In the beginning...
One of my very early memories concerns having to visit the doctor because I had put little pebbles in my ear. The doctor sucked them out with a vacuum device. There was no impact on my hearing. I don’t remember the year in which that occurred, but it was probably before I entered nursery school or kindergarten.
Otherwise, I never had any difficulties with hearing before I entered university. My level of hearing was always good enough that it was never in question through university, too.
That being said, I recall two occasions where one of my ears was blocked with wax. A visit to the doctor resolved that issue. I remember the drops that supposedly dissolved the wax and the device that sprayed warm water into my ear to clear out the dissolved wax.
My early years at graduate school, too, were not marked by any hearing difficulties. In fact, from about 3rd grade until my first year at graduate school I was an active musician.
No, I was not a rock musician playing at 90 decibels or more. I was mostly playing classical music—playing the clarinet for the first three years and then switching to the oboe and, on occasion, the English horn. I also played alto sax in the marching band.
Playing this music, especially the music I played in orchestras, was particularly fulfilling for me. Although never playing at a professional level, my oboe teacher did tell me that I could enter a conservatory. As it turned out, I happily never made such a decision.
In retrospect, my level of hearing must have started to slowly deteriorate during graduate school. I never had a hearing test, so there are no objective measures to support this assumption. But I think I tended to play the radio or records louder than my neighbors expected. That being the case, I don’t recall ever having difficulty hearing or understanding what my friends, colleagues and teachers were saying.
All that was to end just as I was finishing my graduate studies.