Better Hearing Consumer

Oh my, stress is riding high these days. Aside from the politics-craziness, the pandemic keeps going and going, which means people keep wearing and wearing their masks. And for people with hearing loss who venture out in public, that means one stress moment after another as we try to communicate with other mask-wearers. As if our hearing loss stress wasn’t

On social media today, I’m seeing important articles that will benefit people with hearing loss (if they read the articles). My friend Shari Eberts writes about what a person should look for in a hearing health care professional. Other people are encouraging people to advocate for clear masks so that we can understand what the heck people are saying. Then

In our healthcare system, who is responsible for flagging hearing problems that could negatively impact a senior’s health and safety? Apparently, it’s the person with the actual hearing loss. My sister and I worried about our father. He was elderly but still had a razor-sharp mind and a killer sense of humor. He was proud, stubborn and fiercely independent. He

For the first four decades of my life, I was alone with my hearing loss. I didn’t know anyone else who was ‘hard of hearing’ except, when I was young, my 90-odd-years-old great-grandmother, Bonnie. Bonnie’s hearing loss was probably age-related. But back then, I didn’t know or care what caused it; I was only a kid and she could be

I’m scratching my head. Also, a little miffed. Why has it been so hard to get our leaders to include sign language interpretation in daily updates on the pandemic that has upended our world?! I’m Canadian and back in March, I was shocked to see that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s daily updates did not, at first, include sign language interpretation.

We’re doing a lot of eye-reading these days. Eyes and their eyebrows and forehead are all we can see on the face in these days of pandemic. And, as everybody should know by now, that’s a problem for people with hearing loss. Mask-wearing hides our lower faces, leaving only the eyes to help speechreaders decipher what’s being said. The muffled

If you have hearing loss, you probably know a lot about it. Most of it you may not like, but the more information you have about your hearing loss, the better you will deal with it. It helps to know, or at least be aware, of what you should do or not do. Strategies that improve your understanding and practices

I have tinnitus – badly. For five years it has been my constant companion, the one thing that I can count on to be there for me at every moment. But if I manage to forget about it, a Facebook alert that someone is posting about their constant companion, brings mine back to front of mind. My tinnitus – or

I’ve shocked myself. For the first time ever, I’ve told someone that I’m deaf. Deaf – I’ve  never used that term to describe my hearing levels – or lack of.  For the first two thirds of my life, I described myself as hard of hearing. In the most recent third of my life, I use the term hearing loss, as

In a recent article, “Are Hearing People Finally Getting It?”, I wrote how the pandemic’s use of masks have given hearing people a sharp glimpse into what it might be like to have hearing loss. Specifically – what it means to be dependent on speechreading to understand. The world has been brought face-to-partial-face. While some people are outraged at being