Better Hearing Consumer

  Every year, hearing health advocates write meant-to-be helpful articles (this is another one) on how people with hearing loss can make it through the holidays without wanting to murder their family and friends. And yes, those people, the ones who love you, but apparently not enough to remember what you need, even though you reminded them, like, five minutes

  It’s time. You’re pretty sure you need a hearing aid, maybe two. You’re having trouble following conversations, from any direction, and you know it’s not just because other people mumble. Although they do. With a deep breath and a pathetic cry of why me, you see a hearing care professional for a hearing assessment (so much fun). You pretend

When people with hearing loss turn out the lights at night, what comes next? All sorts of things, but usually not more conversation. One of our fundamental truths: the better the lighting, the better we communicate. During the day, there is light. During the dark hours, we turn on the lights. But at bedtime, when the lights, hearing aids and

As I waited for a recent flight, I passed some time watching the couple sitting across from me have a discussion. I couldn’t hear them and I had no clue to their topic, but I had nothing else to do and I’m a seasoned reader of faces. I was fully engrossed in their minor argument based solely on lip movements,

  Having a sense of humor is apparently an important key to living well with hearing loss, say them that knows. But I say, but what if you don’t have one? ‘They’ say, you can learn to laugh at yourself! I yell, what if you don’t WANT to, or CAN’T, or don’t know HOW? What if hearing loss has amputated your funny

  May I be calm and without fear. Tinnitus does not rule me. If you have chronic head noise, you’ll try almost anything to get rid of it. Tinnitus sticks to you in every waking moment, a biting bug you can’t shake off. Science hasn’t yet figured out how to fix the venomous noise in your brain which monopolizes your

  I haven’t yet watched Code of Silence, in which a deaf worker with exceptional speechreading abilities uses her skills to aid criminal investigations. I want to avoid the usual cringing at the myths of hearing loss and deafness perpetuated in popular media. If someone can assure me that Code of Silence avoids these myths, even in the pursuit of

Lately I’ve noticed an uptick in social media posts by people with hearing loss who write about feeling unseen and unheard. Stories about all the moments, small and large, in which they are excluded from communication with others because of not being able to hear. The impact can be powerful, suppressing the strength or courage to speak up and create

A woman will put up with a lot to spend a few glorious days with her Besties at a cottage on a beautiful lake. For me that meant two long flights and bracing myself for the inevitable communication barriers built into the travel-with-hearing-loss experience. Being asked if I would like a wheelchair or a Braille card. Airport announcements, unintelligible and

  As the microphone battery pack inched down inside my underpants, heading towards the leg opening and ultimately to the floor, I thought – Why do I keep doing this to myself?! The answer to that question, every time, is that this is what I love to do. The message is important. Public speaking is one of the most common