Helena Merriman woke in the morning and rubbed the mattress. 

‘I glanced at the baby monitor and saw my husband holding our four-month-old baby, Sam,’ she recalls. ‘It was strange because I hadn’t been alerted by his cries.

‘It happened again, once or twice a week, but I just put it down to fatigue from being a new mum,’ says Helena, 40, a BBC radio presenter and producer.

‘But after several weeks, it became even more regular. I found that if I slept on my right side, with my left ear up, I could hear Sam’s cries, but not if my right ear was uppermost.

Struggle: Helena Merriman with her son, Sam

Helena Merriman, with Sam Merriman: Struggle

‘Yet I still had good enough hearing to be able to manage when I was up and about, so I didn’t notice it much. And when I did, I’d come up with reasons why it couldn’t be a hearing problem.

‘For example, I was forever apologising to my husband, Henry, for turning on the subtitles on the TV, but thought it was maybe because I was obsessed with seeing the dialogue.’

While Helena was on maternity leave, daytimes weren’t a problem because of the good hearing in her left ear and the baby monitor, which amplified sounds.

But in the summer of 2017, as she started going out more, she was horrified to find that she couldn’t hear conversations, particularly in crowded, noisy places.

‘I’d be in the pub and become very reliant on lip-reading,’ says Helena, who lives in South-West London with her husband Henry Hemming, 42, a best‑selling author, and their children Matilda, eight, and Sam, now four.

‘I’d be slightly smiling and nodding when I couldn’t hear and then I’d see the bemused look on people’s faces which meant I wasn’t making sense. It was embarrassing and awkward.

While Helena was on maternity leave, daytimes weren¿t a problem because of the good hearing in her left ear and the baby monitor, which amplified sounds. But in the summer of 2017, as she started going out more, she was horrified to find that she couldn¿t hear conversations, particularly in crowded, noisy places

While Helena was on maternity leave, daytimes weren’t a problem because of the good hearing in her left ear and the baby monitor, which amplified sounds. But in the summer of 2017, as she started going out more, she was horrified to find that she couldn’t hear conversations, particularly in crowded, noisy places

‘I’d always been the first to say yes to a night out, but over the following few months I stopped, as it wasn’t enjoyable feeling like I was a bystander.’

After almost three months of ignoring her hearing loss, Helena made an appointment with her GP. She was sent to an audiologist in June 2017, who said Helena had lost ‘a bit’ of her hearing, possibly due to congestion, and advised using a steroid nasal spray for six weeks.

But the treatment didn’t work. Helena went to another doctor in the summer, and she did more thorough hearing tests. One of her most memorable was where she had to press a button every time she heard a sound.

‘I could hear them well at first but they gradually died away,’ she says. ‘I had a sick feeling in my stomach. An audiologist showed me graphs of my left ear and found a line that indicated good hearing.

‘On the graph for the right ear, the line was about half-way down and he said I’d lost a significant amount of hearing in that ear.’

After being diagnosed with otosclerosis, she was told that her hearing would be gradually lost.

‘I felt numb,’ she says. ‘That night I lay awake with so many questions in my head. I hadn’t even asked how soon I might lose my hearing; I was just in shock.’

Otosclerosis, a condition that causes progressive hearing loss, and sometimes even deafness, is usually found on one side.

This condition affects approximately 1.3 million people in Britain and usually develops between the ages 15 and 35. 

It occurs when abnormal bone growth prevents movement of the stapes (or stirrup) — one of three tiny bones in the middle ear that vibrate to amplify and transmit sounds.

A gradual loss of hearing and difficulties hearing low sound levels, speaking slowly, or a loud voice are all warning signs.

It’s thought the condition may be caused by a combination of genetic factors or complications from a virus. Helena learned that other factors can accelerate hearing loss, such as pregnancy. Although her hearing was not perfect, she did notice some changes when she became pregnant with her first child.

‘There can be a rapid acceleration of the condition with hormonal change,’ says David Golding-Wood, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon at the private Chelsfield Park Hospital, in Bromley, Kent. ‘It’s most characteristic in the later stages of pregnancy.

‘Here, it’s principally due to oestrogen, which is involved in certain kinds of bone formation.’

Helena was diagnosed with cancer in September 2017. She returned to work on October 2017, as Helena pondered her options. ‘By that point, I could hardly hear people when doing interviews,’ she says. ‘I’d put my headphone volume right up in desperation.’

In February 2018, Helena returned to her GP, who referred her to Jeremy Lavy, an ENT surgeon at the Royal National Throat, Nose & Ear Hospital in London. He recommended she either get a hearing aid, or have surgery. This involves the removal of the stapes and replacement with a prosthesis that is between 3 and 6mm in length.

While surgery can produce a more natural sounding environment, it does come with the possibility of hearing loss.

‘Tinnitus can also occur,’ says Mr Golding-Wood. These symptoms can be caused by surgery trauma.

Helena found hearing aids too ‘loud and metallic’, and decided surgery was the only viable option. The operation was performed under local anaesthesia in March 2019.

‘There was an incredible moment when the prosthesis was put in and I could hear everything in the room so loudly,’ she says. ‘I could hear the sound of the instruments in the tray, people walking around, the odd laugh. It was all so sharp and clear.’

Two hours later, she began to experience tinnitus. ‘This noise like a whistling kettle suddenly came on.’

She was told it might subside, but it didn’t. ‘At home that night, I couldn’t sleep and this incredibly loud noise wouldn’t stop.

‘Two days later the hospital gave me a course of steroids [thought to reduce perception of tinnitus by increasing blood flow to the ear]However, the noise was not as bad. Turns out, I was among the 10% of patients whose tinnitus worsens after having surgery.

‘That stage was really hard as Sam was saying his first words,’ adds Helena. ‘I was recording him, but not always quite hearing what he was saying.’

Since then, meditation has helped to lower the stress associated with tinnitus by training the brain’s acceptance of sounds.

‘I’m now habituated to the tinnitus, though it can be draining,’ she says. ‘I have trouble with lower frequencies and still need the subtitles on TV, but overall my hearing isn’t too bad.’

Henry and her have had to make a hard decision.

‘We’d been pondering whether to have a third child,’ she says. ‘I know it could affect my good ear so it’s heartbreaking. We’ve decided not to. Having another is just too risky.’

Helena, who was diagnosed with shock, has created an original Radio 4 show, “Room 5”, about those who’ve received shocking diagnoses. 

‘I thought of the idea on the bus on the way home from my own life-changing diagnosis,’ she says.

Radio 4’s Room 5 broadcasts at 9am on January 11.

Looking glass

This week: Depression

According to the First Affiliated Hospital at Soochow University in China, shortsightedness could be associated with depression. The study involved more than 4500 people.

A fifth-year study of over 7,500 Americans 65 years and older found that people with vision problems were more likely than others to develop depression symptoms. This was reported by JAMA Ophthalmology, 2019.

This effect can be partly explained by ‘reduced social interaction’, suggests Badrul Hussain, a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. ‘If your vision is impaired, you can’t do the things you love — you can’t even read your book for company — and you can become more depressed.

‘If you can’t even see the TV, you might think: “If I go outside, will I be safe?” and anxiety increases.

‘First, try to get treatment. If it’s not a treatable problem, ask your consultant about eye clinic liaison officers, who can help arrange counselling, and sort out vision aids.’

Some simple adjustments can help too, like turning up the contrast on your tablet or iPad screen or increasing the size of your fonts on your computer.