Better Hearing Consumer

Recently, I had to give myself a slap in the face. The kind of “snap out of it” slap-a-thon that Cher gave to Nicolas Cage in “Moonstruck” when he was acting dopey-lovestruck – although not so hard.  I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, having tinnitus and hearing loss and all.  Poor me, why me, how did I pull

Last week, I did a presentation at a hearing health fair in Victoria, BC. The popular event by Broadmead Hearing has been running for nine years. Free of charge, people can talk to manufacturers of hearing aids and assistive technology, as well as organizations that offer other hearing-related services such as counseling, job support, speechreading, etc. Throughout the morning, there

It took Robert Seidler a few years – almost 40 – to reach out for hearing help. Here’s his story.   By Robert Seidler   I am a filmmaker living in Sopchoppy, Florida. I’m also an avid bicyclist, who has long enjoyed the special Zen-like environment of riding through nature. Whether discussing film projects with clients or talking about life’s

We’re driving through Oregon, returning home to Canada after two months of touring southwestern United States in Flag, our fifth wheel. Rain starts to plop on the windshield. I’ve always heard rain, but on a highway at high speeds, the sound mixed with other road noises and wasn’t always distinguishable. But today I heard the distinctive ‘plops’ and then I noticed

by Kathi Mestayer   Top-down grabs wheel, runs into ditch There are two different ways in which we make sense out of speech – “top-down” and “bottom-up.” I first read about this in The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, in which he describes how we take sound input and make sense of it as speech. Let’s start with the top-down system,

The other morning, I woke up and thought, today’s my birthday. I’m 64. How in the world did this happen to me? How can this be?! It seems I’ve only just started feeling like an adult, and all of a sudden, I’m a senior?  Then I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The answer was right there, in

I’m delighted to have Joe Molinari, a police detective with hearing loss, as my guest writer this week.  by Joe Molinari   In the spring of 2001 I had just completed my seventh year as a police officer in a southern New Hampshire City, when I began noticing the signs of my hearing loss.  I experienced unexplained bubbling in my

Eyra Abraham,  this week’s guest writer, has fought against several ‘hidden’ hiring stigmas, including hearing loss. Eyra works in marketing and technology and  is an avid traveler who has explored the outdoors and culture of 10 countries in four continents. Eyra lives in Toronto, Ontario.   By Eyra Abraham   I have been ticking off more than one box on the self-identification

World Hearing Day is coming up on March 3rd.  I think the goal is to remind people to take care of their hearing – reduce exposure to loud noise, get a hearing checkup, buy a hearing aid, and whatnot. But for those of us who already can’t stand loud noise, own a fine selection of hearing aids and/or CI sound

We don’t mean to be mean. Sure, there was a time when we may have hated our hearing aids because they were too loud, too big, too ugly – and we didn’t really need them in the first place, right, but the family was nagging so much.  And those cochlear implant sound processors! The bland color, the size, the way