From Silent Struggles to AI Empowerment: How Technology Transformed My Battle with Hearing Loss

The day before yesterday, I returned from an appointment with an ear specialist. The doctor helped clean my ears and prescribed medication. After taking the medication for two days, my hearing recovered.

I have had ear problems since I was young, possibly due to a cold in childhood. During high school, while preparing for the college entrance exam, I struggled with English listening comprehension and decided to go to the hospital for a check-up. I was diagnosed with otitis media, with my hearing at about 70%. However, due to the limited medical technology in the small county where I lived, I didn't receive effective treatment and had to force myself to adapt. When I went to university, the ear problem reoccurred, but the school couldn't help, so I went to a hospital near the university for physical therapy, which showed no improvement after several months. Later, I went to the best hospital in the city, where the doctor diagnosed fluid accumulation in the eardrum. They drained the fluid, which caused a depression near the eardrum, and since then, I've had tinnitus. During a business trip later on, my ear suddenly bled a lot, but it was fine the next day. Since I was traveling in China at the time, I didn't visit a hospital. After returning to Sydney, it took months to see a doctor due to scheduling, and the doctor removed a blood clot that was blocking my ear. Recently, my ear was infected with a fungus and showed no improvement for over three months. While waiting for a specialist appointment, I tried different medications, almost losing half my hearing.

Although these personal experiences seem unrelated to the AI era, a person long troubled by ear issues has different psychological activities compared to others. Let me give a few examples.

As a child, due to poor hearing, I always reacted slowly when adults talked to me or subconsciously said, "Huh?" Living in a small place where people didn't understand, they often mocked me, thinking the problem was with my mind. Even my parents felt my slowness was embarrassing. The mockery from adults caused psychological trauma, so whenever I couldn't hear clearly, I would smile, leading to a people-pleasing personality. When I felt unwell, I was reluctant to tell adults, fearing the image of being mocked would reappear.

Later, when I went abroad for studies, English was not my first language, and my poor hearing prompted me to buy a voice recorder. I recorded lectures in class and listened to them again at home. If I couldn't hear clearly, I'd listen multiple times, striving to improve. Despite the instant communication challenges due to poor hearing, my efforts behind the scenes led to my successful graduation. Poor hearing affected my oral expression, so I avoided speaking roles in presentations, limiting my practice opportunities.

Later, I chose a technical job that did not require direct communication with people, and starting my own business reduced communication opportunities further.

Poor hearing can lead to a decline in speaking ability, which in turn affects hearing, creating a negative feedback loop that undermines confidence. In the movie "The King's Speech," King George VI's stammer caused him to lose confidence, and even as a king, he struggled with communication.

In the AI or LLM era, this negative feedback has been greatly mitigated. Let me give an example:

Last year, I was arranging a home loan refinancing, but since the loan officer was Indian, I struggled with understanding the accent, making phone communication difficult. I suggested switching to email for document confirmation. With the help of LLM, my expression improved significantly, and I felt more confident on the phone. Finally, the loan was approved smoothly, greatly boosting my confidence, and I utilized LLM more to enhance my expression.

Recently, when I was booking an appointment with an ear specialist, the intern helping me was inexperienced and spoke unclearly. Combined with my fungal ear infection, my hearing was worse. The specialist appointment coincided with the Christmas holidays, requiring a 7-week wait without improvement, causing anxiety and uncertainty about whether the intern successfully booked the appointment. I sent an email inquiry but received no reply, and no one answered my calls. Lacking confidence in my hearing, I was always worried about bothering others, thinking they may have been clear while I remained uncertain. As the appointment approached, I used LLM to prepare a phone message script and read it. Ultimately, they replied confirming the intern hadn't made the booking, but they accommodated me so I wouldn't wait longer. Despite poor hearing and uncertainty, LLM helped organize my language more confidently, making it easier for others to understand my needs.

As a child, I was outgoing, but the feedback loop between poor hearing and speaking made me gradually introverted. These two resolved incidents rebuilt my confidence, and with LLM's help, this small confidence boost mattered significantly to me. In career development and life matters, soft skills determine your reach, and communication ability is crucial. Ten years ago, an ear specialist didn't type but used voice software to record medical records, which I found very cool at the time. If I had such devices, I could practice expression daily. Now, AI progress allows ordinary people to enjoy such technology, converting anything you want to say into text.

Recently, I've been using Tana's Voice Capture and gradually fell in love with speaking, focusing more on coherence. The more I speak, the more I feel my hearing improving, from psychological confidence to enhanced hearing and expression. I've finally broken out of negative feedback into a positive feedback path, and that's why I'm grateful for the small benefits of the AI era.