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.

Featured image for “Dispelling the Myth About Old Telecoil Technology”

Dispelling the Myth About Old Telecoil Technology

by Juliette Sterkens Only a few weeks ago, a hearing aid user stood up in a local Hearing Loss Association of America group meeting and told of his first “hearing loop moment” and how it almost made him cry. He spoke of how he encouraged two hearing aid using friends to have their telecoils activated, so they too would

Featured image for “Dirty Laundry: Removing Hearing Aids in Public”

Dirty Laundry: Removing Hearing Aids in Public

Is it poor taste to take your hearing aids out in public to change the battery or scratch your ear? Who decides whether an activity is ‘acceptable’, anyway? Society? The Law? Individual people? Some women would love to run bare-chested, as men do, through the park on Sunday mornings. It would draw stares, frowns and comments. Possibly a ticket for indecent exposure.

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Trade Shows, Manufacturer Symposia, and Other Professional Dilemmas

by Mike Metz In April 2016, at the Phoenix Convention Center, the American Academy of Audiology held its 27th annual meeting. The web site promised a large gathering of audiologists and lots of education. It got me wondering. Meeting duration is shortened. Exhibitors were fewer. Statistics on attendance are obscure. What does all this mean for Audiology? I recall

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Why Me?

I recently read an article about a woman who was suffering from some sort of chronic problem. On the scale of horrific issues with “10” being a fatal disease and “1” being ugly (but functional) feet, this woman’s problem ranked around a 3, in my opinion. “I ask myself, why me?” she says in the article. “It’s hard to accept

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The World’s Shortest Audiology Course

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the Better Hearing Consumer section of HearingHealthMatters.org on August 15, 2015. By Gael Hannan Hearing care professionals believe they know what people need in order to hear better. After all, they’ve gone to school to learn this. People with hearing loss (PWHL) know they want to hear better, but believe they don’t

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A HoH’s To-Do List

It’s Monday, the beginning of the week, and time to update my hearing loss To Do list. Because hearing losss is what I have as well as what I do, my list never changes much from week to week—nor does it ever quite online pharmacy finasteride with best prices today in the USA get done. Call the audiologist to

Featured image for “Easy Housecleaning Tips for Hard of Hearing People”

Easy Housecleaning Tips for Hard of Hearing People

Note: If you’re looking for tips on how to get oil stains out of your shirt, or how to remove old wallpaper, you’re in the wrong place. People with hearing loss deal with those issues in the same way as hearing people. This article is about dealing with noise, Enemy #1 of people with hearing loss. Housework is noisy. Yesterday,

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Me and My Audie: A New Relationship

by Gael Hannan and Joanne Deluzio Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published in the Better Hearing Consumer in February 2013. However, in view of recent upheaval in opinion about how hearing health should be delivered, we find it still pertinent today. In the preceding blog, How I Learned to Love My Audiologist, I had talked about my ideal hearing health professional

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Tina Gets a CI – Part 2

Beth—February 4, 2014 We survived The Activation. Barbara, the audiologist, presented Tina with packs containing the two processors, the behind-the-ear version (Naida) and the clip-on version (Neptune). I had less baggage when I traveled to Australia for two weeks. Right now, we’re focusing on the Naida—the manual looks like a Tom Clancy novel, but apparently only the first 62 pages

Featured image for “AAA: How YOU Doin’?”

AAA: How YOU Doin’?

A group of us got together for dinner a while back. There were five old audiologists sitting in a nice restaurant, having a cocktail (or two) and dinner, while talking about von Bekesy patterns and the past. I don’t recall exactly what I ate that evening, but I certainly remember the conversations. At one lull, a past president