Life and deaf: Zurich employees share their stories about hearing loss

Andrew Dryden: Reading lips

Andrew Dryden was born deaf. Without hearing aids, he may just hear a passing train at close proximity. Even with the help of hearing aids, he cannot hear high frequency sounds, such as smoke alarm or oven timer going off or a bird chirping in backyard.

But this did not stop him from going to high school, Ball State University and having a successful career in insurance. Andrew is living proof that deaf children and adults can thrive in the right circumstances. His determination and resilience, as well as his ingenuity and ability to adapt to challenging situations, make Andrew’s story remarkable.

Speaking over Teams – Andrew uses a mix of lipreading and live captions to understand me – he recalls how at the age of 3, instead of learning sign language (his parents were concerned he would only communicate with other deaf people), he was placed in a special school to learn to lip-read and speak. For people born deaf, learning to talk can be a long and difficult process as they have never heard – and therefore cannot mimic – normal sounds and speech.

By age 12, Andrew was equipped to enter a conventional school. He says it was challenging to interact with other children and to follow the classes, but he quickly developed an affinity for mathematics. “Math was the easiest subject for me to learn,” he says. “In other subjects, such as English and history, the teacher would speak to the class. But in math, a lot was written on the board.”

At Ball State University in Indiana – where the small classroom sizes made it easier for him to follow lectures – he studied to be an actuary, where numbers and statistics are used to analyze risk in the insurance industry.

But his 23-year career almost ended before it started. In 1999, he was taking the first of nine examinations for his professional actuary certification. “Upon exam expiration time, the instructor yelled out to the students to put their pens down, but I didn’t hear it, and I continued writing,” Andrew recalls. “And so he disqualified me.” Thankfully, after writing to the actuarial exam office, Andrew was granted arrangements with an exam proctor in a private room for future exams. It wasn’t the first time he was penalized for being deaf. As a teen playing American football, Andrew was unable to hear the referee whistle and frequently gave away penalties for making late hits on opposing players.

Andrew got his first job at Allstate Insurance Company after overcoming the interview process, which for all deaf and hearing-impaired people is a daunting experience. Phone interviews, for instance, are only possible with a telecoms relay service (where an operator transcribes the call to text), which interrupts the flow of conversation.

Since 2019, Andrew has been a highly regarded actuarial senior consultant at Zurich North America. He communicates well in one-on-one and face-to-face situations (though following group conversations can be tough). From stenographers to Google’s Live Transcribe app, he uses whatever tools he can for support even if lipreading remains his key tool for “listening” at work.

Speaking is another challenge. Andrew may be a proud Michigan native, but many people assume he’s German because of his accent that is distorted by his deafness. Andrew is aware that it can take people time to adjust to his speech, just as it takes time for him to adapt to lipreading a new person he meets.

But at home, with his wife and 8- and 11-year-old daughters (who all have normal hearing), he has no issues communicating. In fact, his girls have developed a new communications tool: They throw items at their dad to get his attention!

Marilyn Joeman: Loving my bright pink hearing aids

Marilyn Joeman is loving life at the moment. Three months ago, she got a new set of hearing aids – for the first time in nine years. And she’s enjoying the latest technology.

Marilyn’s new hearing aids can automatically adjust to her environment by using geolocation that knows if she’s sitting in noisy commuter traffic, working in a quiet office or a taking lunch in hectic café. It also has an equalizer that allows Marilyn to manually fine-tune the different frequencies from an app on her smartphone.

And they are pink – bright pink. Marilyn wants everyone to know that she’s hard of hearing. Keeping it a hidden disability, she believes, prevents people from supporting you.

Marilyn grew up with her four siblings in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, including two older sisters who are also hard of hearing. Since she was always sat at the front of class during her school years, Marilyn didn’t notice her hearing impairment until she went to college at 17, where she sat at the back of class. “It was then I realized I could hear sound, but there was no clarity.”

She discovered she had medium-to-severe hearing loss in both ears and would require hearing aids. Without wearing at least one hearing aid, Marilyn would not be able to do her job working as a communications specialist at Zurich Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. “Working in the communications department requires the ability to listen and pay attention,” she says. “It’s surprising I’ve survived 15 years in this role.”

But Marilyn says she has very supportive and patient colleagues at Zurich. For instance, they’re happy for Marilyn to join meetings via Teams from a separate room – even when she’s in the office – because it’s easier for her to follow a meeting while wearing her headphones on high volume. "These small things make a difference," says Marilyn.

Marilyn has adjusted well to her hearing loss, but she still encounters challenges. “I have social anxiety when I go to new places or speak to a new person. I’ll often bring a sibling or a friend to ‘be my ear’ so they can listen on my behalf.”

