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« on: October 20, 2005, 11:06:01 PM »
What Foxy Brown remembers most about the morning of May23 is the eerie quiet. The night before, the rapper had fallen asleep with the television blaring, but when she got up, no sound seemed to be coming from it. "I pressed the volume to maybe 60. Nothing," says Brown. " I ran outside to my truck and honked the horn. Nothing. I ran back inside and dialed a number on the phone. Nothing. Then I started breaking down in tears and screaming and I couldn't even hear myself scream. That's when I knew there was a problem."
Three days later Brown was diagnosed with severe sudden sensorineural hearing loss, a little-understood condition that affects one in 10,000 people without warning, often the result of a viral infection. Most suffer loss in only one ear and, when treated early, the condition can be reversible. But Brown has lost her hearing in both ears and has, so far, not responded well to treatment. "Her case is severe," says Dr. Anil Lalwani, an otologist whom Brown has consulted. "In only 1 or 2 percent of the cases are both ears affected." For months Brown tried to hide the loss, hoping medication and surgery might restore it. Now, as she weighs further options, she is speaking out for the first time. "I have been deaf for four months," says Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand. She talked to People's Sharon Cotliar about her regret that she didn't act sooner when she felt her hearing "slipping away" and hopes that speaking out will help others.
There were signs for a few days before. My phone would be ringing and my Blackberry would be going off and people would be "Yo Foxy, your Blackberry." And I'd hear it. It would be a delayed relaction but I'd still hear it. One day I was in the studio, putting the finishing touches on my fourth album," Black Roses", and my friend (and Def Jam Records president) Jay-Z walked in to approve the mix. As soon as he heard it he was like,"Yo, what's that? Does this sound normal to you, Inga?" I was like "Of course it does. What do you mean?" Then he told me, "Baby Girl, we have a problem because this is ridiculously loud. I could never put this on the radio."
At first I just thought Jay was giving me a hard time. But the next day, he and I did an interview at a radio station. I remember conversing with the on-air personality. I was hearing her fine, but the minute I had to take callers, I couldn't hear them. I would say, "What are they saying?" It was embara**ing, because the people in the studio were looking at me like, "What do you mean? Don't you hear them? This is crazy loud." I said, "No, turn them up." But they couldn't turn it up any higher.
The next day, I was at a photo shoot. I was hearing the music fine. I said to myself,"Yesterday I wasn't hearing the phone, but today I'm hearing the music, so maybe this hearing loss is from a flight."
My mom's sister pa**ed away the morning after the shoot. I remember hearing my mom and aunts downstairs in the living roon crying hysterically. And I got on the phone to call a couple of people. But when we went to the funeral parlor, I had a problem hearing the funeral director explaining the arrangements.
All along I'm feeling my hearing go slowly, but I'm thinking, God would never do this. This can never happen to me. I'm perfectly healthy. I'm 26 years old. I'm young and people just don't go deaf overnight.
The morning of the funeral, I woke up and I couldn't hear anything. Not the TV, not my car horn, not the dial tone on the phone. Of course I still had to go to the funeral. I sat in the front row and I couldn't hear the choir. Jay-z was there and I said, "Jay, I think I'm deaf." He was like, "You can't be deaf." But I knew. I said, "Monday morning, we need to find a doctor."
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