FW: Rush Limbaugh announces: I AM DEAF - but vows to continue

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

WORLD'S MOST-LISTENED TO VOICE ANNOUNCES: I AM DEAF; RUSH LIMBAUGH VOWS TO
CONTINUE

In mid-career, musical magician Beethoven went deaf. He would continue to
write. Producing some of his best music.

"I have lost my ability to hear. I have not lost my ability to communicate,"

the modern world's most-listened to voice, Rush Limbaugh, announced to his
radio audience on Monday.

Immediate shock spread throughout the communication industry.

President Bush expressed personal concern about Limbaugh's condition with
senior staff late Monday afternoon.

"The president noted Rush Limbaugh is a national treasure," one senior White

House staffer said.

For the past 3 month, Limbaugh has been steadily losing his hearing.

"I am, for all practical purposes, deaf," Limbaugh revealed.

Limbaugh's show is heard on over 600 stations, he commands an audience of
more than 22 million a week.

TRANSCRIPT:

The Rush Limbaugh Show, Monday, October 8, 2001.
HOUR 2.

RUSH:

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of the program, I had intended to start

today's program telling you what I'm about to tell you. The outbreak of our
attack on Osama bin Laden made it necessary to deal with that and bring
everybody up to speed first on that and to place that in perspective. But I
have, throughout my career, at least as far as this program is concerned,
now
into its 14th year, have been as up front and candid with all of you, first,

as possible, as opposed to, say, calling a press conference to announce
something or doing it in some other way.

The relationship that I have always enjoyed with you is one I consider to be

familial, and I see evidence of it each and every time I venture out in
public, and I've been overawed by that, I will never take it for granted.
And
around Christmastime and Thanksgiving time, I always try to make an effort
to
express my gratitude and thanks for how much your support has meant. Because

so many people have told me over the course of the years how much this show
has meant to them, because, when it started, there was nothing like it in
the
national media.

There were all sorts of liberal talk shows, both TV and radio, but they were

at night, and the people who think as you and I do had to endure being
laughed at and made fun of and impugned on a daily basis.

And finally here came a guy, Rush Limbaugh, who didn't tell you what to
think
but simply reflected what you already thought, what you already believed,
validated what you already thought and believed. That made you feel
confident, and you relished the fact that the show was there and you made no

bones about expressing that. And there was never any market research.

We didn't survey the market before the program started and say "what's
missing out there," and try to fill the void, and then come up with
decisions. "Hey, there's no conservatism in national radio. Let's go do
that." That's not at all what happened. We just decided to try something
based on a passion and do it. And the passion to do it continues. That's the

first thing that I want you to understand. The passion to get up every day
--
I talked a moment ago about pursuing happiness and how I was going to be
mentioning this a lot in the coming days and weeks.

Well, I've been doing a lot of soul-searching this past summer because of
some things that have happened to me, that have caused me to redefine what's

meaningful and what is happy and important and what's not. Simply put, I
noticed on the 29th of May, I'll never forget the date, that I could not
hear
anything in my left ear.

So I went to the doctor.

They assumed it was earwax as they always do. I'm 50 years old.

And took my oral history and found out that there's some genetic hearing
loss
in my family, and immediately chalked it up to that. The bottom line is,
from
May 29th up until about, I'd say, ten days ago, I lost hearing every five
days, to the point, ladies and gentlemen, I'm now totally deaf in my left
ear. I cannot hear a thing in my left ear, with hearing aids, the most
powerful made, mean nothing. I have the ability to recognize sound but not
identify it in my right ear.

I cannot communicate with people. I can occasionally talk to people in
person
one on one if their voice frequency happens to fit the range that I can
still
hear, but I cannot hear radio, I cannot hear television, I cannot hear
music.

I am, for all practical purposes, deaf, and it's happened in three months. I

have been to what I learned were the finest doctors and clinics throughout
the country, focusing on one, and every effort has been made to stabilize
the
loss, with the hope of restoring it. No success has been reported, in either

stabilizing it or losing it -- or restoring it. Now, all during this summer,

the loss, even though rapid, by the middle of July, for example, I was told
that from the end of May to the middle of July I had lost what the average
person loses in 15 years, in terms of hearing. Hearing aids are of such
improved quality today that they accommodated the loss. My hearing wasn't
normal, but I could function. I could have one on one conversations -- I
could do everything but listen to music.

