especially in my childhood, has taught me to withhold judgment toward others for any reason—for any other differences in human beings. I worked as a social worker for many years and was able to see each person as an individual and offer them the best support possible.
I am grateful for the strength and tolerance it taught me and for my tolerant husband and other loving people in my life.
Maud O’Leary Schaumburg lives in New Jersey.
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