The hearing aid brigade

Yes, I’ve joined the hearing aid brigade. I have the kind of hearing loss that is expected for someone of my age. Imagine that! I figured if I was going to get hearing aids I might as well get all the whistles and bells available so when I came home from the appointment I informed Richard that he had just bought me a ‘Cadillac.’

So far, I’m quite thrilled with the technology. As many of you know, I'm an avid audio book consumer. I now have 600 titles in my library, most of which I’ve listened to. It actually feels odd to read a print book. I still read magazines and the newspaper the conventional way though. The hearing aids are bluetooth capable and we have set them up so that they pair automatically with my phone. I can now wander around the house talking to thin air. I’m a bit more hesitant to do that in public. People tend to avoid someone who is having a conversation with the ether at normal speaking levels. On second thought, I imagine that could come in handy in some situations. I’ll file that away for further reference

The best part about the hearing aids, other than hearing better, is that it is now so easy for me to listen to my audiobooks anywhere. I don’t have to remember to bring earphones. There is a way to pause the book by tapping my ear but I haven’t quite mastered that one yet so when I want to pause I still tend to pull out the phone and use the pause button on that. One step at a time.

This whole technology is a wee bit big-brotherish. When I went in for my first check the audiologist downloaded all the data from the hearing aids. He was able to tell me that I have spent quite a bit of time streaming. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. He also told me that I have averaged wearing the hearing aids 11 hours a day and that I had mostly been in quiet environments. I imagine I could get the same information from the app on my phone. Apparently I can vary the settings to focus the sound more precisely when I’m in a situation such as a noisy restaurant. I have yet to experiment with that.

head phones and hearing aid charger

When I started off he set the hearing aids at 90% of the prescription. He said if people have severe hearing loss and you boost the signal too much the change is overwhelming. I never thought of that. He was surprised that I didn’t comment on how different my speaking voice sounded to me. I didn’t comment because it didn’t sound all that different. What I did notice was that my s’s seemed much more pronounced and sounds like the microwave beep have overtones that I’ve been unaware of. I thought the ticking of the clock in my study would drive me nuts but I’ve grown used to it. The other thing that’s a bit disconcerting is that wind noise now sounds like I’m hearing it through a microphone that needs a dead cat. I think that’s what the furry mic covers are called. Since there are three microphones in each hearing aid, I guess that’s pretty accurate. I don’t think that, other than wearing a toque or ear muffs, I can do much about the wind noise though.

What I didn’t expect was how incredibly itchy my ears were at first. They have calmed down considerably. Wearing a mask, which I still do when out in public, is a bit more of a challenge but I’m getting the hang of that as well. I can also pair the hearing aids with my computer so I have the choice of listening through headphones, which I usually do, or listening through the hearing aids. I’m getting the hang of disconnecting from one device and reconnecting to another one. I have a battery pack that I can charge that will last me a few days if I’m camping and away from the grid. About the only downside I can see is that I now have one more device that requires a battery. When I travel I have a phone, and its charger, a camera, and its charger, a fitbit and its charger, and now hearing aids and their charger. Oh well, it’s a small price to pay for not having to work as hard to figure out what's being said around me and, of course, there are the audiobooks.