Better Hearing Consumer

I am delighted to welcome a guest blogger this week – Peter Stelmacovich, the FM and SoundField Product Manager for Phonak Canada.  Peter is a late-deafened audiologist and a CI user whose expertise and advocacy have supported people across the continent (and  probably around the world).  He is also a fellow Canadian, as well as my colleague at the Canadian

“You have your hearing aids in, how come you didn’t hear me?” “I guess you see better than other people because of your hearing loss, eh?” It’s difficult to understand hearing loss if you don’t have it. We know this because hard of hearing people are asked variations of these and many more questions all the time. Every day, everywhere

Ah, Paris – it was the highlight of a two-week vacation with the Hearing Husband in Belgium and France. The ‘City of Light’ is busy and noisy and full of wonderful sounds, most of which (I think) I heard. But really, who cares about perfect communication when you’re gazing open-mouthed, in awe, at the night-lit Eiffel Tower? And what’s the

Ever since I joined up with the Hearing Loss Association of America and the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, I’ve been immersed in positive hearing communication strategies.  Over time, I’ve been dunked, dredged and baked into a confident and assertive advocate for people with hearing loss. But on occasion, little cracks appear in the armor.   I have bad hearing moments

This is a short blog, because I’m going on vacation tomorrow and if you’re reading this, I’m already there. As I pack for this trip, I’m keeping a hard-learned lesson in mind: always be prepared. To most people, preparedness means double-checking that all essential clothes and travel documents are packed and the cell phone is updated with crucial text and

Being pulled over by the police has always been one of my secret dreads. Not because I’m hard of hearing, or carry illegal stuff in the trunk, but because I don’t want a policeman to be mad at me. Can’t help it; it’s the way I was raised, to respect the law. Little baby boomers playing in the streets would

In 1998, I joined 20 other people for a speechreading instructor-training program in Calgary.  It sounded like fun;  I could read lips and I figured I’d be good at it – and as the stay-at-home mom of a 2-year old, it seemed like a golden opportunity to get out of the house each week. The instructors-in-training, drawn from every Canadian province and territory,

That smile, really just a slight curve of the lips.  Are the eyes smiling too, or just watching someone? But who, and why? For hundreds of years, art lovers, kings and peasants have marveled at Mona Lisa’s beauty and pondered the source of the  enigmatic smile. But I, immune to her romantic appeal, know why. Mona Lisa was hard of

To really hammer home a message,  find a unique way to express it.    I came up with a new idea (maybe not a good idea, but definitely a new one) when I was talking about communication to a group of high school students with hearing loss.  A tactful young fellow said that he liked my presentation  a lot, but perhaps I should consider adding a little music to make it more interesting.

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