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Editor's
note: This is a transcript from The Rush Limbaugh Show,
Monday, October 8, 2001, hour 2.
 ow,
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 retire
if I wanted to and not suffer. I don't have a worry in the world
when it comes to finances. That's how fortunate I've been.
And as such,
I have options. That's, again, getting back to what I was referring
to earlier when I talked about all the options that we as a free
people have. I 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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