Music was just a mass of noise, I was unable to hear it. I still don't know
music. I haven't been able to recognize a song I'm hearing since the middle
of July. I have been able, though, to get powerful enough hearing aids to
where I can communicate one on one with people and, up until about ten days
ago, was able to listen to things on radio and TV, but I can no longer do
that, and the odds are that within another month or so, if the pattern keeps

up, I will be entirely deaf, 100% so, and at that point a decision has to be

made as to what to do about it, because my desire is to continue doing this,

and there are an infinite number of ways of continuing. I mean I'm doing
this
program today, ladies and gentlemen, in effect, total deafness.

I have taken two phone calls today and have not heard a word any of the
callers said to me. I'm not going to explain to you how we're doing this.
Put
two and two together, if you wish, but as long as the passion exists to do
it, then we'll find a way, because -- I'm at that point now, this is where I

am. What do I do about it? Now, I've been luckier than most people will ever

be in life, I can ret can still, even with this, get up, and if I want to,
with the help of other people, come in here and do this radio program.

I can do this radio program every day without taking a phone call, if I have

to. And in my mind still outrate 99% of the people who do it. Or, if I want
to take phone calls, we'll find a way to do that. In fact, we already have.

And that's what I was doing all last week was rehearsing ways in which to
conduct this program in a way that would allow me to perform in such a way
that it would meet and hopefully continue to surpass the expectations that
you have.

So that's my challenge is how to structure this in such a way as to continue

to be able to do it at the highest levels, my desire, my expectations, and
yours, without dwelling on on (inaudible) is the relate, it's happened, and
-- I mean there are things that are being done. I am -- you would not
believe
the medication that is flowing through me in an attempt to reverse this.
There is a theory as to what's happening, but I'm -- I'm going to keep that
to myself. It is not genetic.

There's something more going on than that. I have been through every
conceivable medical test and exam this summer you can imagine. All those
times that you thought I was on vacation or playing golf, I've been in an
MRI
machine or getting blood drawn, or on a stress EKG machine or at a
cardiologist, wherever, hearing aid doctor, the hearing doctor, where have
you.

The only thing that is really going to change is that I may have to be
absent
a day here and a day there, more so than I would like, just in order to see
the doctors.

Now, if it eventuates that the medication that is literally -- I mean I'm
popping pills, I'm shooting up stuff, I've never done stuff like this
before.
If this stuff doesn't work, then there is one other option that is
relatively
new, but it's not something that has been done enough to where a pattern has

been established to say that it's acceptable. There's always the last
resort,
the cochlear implant, it's the last thing they do because it's irreversible,

once do you that you're finished, and if it doesn't work, then nothing they
can do to go back and put you back the way you were. So you must wait until
you are entirely deaf for approval for this.

I mean the FDA even gets involved in this because it's surgery which
involves
the brain. I have not yet spoken to people who have received cochlear
implants, but I've talked to a number of doctors who say that it would be an

improvement over the situation I'm in now.

To describe for you the way I hear things now, I understand what I'm saying,

but I think it's more because I know what I'm going to say, rather than I'm
actually hearing it. I feel it, I feel the vocal vibrations in my skull, but

in terms of actually hearing what I say, that -- I don't really -- I don't
know if I am or not. Other people, depending on their voice range, if
they're
loud and speak slowly enough and are close enough to me, then I can hear
them, but this is relatively new. The past ten days it's been this case. Ten

days ago, two weeks ago I was able to conduct a normal conversation, just a
couple of times, "Say that again, please?" But now it's deteriorated to the
point that, for all clinical, practical purposes, if I take the right-side
hearing aid out, I do not hear a single thing -- zip, zero, nada.

I don't -- I don't hear smoke alarms. You know how loud they are. I don't
hear -- I've tested the loudest things that I could find to see if I hear
them, and I don't.

Now, I do hear certain sounds, frequencies. I hear myself walking on a
concrete floor. I hear the toilet handle flush now and then. But when it
comes to the human voice, I hear not enough to have any kind of a productive

conversation with anybody. That doesn't mean that I cannot continue to do
what I love doing here. It's just a matter of finding out how and the best
way to do it.

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