NOW HEAR THIS!

will always remember the day I came home with the results of my first audiogram that showed I was starting to lose my hearing. Some gentle readers (especially those who are married) will find this hard to believe, but Kathleen had said to me, and more than once, “You’re not listening to me!”. 

That day I came home too excited even to take my coat off first, and I told her proudly, “AHA! I AM listening to you, I just can’t hear you! Here’s proof! BUSTED!”. 

And I showed her the audiogram, that clearly showed this drop in acuity especially around a certain mid-high frequency (which I call “the Kathleen frequency”). The odd shape of the graph, the audiologist told me, indicated that the deafness was probably hereditary. My dad was hard of hearing then, so I blamed him for it (as I do for the fact that I’m tottering ever on the verge of baldness). 

Back then, my hearing wasn’t bad enough to take any action; it just gave me a ready excuse whenever Kathleen accused me of not listening. I remember exactly when I realized that my hearing had gotten so bad as to need intervention. I was at work, at one of those innumerable and interminable meetings that all Federal bureaucrats must attend. My friend and boss Leon leaned over and whispered something in my ear. 

Now, everyone who has ever been subjected to these things knows that the most important parts of any meeting are the things whispered to you while you’re pretending to pay attention to the Powerpoint. But I found to my horror that it was impossible to make out anything he said! I couldn’t pull out a single word or phrase from which I could fake a vague but meaningful-sounding response! I had lost one of the most fundamental tools of any functioning bureaucrat.

So I sprang for some hearings aids. My health insurance covered the testing, but didn’t pay anything for the hearing aids themselves. And they weren’t cheap! They cost several thousand dollars, easily the most expensive (per pound) thing I owned.

They served me well over the next few years. They occasionally they had to be adjusted upward (though they have been at their maximum setting for a few years now).

They’ve been lost and found many times, survived a hot shower and, amazingly, a full-cycle trip through the washing machine. Their engines finally gave out and had to be rebuilt about five years ago, so I knew they were probably coming to the end of their useful lives. 

A month or two ago I learned that some hearing aid manufacturers had cut deals with my insurance company, so that new hearings aids, and all the hearing tests, would be be absolutely free to me. 

I knew that hearing aids had gotten much more sophisticated in the years since I had bought mine. They could be controlled and fine tuned by a smart phone app, rather than having to tote them back to the audiologist. The hearing aids could interact with each other via Bluetooth, they could stream sounds from phone calls or other devices directly into your ears, and even tell you where you lost them. My old hearing aids weren’t dead yet, but this seemed like a deal too good to pass up, so I decided to upgrade my oto-tech. 

I talked my Dad into getting new ones too. He’s deafer than I am (did I mention that my deafness is HIS FAULT?), and he’s also more of a social butterfly, so he needs his hearing even more than I do. But he rarely wears his current hearing aids because they’re cumbersome and don’t work that well. They’re over 20 years old, so he’s certainly due for some new ones—especially as his insurance has the same deals that make them free to him too!

We went together to the hearing aid store, where an attractive young audiologist* gave us each hearing tests, took measurements and asked our preferences, and recommended which hearing aids to order. (*Full disclosure: I’m 65 and my dad is over 90, so to us virtually every woman is young. And attractive.)

My Dad has an iPhone, which all the modern hearing aids are compatible with, but I had a cheap old Samsung phone that didn’t work with most of them. After a some searching for hearing aids that worked with my phone, I realized I was basing my selection of four- or five-thousand-dollar hearing aids on compatibility with my $99 phone, which was completely backwards. So I resolved to go out and buy a more modern phone, and selected a hearing aid model based solely its features and quality (cost not being an object).

In a couple of weeks we went back and got our new hearing aids. Or I did, anyway; my Dad’s were not set up right and had to go back to the factory. “I’m sorry”, she said, “for some reason I forgot to check the box for iphone compatibility.” 

(I know the reason she forgot. She was being age-ist: my dad is a nonagenarian, and she just assumed the most advanced thing he could possibly own was a flip phone, or more likely just a rotary-dial phone on the wall at home. (For the record, my Dad DOES have a rotary phone on his wall in addition to the iPhone in his pocket; in fact, he also has a hand-crank phone on his wall, but that’s a story for another day.))

So I got my new bionic ears yesterday, in time for Christmas. What a difference! Before when I had my old ones tweaked, I would notice for a few days how sounds were just a little bit sharper (like when you first put on glasses with a new prescription). But with these, I could suddenly hear everything! She assured me I was just hearing what normal-sounded people always hear, but to me it was like everything was clear, and understandable, and way too loud. 

We had friends over last night, and I had to ask Kathleen if everyone (including me) was shouting, because it seemed so loud to me. I excused myself to use the bathroom, and when I was peeing, it sounded like I was clanging a cow bell in there! My first thought was that everyone must be able to hear me!

My second thought was, don’t worry, it just seems so loud to you because of your new hearing aids. You’re not peeing any louder than you were before. 

My third thought was, but now you have normal hearing, and before you were deaf, so this is how loud you really are, and for all these years you were making this big racket in the bathroom and didn’t even know it. Now I know why people talk so loud at dinner parties!

I’m sure I’ll get used to the hearing aids soon, both the sounds, and the social implications, and it is really nice to be able to hear at what I imagine must be a normal level (it’s been so long, I can’t really tell from memory). And Kathleen is certainly looking forward to being able to address me in a normal tone of voice. So this has been a great present for me, and that doesn’t even count the cool phone app to play with that lets me adjust the hearing aids while I’m wearing them! What a Christmas!

Thanks for listening,
Dorn
12/20/2019