{"id":18579,"date":"2011-07-20T00:21:55","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T00:21:55","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-07-20T00:21:55","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T00:21:55","slug":"questions_on_the_host_s_hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2011\/07\/20\/questions_on_the_host_s_hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions on the Host\u2019s Hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Evan in West Coxsackie, New York, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey. I\u2019m just wondering, when you listen to music with your hearing aid, how\u2019s it sound?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Music?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, like if you\u2019re listening to music on an iPad or something?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, not very good. I cannot listen to music that I\u2019ve never heard before and identify the melody.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I have a cochlear implant. It doesn\u2019t have nearly the sensitivity of the human ear, it\u2019s not even close.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I was just wondering.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Like violins or strings sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, well, I was just wondering.<\/p>\n

RUSH: What I have to do, I can still listen to music, but it has to be music that I knew and that I\u2019ve heard before I lost my hearing. And what happens is that my brain, fertile mind, provides the melody. I actually am not hearing the melody, and the way I can prove this to you, sometimes it will take me, even a song that I know, it will take me 30 seconds to identify it if I don\u2019t know what it is. Now, if I\u2019m playing a song off iTunes and the title is there and it starts then I can spot it from the middle, but if I\u2019m listening to a song from the beginning, and I don\u2019t know what it is, it sometimes can take me 30 seconds to recognize it, if I knew it before. But the quality of music that I hear is less than AM radio, in terms of fidelity. I can turn the bass up on an amplifier and I don\u2019t hear any difference at all. I can feel the floor vibrate, but I don\u2019t hear any more bass. I can turn highs up and I can hear the difference in the highs, but on the low end I actually cannot — (interruption) I\u2019m getting a note here that says: “You\u2019re not missing anything. There aren\u2019t any melodies in music today.” (laughing) At any rate, you adapt to it. I\u2019ve adapted. <\/p>\n

The worst part of my hearing is being in a crowd. Like right now, I hear myself as well as I heard myself when I could hear. If I\u2019m talking to one other person in a quiet room I can comprehend 90-95% of what they say depending on how fast they\u2019re speaking. There are some words that sound alike. But you add room noise, like if Kathryn and I are watching TV and she wants to talk to me about what we\u2019re watching, I have to hit pause or the mute \u2019cause I cannot hear what she\u2019s saying. Even if she\u2019s sitting two feet away I will not hear as long as there are other noises there. Any room noise when added to other room noise is gonna be louder than the one voice that I\u2019m trying to hear. I\u2019ve got the implant on my left side so if we go out in a public place, anybody on my right side, it\u2019s hopeless. I\u2019ll have to literally turn to them, and sometimes as I turn to them they turn with me. They don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing so we\u2019ll do pirouettes \u2019til I finally say, “No, you stay where you are. I\u2019m trying to position my ear so I can hear you.”<\/p>\n

The way I look at this, though, because when I tell these stories, “Oh, that\u2019s really horrible.” No, it\u2019s not. ‘Cause if you look at the timeline of humanity, however long it is, 10,000 years, a million, billion, whatever the number is, my little time on it is not much larger than a grain of sand. And yet I happen to lose my hearing at the same time technology had evolved to the point where cochlear implants had been invented. If I had lost my hearing 15 years ago, it would have meant the end of my career. I would not have been able to hear. And the doctor said you might think that you could speak normally just by virtue of memory and feel, the way voice feels when you speak, but eventually your speech would deteriorate, and it would sound to people as though you had a speech defect. It would just be automatic no matter how good you are, no matter how professional you are at it. So that\u2019s really fortunate. It\u2019s almost miraculous that my being afflicted with this autoimmune disease happens to coincide with technology. Some call it divine intervention. Some call it the age of miracles. We\u2019re all one way or another part of this age of miracles.<\/p>\n

Music is the one thing that I miss, but you know what else? This is another thing. Compatibility with other people in normal circumstances takes a big hit. For example, my most comfortable is sheer quiet now. The ringing of a phone or I\u2019ll be sitting in my library and there will be a noise. I remember we had been working on the alarm system, and I hadn\u2019t been told we were working on the alarm system and every 30 seconds something in the room would beep. I said, “Oh, my gosh, it that the smoker detector, what the hell?” I\u2019d have to call somebody in the office and say, “Where is this coming from?” because I couldn\u2019t tell where sound was coming from and I had no idea what it was. One time the phone was left off the hook and there was street noise, it was the phone at the gate. And it was street noise, but it didn\u2019t sound like street noise to me. I don\u2019t even remember what it sounded like, but I couldn\u2019t pinpoint what it was. The phone was still on the hook but the mute button on the speakerphone was off so I had no idea where it was coming from. I had to call somebody in and say, “What is this, where\u2019s it coming from?” ‘Cause you always worry about something blowing up when there\u2019s a sound that you don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n

