Better Hearing Consumer

You’ll be told that your hearing’s so murky and muddy, your case calls for special intensified study. They’ll test you with noises from far and from near and you’ll get a black mark for the ones you can’t hear. Then they’ll say, “My dear fellow, you’re deafer than most. But there’s hope, since you’re not quite as deaf as a

How much does it matter – losing one’s hearing? That’s a silly question, unless we ask: who does it matter to? It obviously matters to those of us who have it, because it colors and shapes almost everything we do. How we accept and deal with it is personal, a lifelong journey. But does hearing loss matter to people who

I can’t hear through walls and around corners. A more accurate statement would be that I can’t understand through walls and around corners. If I don’t see the sound source or, if I can’t see the lips of the human making the sound, I usually do not understand. Those walls and corners cause sound shadows. Also known as an acoustic

Recently, on a walk in the woods, I sensed a half-forgotten fragrance. It was the smell of tall cedars, firs and undergrowth warming up after the winter – earthy, sweet, green. I hadn’t smelled it for a long time, and it came with a jolt of pleasure. Over the next couple of days, I experienced similar smells that I felt

  HoH = Hard of Hearing = Person with Hearing Loss = (Or, However You Choose to Identify!) I’m a HoH. I like the term because it’s snappy and takes less time to say than “I’m hard of hearing” or “I’ve got hearing loss”. But I use it only with like-minded people, the ones with hearing loss, because other people (the hearing

A hearing parent hears warning sounds that a hard of hearing parent cannot, leading to some Frightening Mommy Moments. And when my son Joel was small and even when looking directly at me – which was one of his early life lessons – it took work to understand him as his speech developed. (Eventually, as a child of a mother

  “Honey, what’s that sound?” “A bird.” “What kind?” “You’ve got to be kidding. I dunno, one with feathers.” On the hiking trails, spring wildflowers are popping up, and I’m grateful for these silent beauties of nature. Hearing sounds out of doors has always been a challenge for me. Nature has no walls to contain sound and no light switch

The hearing care professionals joke about us, the people with hearing loss, among themselves. (They do, I know they do!) We’re the people who delay doing anything about our hearing loss for years, yet once we’re used to our hearing aids and cochlear implants, we can’t do without them for a moment. Mysteriously dead batteries cause panic. Hearing aids that

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty damn critical about myself. I think everyone is, to a certain extent, but I’ve noticed a pattern where folks with disabilities are more self-critical than folks without any disabilities. It’s almost like we put ourselves up to a higher standard because we don’t meet society’s typical standards. Society doesn’t explicitly say we

Note: “HoH” is a term that some people with hearing loss use occasionally to describe themselves – usually to other HoHs. It’s an acronym for ‘hard of hearing’, a term that ‘hearing people’ (how HoHs describe people without hearing loss) tend to understand. Sort of, sometimes. (Are you still with me?) I’ve had hearing loss my entire life. I became