Her new hearing aids will mean giving up her old devices, which have a sentimental attachment. Marilyn won them in 2014 when Zurich Malaysia ran an employee competition to make dreams come true. Marilyn’s dream was for a set of in-the-ear hearing aids. Not only did she win a pair, which Marilyn describes as the “most important gift in my life,” she also described herself as hard of hearing to the company. “You could hear the gasp in the auditorium when I said, ‘Yes, I work in communications, and yes, I am deaf.’”

Nagila Gomes: Waking up deaf

Nagila suffered from sudden deafness – or sudden sensorineural hearing loss – in her right ear during pregnancy in 2010. “It happened overnight,” Nagila recalls. “I fell asleep and when I woke up, I was deaf on the right side. I started treatment, but as I was pregnant, I couldn’t complete it due to the medication.”

Nagila was able to resume her treatment but learned she would never hear from her right ear again. The impact was initially devastating.

It left Nagila feeling vulnerable as a first-time mother at 21. She had to get used to tinnitus in her right ear that causes a buzzing sound that can be both uncomfortable and distracting. And she had to adapt to spatial hearing loss, where she is unable to determine the direction of a sound source. Some people even teased her about her hearing loss.

It also had a major impact on her career. Working in a call center in São Paulo – a role that is dependent on good listening skills – Nagila was unable to find a new job after the birth of her son.

But over the past decade, not only has Nagila learned to adapt to her hearing loss, she has also discovered a new positive outlook on life. The best example is her career. Forced to find a new profession, Nagila retrained as a HR practitioner. It turned out to be a great move. Today, she works in accounts payable with Zurich Santander Insurance America in Brazil, part of Zurich’s bancassurance partnership with Santander bank.

Nagila doesn’t use a hearing aid when listening to people. Instead, she relies on positioning herself so she can hear with her left ear or by lipreading. “I do the best I can, but it can difficult when I’m in situations with lots of people talking,” she says.

“My life took another turn after my hearing loss,” says Nagila. “It helped me to see potential in myself that I did not imagine I had.

“Life will always present us with challenges, but we decide how to respond to them. I chose to turn this challenge into an opportunity for growth. I continue to face difficulties, but I do not allow my hearing loss to hinder me. Instead, I’m always looking to learn more, grow more and to be recognized for my professional ability.”

Bill Lindberg: My Ménière's disease and cochlear implant

“I was sitting in a brainstorming meeting in a conference room,” Bill Lindberg recalls now, “and my boss at that time said, ‘Bill, somebody just said something on your left and you ignored them.’”

It was at that point, about 10 years ago, that Bill went for a hearing test. “I’d had a ringing in my left ear for as long as I could remember. And when I was scuba diving, I always had trouble clearing that ear, so I knew I had a potential issue.”

What he hadn’t expected was a diagnosis of Ménière's disease. It’s a rare disorder that affects the inner ear and can cause hearing loss, tinnitus and vertigo, which can produce nausea, vomiting and dizziness. The symptoms and severity vary widely from person to person. Some people experience frequent attacks of vertigo along with hearing loss, while others may have severe tinnitus with minor vertigo.

Bill initially suffered from regular dizzy spells. The first time he suffered from vertigo in 2012 he went to the hospital’s emergency room “because I thought I was having a stroke.”

Following his diagnosis, Bill wore a hearing aid and changed his diet (lowering salt intake can reduce vertigo frequency). He also took antihistamines – used to treat motion sickness – to reduce the severity of his vertigo.

It worked. Bill’s hearing was restored, and the vertigo attacks stopped. But after about six years, Bill noticed his speech recognition was deteriorating.

“The audiologist tested my hearing, and my speech recognition had gone below 50 percent. I could hear what people were saying, but it just sounded like they were speaking through a muffled phone.

“I thought to myself, ‘is this how I’m going to be when I’m older?’ I want to be able to continue to work and to communicate with my family.”

Bill took the decision to have a cochlear implant in 2018. A cochlear implant is a small electronic device comprising an external piece that sits behind the ear and a second piece that is surgically placed under the skin. Unlike a hearing aid, which amplify sounds, the implant bypasses damaged parts of the ear and directly stimulates the auditory nerve. This sends signals to the brain, which recognizes them as sounds. This helps to improve the clarity of sound as well as amplifying the volume.

Today, Bill’s word recognition is over 85 percent. He can function fully in his role as a director for pharmacy and utilization review at Zurich North America without any accommodations. Bill can even stream podcasts directly to his implant, which also has settings for different environments, like a restaurant or a concert.

“Without the implant, I would be struggling and worried about my life when I’m really old. So my message is, if you’re experiencing hearing loss and the hearing aid isn’t helping anymore, then don’t give up. Keep working at it, keep looking for other options. There’s always hope.”