an answer to a question

last night in men's group we asked each other how we are. i opted out by saying i couldn't tell. i am currently reading a novel in which the main character is living with a guerlilla group in spain when the communists were trying to overthrow the fascist government. in this particular part he is in a discussion with a half-gypsy woman in the group. she was explaining to him how she can intuit certain things not explicit to sensory experience. he disagrees with her, explaining things in physiological language. she replies, "thou art a miracle of deafness. it is not that thou art stupid. thou art simply deaf. one who is deaf cannot hear music. neither can he hear the radio. so he might say, having never heard them, that such things do not exist." and then, "do not doubt what thou simply cannot hear or see. thou canst not hear what a dog hears. nor canst thou smell what a dog smells. But already thou hast experinced a little of what can happen to a man."

i don't think i can directly correlate my experience to the man's. i am not struggling with the exact things. but yet, in some way, i feel as though i am losing my hearing and neither my sight nor my smell are improving to compensate.