Meniere's is much more than simply not hearing. It offers severe distortion (you can hear that someone is speaking, but it's just whispery or raspy noise sans actual words) and recruitment (sharp noises or even someone rattling paper can slice painfully through your head). Worst of all, the degree of ability to hear fluctuates from hour to hour. Someone you could understand yesterday is impossible to decode today. Electronic things like phones and TV make the distortion far worse. I first had serious trouble with Meniere's about 40 years ago; after four years of crises (12-15 hour vomitfests) I had lost all hearing and balance function on my right side. That ear was declared not aidable 35 years or more ago. I got the monster shoved into the closet, but must not have nailed it tightly shut, as he got out a year ago when I went bilateral after a remission of over 30 years. At first it was only inability to hear, but then it became daily visits of such vertigo that you simply must lie down wherever you are, hard cement floors included, and not move until it passes hours later. Then the vomit fests returned. Each crisis means that I've lost even more hearing/balance because each crisis kills the tiny hair cells.

I had started wearing an aid in my left ear a couple of years ago due to age-related deafness. It has been adjusted several times as my hearing has changed quickly during the past year. On really bad days, I simply cannot tolerate the explosions of my dog's toenails tapping across our laminate flooring or my husband crumpling a bit of paper, let alone when my large dog barks. Yikes! On those bad days, I can't hear anything useful even with the aid turned up to the max, but the recruitment is downright hurtful. I know that aids and smartphones can work together to pipe the sound directly into your ear, but we have zero cell reception where we live and our WiFi isn't strong enough to enable use of a smartphone. My only hope for phone calls is that Marty will be willing to listen and translate for me, but he gets very annoyed at being asked to do this. We virtually don't converse, as he gets very angry when I misunderstand something or flat can't decode anything. I've relied on lip reading to back up what little I've heard for years, so today's masks are an additional challenge.