Better Hearing Consumer

It’s not a university level course, or even a highly specialized skill. It simply shouldn’t be that difficult for ‘hearing’ people to communicate well with people like me, the ones who have hearing loss. After all, WE have the hard job – trying to hear and understand what people are saying, especially those with less than stellar communication skills –

When I look back to my life before I met other people with hearing loss, I can see how they changed my world in ways I never expected. The following tries to express my gratitude for their impact on my hearing journey. _____________ The new baby smiled and thrived, and her parents said, she’s good, she’s beautiful, she’s perfect. But

This is Tinnitus Awareness Week…and let me tell you, those of us who have it are very aware of it! It’s always there in some form. Soft or screaming, single note or techno-pop, screeching high or thumping low. Or all at once. It follows you everywhere, this tinnitus, like a painful itch you can’t scratch, monopolizing your focus, diverting it

All people with hearing loss have experienced the two most painful words in the hearing loss dictionary—never mind. The hurt at hearing them never gets old, even though we may learn how to respond to them better. But how about that six-word question that plagues every hearing aid or cochlear implant user: “Have you got your thing  in?” This can set off

Everyone does it. Everyone, not just the people with hearing loss, asks for things to be repeated and for many reasons. We are momently distracted from the speaker’s words. What’s being said doesn’t quite make sense. The speaker is talking and eating at the same time. People are talking over each other. The words and facial expressions don’t match, such

I don’t like noise. It’s not so much the noise itself, but what it does to me – and what I have to do to counteract its toxic effects. For many people, noise exposure can cause a stress reaction. Others have noise sensitivity. For the person with hearing loss (aka ME), the noise of public spaces, large gatherings or even

This the week we vow to exercise more, eat better, be nicer, and reduce, reuse and recycle – and this week, we mean it. Ask us next week how it’s working out so far. But as a person with hearing loss, I’ve realized that there is more that we can do, not just for ourselves but for other people impacted

It’s the end of the year. And this year, many of us are hunkering down inside, nursing a cold or the flu (like the Hearing Husband), trying to find something good on TV that we haven’t yet streamed, and maybe even a backward glance over the past year. It’s been a year of amazing additions to my Hearing Loss Champion

Dear Santa, Hi, it’s me again. You should remember me because you probably don’t get too many letters from Canadian HoH (hard of hearing) kids who transform into Canadian sixty-somethings who are deaf without their hearing devices. Ring a reindeer bell? Firstly, thank you very much taking my suggestion to trim your moustache a titch – the elves with hearing

It’s that time of year again—the season of being pummeled with advice on how to survive the holidays. All sorts of issues pop and bloom with the festivities: anxiety and stress, weight problems or financial worries. For me and my people, we have holiday hearing issues that exclude us from what’s going on. This time of year is particularly tough