popular radio personality rush Limbaugh told his radio audience today
that he is "for all practical purposes" deaf.  He said that within the
last few days he has been unable to hear any radio or television and
cannot hear someone speaking to him.  he said that he could not hear the
two callers on the air today but he has a whole group of supportive
people helping him be the best to put on an excellent show.  he did not
discuss the assistive aids he uses but said that he is trying every
option and will do the show without callers if necessary.  He said that
he could retire, but he is very motivated to continue on with the show
and share his message of conservatism, smaller government, self-reliance,
and moral values.  Below is the transcript of Monday's program where he
describes his newly acquired disability.  His monologue is available in
audio format in Windows Media on his website www.rushlimbaugh.com  It is
worth a listen.  He is brutally honest about his limitations, his
options, his desire to "overcome challenges," and maintain standards of
excellence.

Kelly


Transcript October 8, 2001, 1:06 Eastern Time  s

 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. This 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. 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. He 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. 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. 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 ... 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% - 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.

 '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. 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 out rate 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. 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. 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 the loss. It's happened, and...there are things
that are being done. 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 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 [and] 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 you do 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, I don't really 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 [and] 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 hear smoke alarms, and you know how loud they are. 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 sound 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.

Now, one other thing here before I go to commercial break. I know a lot
of you are sending e-mails about my voice, and I know that a good
percentage of
them are what I call seminar e-mails because you are so far off track,
you've got to be making it up. Somebody's got to be telling you what to
say. "Rush,
I hadn't listened to you for four months, and all of a sudden, you sound
like you're Bill Buckley all the time." Or "Rush, I haven't heard you in
six months,
and you sound very pompous."

That's just flat-out BS, but there are some people who are writing who
are saying your voice pitch is lower, or you sound like you're speaking
slower than
normal, what have you. My friends, it could well be that my voice is
changing. I don't know. I cannot hear myself well enough to know. As far
as I'm concerned,
my voice is as normal as it's ever been. My energy level is as normal as
it's ever been. And when we were in rehearsals last week out in Los
Angeles, we
discovered, in fact, that some of the people in the rehearsal were also
concerned about the voice quality, and they were stunned as how normal I
sounded
last week.

So we're looking at technical things. Is there something in our technical
circuitry, in the connections from here to New York, to wherever our
signal goes
to get the program to you that's causing some of these fluctuations to
take place, in addition to whatever may be happening with my voice? But
as far as
today is concerned, everybody that's surrounding me tells me I sound as
normal as I always have when they're in the room with me, that there's no
change
whatsoever today.

We have made some technological changes, because people have been
complaining about the lower octave, so I think we've made some minor
changes to raise
the pitch of the voice electronically today as were trying to figure out
what's going on but as far as I'm concerned there's no change, it's very
frustrating
my voice is my voice and I'm not trying to change it in any way, shape,
manner, or form. Got to take a break here because of the length of time
in the
opening segment. We'll be back and continue in a moment.

BUMP IN: Billy Joel "Pressure"

It's no pressure. Is that Billy Joel? I thought it was. That's Billy
Joel? That's no pressure. Nice try, Mammone, but that's no pressure.
Mammone, the broadcast
engineer. See, folks. This is my whole point. This is not pressure, and
it is why I posted on my website the little statement I did after our
attack yesterday.
It's why I reread it again today. You really have to keep things in
perspective when you are fortunate enough to live in this country.

You know, whatever malady befalls people in this country, there are -
look, there are a lot of people worse off than I am, especially since
September the
11th. And I cannot sit here and in any way compare myself to people who
have lost their lives or lost body parts or have suffered really tragic
injuries
in the effort to save others. This is just one of those things that
happens. It happens with 10% of the people in the country.

As I say, my challenge is - I want to do this. I want to keep doing this.
So the challenge is to find a way, and there are any number of ways of
doing it.
I'm not going to get into the various ways of going about it, but there
are infinite, infinite ways of keeping this program alive, in present
form or in
some other form. And that's what most of last week was spent doing, in
fact, various forms of rehearsal, discussion, broadcast partners, that
kind of thing
- and, of course, just a self-examination.

I've got to make sure that I can do it in a way that doesn't let people
down, that doesn't dissatisfy me or in any way detract from the overall
level of
excellence that people have come to expect. I mean, that's just the whole
reason I do this anyway is the passion and love for it that drive it, and
then
take it to that level. And I've not lost that. All I've lost is my
ability to hear, but it doesn't mean I've lost my ability to communicate.
Those are
two different things, given the technological advances that we have in
this country today.

[End Transcript]


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