Gael Hannan

Gael Hannan is an author, speaker and advocate on hearing loss issues. In addition to her weekly blog at the Better Hearing Consumer, which has a passionate international following, Gael has written two acclaimed books, “The Way I Hear It: A Life with Hearing Loss”and “Hear & Beyond: Live Skillfully with Hearing Loss”, written with Shari Eberts. She is regularly invited to present her uniquely humorous and insightful work to appreciative audiences around the world. Gael has received many awards for her work that advocates for individuals to become more knowledgeable and successful at dealing with their hearing loss and a more inclusive society for them to live in.

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Hearing Loss Can Be Hard Work!

Life with hearing loss can be chaotic and messy and, at times, just plain hard work. Trying to sort out what was said and by whom is often an aerobic workout, complete with swiveling heads, waving arms and raised voices. In Finland on a Scandinavian speaking tour, I was sitting at dinner with a joyous group of new hearing loss

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Rethinking What I “Can’t Do” with Hearing Loss

Business meetings involve being able to follow what people are saying. I can’t do the meeting minutes. Phone calls with strangers are difficult because of unfamiliar speech patterns. Can you make this phone call for me – I can’t do it. On a walk with friends, we hear a bird call from the trees. My friends look up to the

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Hearing Loss Through the Looking Glass

What are the big-ticket items that frustrate you about having hearing loss? Why don’t “they” fix it! The cost of hearing aids (and why aren’t they perfect?) Why don’t people understand our needs? It’s important to ask ourselves (and other people) these questions, especially if they lead us to think and learn about hearing loss. The more we understand

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Handling Those Small Indignities of Hearing Loss

Pardon? Sorry, one more time? I’m not catching what you’re saying, it’s so noisy in here. Are you asking me if I want a bag, have a membership card, or something else to which the answer is no? I had been inching my way forward to the cashier in a big box store, and now I was holding up the

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Tinnitus: Let’s Just Keep Going

People who have tinnitus will try almost anything to make it go away. On tinnitus social media groups, when someone writes about a thing that reduced their head noise or even – omg, a miracle – made it disappear, it’s not unusual for hundreds of readers to respond. Where can I buy it? Tell us exactly what you did. I’ll

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It’s That Time of Year Again!

It’s here – the time of year that amplifies all the biggest challenges for those of us with hearing loss. Music that we love but can no longer hear or enjoy the way we used to. Lots of people gathered in one place: no matter how few or how many, it’s a crowd. And crowds are noisy and indecipherable.

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Stick ‘Em Up! My Worst Hearing Loss Nightmare

One of the biggest challenges of hearing loss is not understanding what’s being said – especially if it’s being said in an emergency. Like a bank robbery. Being in the bank during a robbery is my all-time worst nightmare. I fixed that potential problem by doing my banking online. Still, occasionally I do need to go the actual bank.

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Caption Us! A Message to Hearing Care Professionals

My hearing advocacy colleague Shari Eberts and I were excited as always to attend a conference of hearing care professionals (HCPs), where we were scheduled to present the patient’s perspective. We were dismayed, at the first presentation of the conference, to find that the captioning access we depend on was not available. While we had not expected that the

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Another Nervous Curve in the Hearing Journey

I’ve got an audiology appointment this week and, I’ll admit it, I’m nervous. Things have changed. I’m not hearing as well as I was just a few weeks ago. Noisy situations almost bring me to my knees. Speech isn’t always clear. As the minutes tick towards my appointment in two days, my mind is doing pretzel knots with questions that

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When It’s Time to Change Your Hearing Care Professional

I am a big fan of hearing care professionals, both as a group and individually. Regardless of their designation, I respect and applaud the audiologists and hearing instrument specialists who have chosen the life of a clinician, researcher, industry representative and clinic owner – or a personal combination of these practices. As members of the field of hearing care