Better Hearing Consumer

Editor’s Note:  Entering the world of hearing loss, I felt like Alice going through the looking glass;  I was immediately immersed in a new universe populated with a large and expanding cast of people – interesting people who shared my issues and understood my challenges. Some have become close friends. Many have inspired me with their curiosity and passionate commitment

Editor’s Note: This week, I’m pleased to offer this powerful story from Jonathan Nicoll, a teacher,  a natural bodybuilder, and a positive thinker extraordinaire! Jonathan, a Canadian, was diagnosed at age 5 with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss and wears bilateral digital behind-the ear hearing aids.  He is a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children, a caregiver

Are you tired of reading other people’s resolutions for the coming year? Personally, I’m saturated with the chest-thumping declarations, no matter how brilliantly written, that have been popping up everywhere – in the newspaper, on Facebook and LinkedIn and other social media. I just can’t do any more new year’s resolutions, including mine. So I’ve decided to scrap my original

When considering a blog about hearing aid batteries, I thought “What’s to write? When I put them in, I hear. When they sputter out, I don’t. I put in new batteries. End of boring story.” On second thought, I’ve been “doing” hearing aid batteries for 37 years (I started young), and  I don’t usually think about them until there’s a

As a person with hearing loss, there are many sounds I’d love to hear well again, like the sibilant ‘s’ and Christmas bells.  There are other sounds that I’m happy not to hear well any more – a person blowing their nose, comes to mind, or a cat expelling a fur ball. But the sound I hope never to hear again

Dear Santa, First of all, may I say that you are looking spectacular these days – a little trimmer around the belly and – even better –  a trimmed moustache around the mouth. We’ve never met, you and I, but if that great event were to happen, it’s nice to know that I would be able ‘speechread you’ without interference from

The other day, I did a presentation of Sound Sense, the Hearing Foundation of Canada’s elementary noise-induced hearing loss educational program, to a class of Grade 4 students. During the fun session, we ask the 9 and 10 year-old kids about the noisy activities or really loud experiences in their lives. Some of the usual responses include irritating baby brothers

The Scene: In a salon, a woman sits down in a chair and removes the towel from her wet hair.  She puts her hearing aids back in and looks at herself in the mirror, chatting to the stylist.  Tell me honestly, do my hearing aids show? I mean, like a lot? I know I’ve always worn my hair long to cover my

If you’re a parent – what did you worry about when expecting your first child?  Probably the standards – will all the regular bits be in good working order, will it be healthy and maybe, as a bonus, will it be gorgeous, too? If you’re a hearing parent, you probably did not worry about your baby being born deaf. And

November is a month of events that inspire emotions – Remembrance Day (grief), American Thanksgiving (gratitude), the falling of the leaves (awe), and the release of the new Beaujolais (love). It’s also Movember, the innovative fundraising and awareness event about men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer.  During Movember-in-November, men show their support by sprouting facial hair all over their upper lips