But I crave silence, blessed silence because anything other than speech is just noise. It is irritating noise. Well, most people go crazy in quiet environments. They don\u2019t like it. Most people love having the TV on in the background or some sort of sound or other. It irritates me. It irritates the heck out of me because it\u2019s just noise and I can\u2019t identify it. I know if it\u2019s noise on TV, but I can\u2019t tell you what somebody\u2019s saying. I have to have closed-captioning to understand everything being said in a TV program, particularly if there\u2019s a music soundtrack. And very few people use closed-captioning. It distracts them. Me, I need it. (interruption) No, I\u2019m not just getting old and cranky, Snerdley. And going in public to a restaurant is, depending on the place, it is impossible. It literally can be impossible to have a conversation except with anybody on the left, and at some places I have to get within an inch of what they\u2019re saying to be able to comprehend. I hear everything, but making sense of it&hellip; <\/p>\n

See, the human ear has 35,000 hair cells in each ear. They\u2019re microscopic. But they still are different sizes and widths, lengths, and they vibrate. When they sense noise, sound, whatever, they start the whole process of energy through the audial nerve. Well, the autoimmune system killed all 35,000 hair cells in both ears, so they\u2019re laying down. They\u2019re still in there, but they\u2019re laying down. Cochlear implant, I\u2019ve got eight electrodes, and I\u2019m actually now down to six because two of them were causing facial tics when the volume got too high. My eyes were closing, I looked spastic. I had to deactivate two of those electrodes, so I\u2019m down to six. So I\u2019ve got six manmade bionic electrodes trying to do the job of 35,000 or 70,000 hair cells in terms of frequency response and all that, and there\u2019s no way, it just can\u2019t be done. (interruption) No, the technology has not improved. Now what has improved is, like this Esteem<\/a> thing that we talk about, if you have residual hearing, that\u2019s miraculous. The hardware hasn\u2019t changed. There are some software improvements. <\/p>\n

For example, with the implant I have there\u2019s a program called High Res, which activates 20 electrodes. But it doesn\u2019t work for me. Everybody is different. They turn on those 20 electrodes — I got \u2019em in there — you turn on the 20 and everybody sounds like the chipmunks to me. It\u2019s worse. And that\u2019s the digital. I\u2019m using the analog. Everybody that has one of these things has a different experience. Everybody says you need to get one on your right side now. I kept the right side clear because there might have been a cure for these dead hair cells. Now I\u2019ve been told there won\u2019t be. So if I get an implant on the right side that would solve some of the spatial stuff and it would enable me to hear people on my right side if I\u2019m in a public place or what have you. Music, it\u2019s amazing what the memory can do when I\u2019m listening to music that I love, that I\u2019ve known. In fact, I can create the music without evening hearing it. Your memory, your mind can do that. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Look, folks, don\u2019t get the wrong idea. Having a cochlear implant has a lot of positives. I was out playing golf the other day with a bunch of guys, and there was a loudmouth crow in a palm tree right on the tee box, no more than ten feet above us. The thing was cawing like crazy. You just wanted to grab something and throw it at the damn bird to shut up, and it was screwing everybody\u2019s tee shots off. I mean, you can\u2019t concentrate. The guys would swing and right at the moment of impact, “CAWWW!” and you could just see the effect. <\/p>\n

All I did was take my implant off, gently place it on the ground, and total silence. No distractions whatsoever. However, I do have tinnitus (some people say tinn-i-tus) in my right ear — which, in my case, I constantly hear Gregorian chants. That\u2019s the noise in my right ear, but I\u2019ve got so used to it I don\u2019t hear it unless I stop to focus on it, but it\u2019s always there. I always think I\u2019m in touch with God. Gregorian chants are constantly going off in my right ear.<\/p>\n

END TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

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RUSH: Evan in West Coxsackie, New York, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Hey. I\u2019m just wondering, when you listen to music with your hearing aid, how\u2019s it sound? RUSH: Music? CALLER: Yeah, like if you\u2019re listening to music on an iPad or something? RUSH: Well, not very good. 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