Slowly but surely it has become harder for me to hear what people are saying, especially in groups when everyone is talking at the same time. The Dutch language at which I have become fairly fluent at is becoming a bit of a nightmare for me trying to discern certain subtle differences between sounds common in that language. It can be stressful struggling to understand. One can ask "what did you say?" only a certain number of times before it gets irritating. Not understanding can cause you to make embarrassing mistakes and people complain about your poor communication skills, as if it is your fault.

Initial tests indicate that at higher frequencies my hearing becomes poorer. All letters consist of a range of frequencies from high to low, the distribution of which allows the human ear to distinguish which combination of characters a person is speaking. This is known as the acoustic property of consonants and vowels. Some letters have a larger ratio of higher to lower frequencies, and those are the ones that I especially have difficulty discerning.

Some letters are harder for me to distinguish, like between 'k' and 't' or 'sh' and 'f'. In Dutch for example, 'v' sounds very similar to 'w' and 'p' is nearly the same as 'b'. Which makes it only worse since a given word might take on a completely different meaning than that intended. This throws you off of the course of conversation and prevents you from active participation. Sometimes you can just throw in the towel and give up, but that is not good.

Hearing drops sharply at higher frequencies.

Getting a good hearing aid is a viable option for me. At first I was in complete denial and refused to believe that it was my hearing. The others were mumbling, talking too softly or too quickly, speaking in the opposite direction so I could not hear them, or so I thought.

Next week I will go to the hospital and have a professional analysis done. We will discuss what the possibilities are for correcting this impediment and I will make the appropriate decision.