Helen Burridge and Sam
Sam is Helen’s hearing dog and has been with her for three years. In that time, he has become so much more than just an aid to alert her to the sounds she can’t hear – he is also a loyal companion, a trusted helper and a real force for good in her life.
As I arrive at Helen’s house, a handsome black labrador comes out to greet me, carrying one of his soft toys in his mouth. It is quickly evident that Sam is a very happy, lovely dog - and that he and Helen are completely in tune with each other. Helen calls Sam her soulmate and explains how he has turned her life around, improving her confidence, her fitness levels and giving her the chance to meet and socialize with other dog owners.
Helen was born with a hearing impairment but this was not diagnosed until she was 27 years old. At school she was classed as ‘slow’, and when her parents took her for a medical check-up, the hearing problem was not picked up. Needless to say, she struggled at school, particularly if she couldn’t sit near the front of the class. She went on to work as an administrator for Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, but encountered problems when work colleagues advised her to get her ears syringed so that she could hear properly. A doctor told her she might have fluid in the inner ear which would need draining and referred her to an audiologist. Eighteen months later she was seen by an audiologist who thought it was unlikely that there was any fluid and that in all probability she was actually partially deaf. Two years later after trying numerous hearing aids, Derriford Hospital carried out a brainstem auditory evoked response test which measured how Helen’s brain processed sounds. The results showed that she had been born with a hearing impairment and had lost 60 to 70% of her ability to hear in both ears.
The news was a shock to Helen but she managed to obtain digital hearing aids privately and registered on a stage one British sign language course which she passed in 1999. Unfortunately, the lip-reading course she applied for was cancelled due to insufficient demand and she has had to teach herself to lip read over the years. When she was diagnosed as deaf, she found that the attitude of her work colleagues changed since they were unsure how to communicate with a deaf person- some people shouted at her while others stopped talking to her altogether. Feeling isolated, Helen became increasingly withdrawn and eventually lost her job.
She found a position at HMP Dartmoor Prison where - apart from an initial misunderstanding when she was assigned to the switchboard – she found everyone very supportive of her disability. Having taken on the role of disability officer at the prison, Helen came across Margaret Rogers, the south west co-ordinator for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, who was about to set up a new south west puppy socialising centre and invited Helen to help. Helen became heavily involved as local fundraising branch secretary and the SW team hoped she would take on a dog and become a local ambassador. Unfortunately, she had to step back from her charity work when her parents’ health deteriorated over a number of years. Helen had always had a problematic relationship with her mother, but found it very difficult when she lost first her mother and then her father shortly afterwards, leaving her with a house in need of refurbishment and a cocker spaniel who had received little in the way of training. She worked with Monty, the cocker spaniel, until he could alert her to the telephone and the doorbell. When he too passed away in 2014, Helen felt as if she had hit ‘rock bottom’.
However some time before, she had applied for her own hearing dog and later that year she received a very important phone call inviting her to a two-day ‘meet and greet’ with a young labrador who had spent two years with a socializer and was ready to start life as a hearing dog. Helen met Sam and said ‘it was love at first sight’; she returned a couple of weeks later to spend five days training with him at the hearing dog centre – as well as a lot of playing! Sam now nudges her on the leg to alert her to seven different sounds, including her alarm, the doorbell, the telephone, the cooker timer and various smoke alarms.
Sam has changed Helen’s life and she now gives talks to groups, organisations and businesses to share her experiences. Hearing Dogs for Deaf People is in its 35th year and Helen would like to set up a local fundraising group so that more people can benefit from the charity.
Rosemary Best
If you would like to help please contact Helen on hells_bells1964@me.com or visit www.hearingdogs.org.uk