“Getting ME Back” – The Story of Ross

I am a father of five and have pastored for 27 years. Needless to say in my world there’s a lot to listen to. I am a communicator by nature and always was the life of the party. Love to Interact with everyone and would talk to one person while listening in on others.

Then one weekend everything changed. I experienced Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss.

After losing the hearing in my left ear it seemed like life just lost it’s brilliance. Couldn’t enjoy conversations the same while traveling in the car with my wife and kids. Struggled to hear conversations and nature while on hikes with my family. And I didn’t understand why every time I went to our family favorite restaurant I would start to feel nervous and anxious. After going there three times I began to realize this was linked to my hearing. There was glass windows, tile floors, metal everywhere and game machines going off. What was once a great place to enjoy our kids and some pizza had become miserable experience that would leave me nauseous with a headache.

People think that if you are deaf in only one ear that you really aren’t facing a true handicap. Even a 6 decibel difference between ears will cause sounds to swirl, cause difficulty to hear speech or distinguish one sound amongst other sounds. When talking with my wife on a date the sounds of the restaurant would fill my hearing and leave me just watching my wife’s lips moving as if she wasn’t saying a word.

Once while going to have lunch with my son at school the sounds of the children on the play ground masked the sound of the milk truck coming up the lane and I came within inches of stepping into the moving trucks path.

I began to realize more and more that what happened to me over one weekend was now causing me to lose a little bit of myself with each frustrating experience.

For 10 years I lost a part of who I was and a part of my personality. Swirling noises found in church foyers, restaurants and a house filled with 5 crazy children greatly reduced my quality of living.

I found myself at parties or where there were crowds drifting to the edges of a room. The problem with moving to the edges of a room, emotionally after a while, it’s easy to start to feel “edged out”.

What are some of the things that you have faced that you hate to admit it, but your hearing loss has affected your quality of life and maybe, like me, even your personality?

When I experienced Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss in my left ear it changed my whole world for almost a decade. Then I started looking at options CROS, BAHA, Magnet, Ponto Everything flipped when 5 years ago I became a BAHD (Bone Attached Hearing Device) user.

Now at parties and in the church foyer I am smiling and interacting with everyone. I don’t miss a thing my kids say now….I’m not so sure they are as happy about that as I am. I can hear the wind in the trees, the birds in the air, the rushing water of a a river and my kid’s questions all at the same time while hiking. And date nights with Amie are back to enjoying fine meals and conversation with no strain! I got me back!!!

I like to say I wouldn’t be ME with out my PONTO (The device I use) and there is no reason for YOU to chose to live life less than living like YOU.

A word from the artist:

Both Ross and I are Ambassadors for Oticon medical and being a pastor, you may imagine what a wonderful motivational speaker he is. He blew us away with his story during one of our conferences. Ross has a huge heart and knows how to make you feel heard when you speak to him. For this painting, we setup a session via FaceTime so I could take some specific pictures of him through my own eyes. I noticed that when he talks, he moves his hands a lot, so I asked him to talk for a while as if he was talking to his audience and I loved when he would clasp his hands together and smile, which became the final inspiration for this painting.

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I’m truly grateful for everyone who has shared their stories with us in the MyLuckyEars platform. I believe we can learn something from each and every one of them. With your help, I want to be able to continue making these portraits and honor everyone’s stories. When you purchase one of my paintings or any of the products available, you are supporting what I do so I can continue to paint even more portraits such as this one and you get to have something to remind you of the beauty of each human being portrayed here and remain inspired by them.

This artwork can be purchased as a high quality professional print in the material, size and hanging feature of your choice. Use my newest “Augmented Reality” Tool which allows you to try this piece of art right on the wall you plan to hang it, by using the camera on your device. Can’t use your device? Choose the “Wall Preview” tool, where you can visualize my art in common areas such as living rooms, cafes and even bedrooms, change the artwork size and the wall color to your preference.

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