Let’s Take Care of Hearing Now

Teaching by example, a former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq helps his fellow veterans take of their health to avoid regrets later.

By Derek Coy

My music taste is very eclectic, thanks to my formative years. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was dig through my mom’s old albums, choose a few, put some headphones on, and be entertained for hours. The playlist included anything from Lionel Richie to the Doobie Brothers. Quinceañeras and weddings were cultural staples for me growing up as well, so listening to Tejano music blaring all night was not uncommon.

Mix that with growing up during the golden age of hip-hop and listening to music in cars with laughably loud sound systems, and I can say I was definitely exposed to quite a bit of loud music during my early years.

Still, this doesn’t quite compare to the noise I experienced during my time in the military, including a year deployed to Iraq where I worked in close proximity to aircraft, constant exposure to firearms and explosions, traveling aboard the aircraft carrier USS Essex for a year (an incredibly loud environment), and living on an airbase when I wasn’t deployed.

All of this has added up to my having chronic tinnitus and a hearing loss. And it’s why I now am working to sound the alarm about the importance of taking care of hearing from a young age, especially among young service members and veterans.

Four Years of Service

I followed in my father’s footsteps and became a Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. I served from 2004 to 2008, including a deployment to Iraq from 2005 to 2006, and another aboard the USS Essex for all of 2007.

I had a very atypical time in the military, and served with several different units doing anything from security and operating heavy equipment to driving Humvees.

I do assume some responsibility when it comes to my hearing from listening to music, loudly, when I was younger, but I was somehow able to join the service with most of my hearing intact.

Then, as my service continued, I noticed it worsening. It wasn’t until my final health screening before leaving the service that I realized my hearing had diminished measurably during my time in the Marines.

In particular I noticed the tinnitus after my first deployment to Iraq. There were so many changes and adjustments throughout that year that I just learned to deal with things and move on, so it wasn’t until I was home for a few months that it dawned on me that the ringing in my ear was happening a bit frequently. Unfortunately, like most people in the military, I just tried not to think about it and didn’t pay it much attention.

These photos were taken during Coy’s promotion to Sergeant. “I was fortunate to have my father award that to me during the ceremony—which was one of the great days of my life,” he says.

Now I have periodic and sustained ringing in my ears and difficulty hearing in both ears, one more so than the other. I am service-connected for hearing loss and tinnitus from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and while I was not indicated for hearing aids, I now carry earplugs and use them the most when I take the subway, which is nearly every day. I had been using the typical disposable foam earplugs, but the waste bothered me. Recently I started using high fidelity concert earplugs that are reusable and work well.

City Living

I love living in New York City. It’s my favorite place in the world, but doing so with a hearing loss has been a challenge. You can get pretty much whatever you need in NYC—except for silence. It is great to meet with friends over drinks and dinner, but since space is limited in the city, you are often in pretty close proximity with a lot of other people. Every person at every table or at the bar is conversing, and it can be difficult to focus on listening to someone when there is a ton of competing ambient noise.

Even if the location is relatively quiet, there is always noise coming from the street or competing background music. One on one I tend to do all right, but if I’m with a group of people, I often miss out on parts of the conversation and hate asking for folks to repeat themselves all the time. I very frequently try to gauge body language to pick up on the missed words.

Living in a noisy city can be a bit anxiety-inducing, too, since I can’t rely on my hearing as much as I’d like. I find myself more hypervigilant than usual to make sure I don’t find myself in a precarious position. There are always crowds of people walking around, and I try to be aware of my surroundings. But every now and then someone will walk past me from behind, and that can be jarring if I thought I was alone because I couldn’t hear them.

It’s also hard to differentiate general crowd noises from what could be an emergency—both of which are frequent in the city. Sometimes I can’t tell if people are screaming from something bad, or cheering for a street performer!

Until the start of the pandemic I, like many others, didn’t realize how much I rely on reading lips to supplement my poor hearing. Once we all started wearing masks, it became increasingly difficult for me to understand what people were saying. Like many other things these past few years, that took some adjustment.

Long-Term Effects

There’s a certain amount of pride often seen in the military where enduring pain and sacrificing your well-being for a larger purpose is revered and often rewarded. Of course, there is a need for that at times in the military and it’s something that is reinforced in training, but no one tells you it isn’t helpful once you transition back to civilian life, and that in fact it’s often detrimental. It’s great that we can get away with a lot when we are younger—no sleep, poor diets, and self-medication—but Father Time is undefeatable, and that amount of resilience has an end date much sooner than we think when we are young.

I recently gave a presentation on healthcare options to a group of student veterans and I touched on this idea. It was clear that many, like me, never really considered the long term effects of their time in service—and what’s more, now that their service was completed, that they need to be responsible for their health themselves.

This is because in the military, there is always someone to take care of whatever specific need you may have, but it’s the opposite once you get out. As civilians, former soldiers must learn to be mindful about their own health needs, and they need to do this starting from a young age.

Preventative measures always pay dividends in the long run. It’s counter to what we believe when we are young, but we aren’t invincible. I never really planned or thought about longer term issues or the repercussions of my lifestyle, and I wish I had taken better care of myself-, such as by carrying and wearing earplugs in noisy settings.

I advise the young service members and veterans I meet to start proactively protecting their health now and to not let any concerns, such as hearing damage, persist before addressing them. From the feedback I’ve received, this is a message that resonates. I can only hope that we all are able to adopt healthy habits for life, including for our hearing, so we’re able to live life to the fullest.

Derek Coy is the senior program officer for veterans’ health at New York Health Foundation in New York City.

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