Better Hearing Consumer

  Hearing loss is a big, bottomless bowl of emotional soup. The constant challenges of hearing loss keep our emotions in play: sometimes softer and manageable, often more painful and exhausting. And we don’t do one emotion at a time! Hearing loss is more complicated than that; emotions are close to the surface, always ready to erupt. Let’s say I’m

  Fact #1: If a conversation is to survive, both parties need to understand the other. Otherwise, it’s not a dialogue but two monologues. Fact #2: People with hearing loss often don’t understand what the other person is saying. This is also an incomplete conversation: one monologue and one chunk of confusion. In conversations, people with hearing loss often ask

  The annual convention of the Hearing Loss Association of America just wrapped up in Phoenix, Arizona. This means I must wait an entire year for the next one in Indianapolis, Indiana. (I’m clarifying the states for one of my sisters-in-hearing loss who is geographically challenged. I’m  Canadian and good at American geography. I do what I can to help.)

  Is this you? You’ve done all you can to hear and understand in a difficult listening situation, especially one that involves several people chatting and talking over each other. You’ve positioned yourself in the optimal position. The other people know what you need but still, in the flurry of animated voices, speaking and responding, you’ve fallen behind. There are

  Oh darn, I did it again. I slid into bluffing mode! Hey, the conversation was a nightmare to follow – it was noisy and I didn’t know the people very well. There were several things I could have done to not bluff, but they involved time, disruption, and putting more value on the casual conversation than I was prepared

  Amplification (abridged from Oxford Dictionary) the process of increasing the volume of sound, especially using an amplifier (such as hearing aids or cochlear implants.) the action of enlarging upon or adding detail to a story (such as telling others about our hearing loss and articulating our needs.) the action of making something more marked or intense (such as increasing

(Note: This is a longer-ish article, but it’s not boring and contains important stuff. Also, HoH means hard of hearing, a person with hearing loss.) A couple of weeks ago, I did something I swore I’d never do. I allowed myself to be pushed through the airport in a wheelchair even though my ability issue is profound hearing loss. I

As a person with hearing loss, I use a great deal of assistive technology. Hearing aids, cochlear implants, text translation such as captions and speech-to-text, TV streamers, remote microphones, etc., etc., etc.! This doesn’t mean that I understand how the technology works. High science and math are involved, and any engineer-designed item that requires creative thinking on my part to

Warning: The following may contain content that some people find upsetting. I had one of those incidents yesterday. I pulled a sweater off over my head and, in one of those awkward battles we have with ourselves, my hearing aid disengaged and fell to the floor. Because I didn’t feel it and or hear it land – it weighs only

Do you know that when you wear your hearing devices, you are an advocate? And do you know that every time you’re out in public, you have the potential to change the life of a stranger that day? Regardless of your back story, you wear your hearing aid or cochlear implant sound processor because you have chosen to hear better.