The Woman in Deed, Once Again

My memoir is called The Woman In Deed—the woman in action. At 76, I still seem to be on the same journey, and here is how.

I became close to deaf two years back. Not “hard of hearing.” Deaf. There is a difference.

Turning up the volume

In 1999, I joined the board of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF). My hearing had been slipping for some time. A few years later, Dr. Druker, who called himself a skin doctor, became the CEO of PAMF. When I mentioned my hearing issue to him, he gave me a doctor’s advice: “Start wearing hearing aids earlier rather than later.” I acted on it and, within a couple of months, saw a PAMF audiologist, who fitted me with hearing aids.

But I had no idea what this journey would entail.

It took almost a year to get used to hearing with hearing aids, because hearing aids need to be tuned to match what you hear. It is like violinists fine-tuning their instruments right before an orchestra performance. They hear the difference, and they tune their instruments. Here, I had to tell the audiologist, and the audiologist tuned my hearing aids. It took several sittings, each months apart.

Then I discovered the Costco hearing aid center. Daniel, the audio technician, became my hero for the next 15 years. I got appointments within days. Also, Costco hearing aids were a quarter of the price.

My hearing aids kept getting bigger and bigger: from invisible ones inside the ear, to in-the-ear pods, then behind-the-ear ones hidden under my hair, and then bigger versions of those.

Finally, Costco told me there was nothing more they could do.

What nearly deaf feels like

Once, in a board meeting, my phone rang, and I was looking at the others in wonder when someone said, “Your phone.” I did not know that it was my phone. How embarrassing! I had lost my sense of directionality

My hearing deteriorated further. Then, two years back, I realized that I could not even understand what subject was being discussed. I could hear the sound, but the clarity was missing. Restaurants were much worse.

In meetings and boardrooms, we have to understand management issues and others’ opinions and, based on that, add our own. I was unable to. Frustrating as hell.

Miracles happen

In late 2024, my friend Barbara, a fellow PAMF board member, heard a talk by the ear surgeon Dr. Ruan Kiringoda. She said he was wonderful. Barbara is a great judge of people, so I got an appointment in November 2024.

He told me I must get my hearing tested by an audiologist at PAMF. I remembered my previous experience, not just at PAMF but also with Stanford audiologists. In January, I got an appointment with Dr. Sarah Pirko. She has a Ph.D. I soon realized she had been my daughter’s best friend in middle school. Her last name had changed. Sarah, as I call her, conducted the tests, fitted me with new hearing aids, and tuned them in weekly appointments. The new hearing aids matched the one for the cochlear implant, in case I moved forward. The implant is done in only one ear, to preserve some natural hearing.

Sarah turned out to be an expert and a friend.

I knew my fate lay in the hands of the audiologist. I made a quick decision and moved forward with getting the implant done. I wanted to live an active life. Dr. Kiringoda and Sarah moved fast, and so did I. I had been well served by technicians for years. This was a different level of care: highly trained specialists working as a team with a very competent ear surgeon.

Ignorance is bliss

I was so eager that I didn’t ask what the surgery involved until a week before. In a pre-op appointment with Dr. Kiringoda, I asked, “Do you drill a hole in my skull?” Yes, he said. And he added that the more delicate part was avoiding a nerve that, if damaged, could paralyze part of my face.

He seemed more worried than I was.

The surgery was set for May 21, 2025. That day, Dr. Kiringoda introduced me to his team the way a CEO does. They had worked together for more than ten years. Knowing how mistakes get made in medicine, I was comforted by that. But I was all in anyway.

The physical recovery took less than a day.

Four days later, I drove to Sacramento to play bridge. Within two weeks of my surgery, Dr. Pirko turned on my implant. For the first time, I heard the directions given by my Tesla and heard the sirens of police cars and ambulances on my drive back home.

In September, I published my memoir, and in the first week of October 2025, I launched my book at a big event at the Computer History Museum. My friend Kanwal Rekhi agreed to be the moderator. There I was, talking but also listening to audience questions, with some difficulty!

A lot better, not fixed

Is it better? Yes. One-on-one conversations, phone calls, and board meetings are much better.

Is it fixed? No. Not at the dinner table with two conversations going, or in noisy restaurants.

Yet life is humming once again, and so are my book sales.