I am a radio journalist who is passionate about sound now I am losing my hearing .

It was a cool morning early last spring and I was interviewing a rancher about her concerns surrounding the upcoming wildfire season in the B.C. Interior. We walked through patches of snow and across a pasture of bunchgrass when we noticed a meadowlark sitting on a fence post. She commented on its beautiful song and we stood in silence as I held out my microphone to capture its voice. But as I turned up the volume on my recording device, I heard nothing.

The moment solidified something I'd long suspected: I am losing my hearing. And it marked the moment I started fearing the looming end of my vital link to the world I love — that of radio journalism.

For as long as I can remember, I've had a deep relationship with sound because I know how precious it is. Since childhood, I've been deaf in my left ear, a rare side effect from a commonplace infection. I miss a lot in casual conversation, and have learned to lip-read and manoeuvre my way through social settings as friends and family take part in choreographed dances to get on my "right" side. 

In part, that's what drew me to a career in radio. I spend my workdays with headphones on and when I'm out in the field, I gather sound with a shotgun microphone and control the volume closely. I can lose hours in the studio mixing and layering the audio, creating documentaries that bring stories to life for listeners.

I've developed a reverence for the sounds I've collected: the voices of the last few nuns of a dying order singing songs of worship in a hospital chapel; the bellowing of cattle being moved up a mountain by a young woman whose dream is to take over the family ranch; the deep voice of the former Chief of the Kwikwasut'inuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation standing on an ocean inlet calling the scant run of sockeye salmon home. These recordings come layered with a range of human emotions, along with deep breaths, sighs, and awkward laughs that reveal as much as the words they punctuate.