Better Hearing Consumer

(Hint: It’s not a wheelchair.)   I travel frequently for pleasure and business. My severe hearing loss poses no problem when I’m traveling with family or friends, who take over the most crucial communication chores. I depend on them to catch unexpected gate changes, pilot announcements about engine failure, and what train station we’re coming into—hopefully not the one after our destination. These

The green-eyed monster rises up in me every once in a while. I can’t help it—it’s human nature. My human nature. There are occasional moments when, stabbed in the heart with envy, I look at a hearing person (someone with no hearing loss) and think, “I wish I were you.” Usually it’s more like, “I wish I could do that!” 

Does any of this sound familiar? This hearing loss thing’s the pits.  I can’t enjoy a decent meal in a restaurant because it’s too noisy.  Hearing technology took a chunk out of my money, so you’d think that those guys would make ‘em work better. Family dinners are a noise-fest, everybody trying to out-loud the next guy – while I’m

How’s this for a salad bar of communication strategies? Hearing aids. Cochlear implants. Speechreading skills. Assistive listening devices. Telecoils and looping. Bluetooth. Captioning on TV, at the movies, on our smartphones.  Assertiveness in having our needs met. Manipulating our listening environment with lighting, good sight lines, and low-or-no background noise. People with hearing loss pick and choose the ones they

Cathy Beaton, my guest writer this week, offers a searing and honest look into the hearing loss technology that can both help us—and fail us.   By Cathy Beaton   I had been wistfully looking forward to some much-needed time off work.  And then ‘it’ began. My cochlear implant (CI) started to die, slowly. Shorter battery life and decreasing clarity. It

It was a road trip gone wrong. No, the car didn’t break down in the middle of nowhere and nobody got hurt. It was much much worse – there was a closed captioning crisis in our hotels! The Hearing Husband and I were driving from British Columbia to meet family in Lake Tahoe. It was a scenic three-day, two-night and

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, most people say they ignore it.  So does my Hearing Husband – although to be fair, I think  it just takes him by surprise every year on February 13th. To be even fairer, both of us are content with simply wishing each other a happy VD and moving on with our day. But whether or not you

When I get a cochlear implant, I shall wear feathers, I think. I haven’t made up my mind exactly, because it’s still a long way off, Within a year. I hope. I shall choose equipment to be white like my hair. Is that boring? Why not spice it up, flaunt it, and glorify it? With feathers from eagles, doves or heck,

Comments from three different conversations at a Class of ’65 high school reunion, held in the gym. Man:  Jeez, it’s hard to hear with all this noise. Man:  I’m wearing hearing aids these days. Woman:  I have hearing loss, and this noise is awful. Can we move outside to continue talking? Who do you think is going to have the

Editor’s Note:  HearingHealthMatters.org is pleased to feature two related articles by teacher Bonnie Stone this week.  In the Better Hearing Consumer, she discusses how a devastating sudden hearing loss and subsequent cochlear implantation have affected her career as an elementary school teacher.  When you are finished this article, visit Hearing Views, where she questions the rationale of advising CI candidates to keep expectations