Hearing Health Summer 2015 Issue Summer 2015 | Page 16

family voices

Bill Meehan with his wife and children.

faint, high-pitched ringing.
Then one day it all changed. I was
watching TV and noticed a loud
noise that sounded like crickets. I
thought it must be the TV, but when
I turned off the TV I still heard
the clear and very loud sound of
crickets mixed with a high-pitched
tone. I was convinced the TV must
be about to explode. I ran over and
pulled out the plug. The sound was
still there. I covered my ears and was
horrified to realize the loud sound
was in my own head. I felt sick
as the hours passed painfully and
slowly. I didn’t sleep.
The next morning I went to the
only doctor in all of San Francisco
who could see me that day. After
the exact same examination I had
received years earlier, he told me the
same thing as the previous doctor:
“Sorry, there is nothing I can do.”
After a couple of weeks I was
suicidal. Every day was torture.
My only relief was to re-create the
sound and pitch on my keyboard
and play it. When I stopped playing
the tone I had about 10 seconds of
relative peace, and then the tinnitus
came back. I did this over and over
and over again.
When six weeks had gone by I
noticed a slight reduction in the
volume. It was something to hold
onto—a little bit of hope. Could
it actually be decreasing? Little by
little, day by day, I found moments
of peace and an overall easing of the
torment. Finally it became bearable
most of the time.
A few years later I had another

16 | hearing health | a publication of hearing health foundation

TURN
D

Support a Cure:
hhf.org/donate
Email editor@hearinghealthmag.
com to share your parenting
and hearing loss story.

Photo courtesy of Bill Meehan

I am a rock drummer. As
a teen and young adult, I played
very loud and for hours at a stretch.
I sensed nothing bad happening at
the time besides some bothersome
post-concert ringing in my ears,
but I was in my 20s and thought I
was invincible.
In my early 30s I noticed a slight
ringing in my ears for the first
time—without a loud event as the
culprit. It was troublesome enough
that I went to the doctor. After a
thorough examination I heard the
“T” word for the first time: tinnitus.
Okay, great, I thought, there is
a name for this. “What pill do I
take?” I asked the doctor. “There
is no treatment currently,” he said,
and left the room.
I sat there for a few minutes in
the empty examination room and
listened in disbelief to the ringing
in my ears. Would I never be able to
sit in quiet again? I wondered.
I lived with tinnitus for years, but
it was only troubling in very quiet
surroundings. A fan blowing or a
TV playing in the background was
usually enough to drown out the

E

“

By Bill Meehan

SSU

After a series of visits to various doctors, a rock musician
with tinnitus finds a measure of relief.

acute attack, but
this time I knew
there was hope
and light on the
other side of the
tunnel. Still, I went to a doctor
who specialized in tinnitus. I told
my tale. I told him about the
acute attack that lasted for weeks,
and that it was much worse after
waking from a nap. He was a muchlauded doctor who specializes in
tinnitus, but all the same, he was
unable to help me.
That was 10 years ago. It was only
just over a year ago when I was
experiencing a bad bout of tinnitus
that I went to yet another doctor
who recommended trying a hearing
aid for the mild to moderate hearing
loss in my left ear.
And guess what: It really helps.
Although the underlying issue
remains, using the hearing aid
takes the edge off. (Apparently
many people with tinnitus also
have problems hearing.) I also have
an app on my phone that can help
soothe me to sleep using white noise.
I purposefully and stubbornly
refuse to let tinnitus affect my
family life. It’s there when I read
my kids a bedtime story. It’s there
when I rock my baby son to sleep.
It’s there and I want to scream and
escape from my own body. But—I
get to read my kids a bedtime story,
I get to rock my baby boy to sleep,
and that makes all the difference.
I still play the drums, but they’re
electronic and I can control the
volume. I can live a full and rewarding
life, even while my tinnitus is always
there—my constant companion.
Bill Meehan lives with his family in
New Jersey.

EI

Constant Companion

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