Pronounce, articulate, vocalise!!

Today marks a turning point in my life.
 
For the past year or so, I started believing that I must be losing my hearing.  I eventually gathered all my courage, almost as much as I needed to make a dentist appointment, and booked myself for a hearing test at the Phonak Ear Institute in Bryanston.
 
Driving there this afternoon, I felt a familiar feeling of anxiety and smoked one cigarette after the other in the traffic down William Nicol Drive from Fourways.  As I walked into the waiting area of the Ear Institute, I was greeted friendly by some wrinkled faces surrounded by ailing, snow-white hair.  The feeling of anxiety amplified, and I could hardly read my own handwriting as I completed the new patient information form.
 
Once in the consulting room, the audiologist introduced herself and asked why I had booked an appointment.  The answer was quite simple - to find out whether am I going deaf.  
 
After going through my entire medical history, we proceeded to the hearing lab.  The audiologist showed me a seat in a small, soundproof booth and explained that she would put headphones over my ears and that I must press a buzzer each time I heard something.  This is called the Pure Tone Audiogram.  My heart started racing, and I thought back to the nasty nurses in primary school who conducted an annual health inspection, including hearing tests.
 
After pressing the buzzer several times, the next test started.  She said a word that I had to repeat.  First in one ear and then in the other.  Then she added noise in one ear and spoke words audible to the other ear; once again, I had to repeat each word.  This test is called the Speech Audiogram.  Once out of the sound booth, two more tests followed where instruments were inserted into my ear for a Speech Audiometry test and a Tympanogram.
 
Back in the consulting room, she explained the physiology of the ear before proceeding to the test results.  The graphs on the piece of paper in front of her looked vaguely like something I remember from Stats 101 at university back in 1992, which incidentally was the only subject I passed that year.
 
The results of the Pure Tone Audiogram show that my right ear has problems hearing 30 decibels (dB) at a frequency of 6000 Hz.  My left ear struggles a bit with hearing 25 dB at 8000 Hz. I scored 100% in the Speech Audiogram with and without noise at 30 and 50 dB.  At 20 decibels, I scored 60% without noise and 40% with added noise.  The Speech Audiometry test shows that my right ear can hear sounds as low as 5 dB and my left ear at 7 dB and can recognise speech in both ears at 10 dB.  The Tympanogram measures the ear canal volume, middle ear pressure and ability of the hairs inside the hearing centre of the ear to vibrate to frequencies - all normal.
 
I can therefore say with confidence that I am not deaf and that you are either speaking too soft or not enunciating your words properly if I cannot hear you.  The latter is most likely the case for most phone calls I receive.
 
So, if ever I am talking to someone, and I feel like saying 'Huh?' I will be replacing that with 'Please speak clearly or send me an e-mail or SMS!' because I am not going to continue punishing myself by thinking I'm going deaf if it is, in fact, others who never learnt how to vocalise properly.
 
A happy day indeed!