Use It Or Lose It

 I'm sure you have all heard the old adage "use it or lose it" but maybe you didn't realize that it pertains to a lot more things than just muscles. 

I have told people who say they are having trouble doing something that used to be easy that they need to practice it more.  I started that when I saw an elderly relative who had always been spry and active struggle to get up off the couch. Apparently, she had been sitting too much that winter, and then she thought she was just slowing down because she was getting older. In reality, it was because she had not been using those muscles as much in the past few months and needed to retrain them.  We can strengthen our muscles at any age, no matter how old we get, but if we don’t use them they get weak.

I have glasses for reading. They are prescription glasses with a prism in them, not drugstore reading glasses. I don't always use them. I'm typing on my tablet at the moment and my glasses are not even in the room with me. My hubby cannot read anything without his, and they are not as strong as mine. He has progressive glasses so he wears his all the time. His eyes, or his brain, have gotten used to having assistance.  My eyes just see what they see and my brain must fill in the rest.

Just recently I got new hearing aids. I have worn one for close to twenty years but it was once again time to get a new one. I was losing my word  recognition so I needed to upgrade to a stronger model and I finally accepted the fact that maybe I needed two. It did not take a week for my ears and brain to adjust to all this help and suddenly I could no longer  hear without the aides in place. I am hearing much better now, while wearing my new hearing aids but without them I am suddenly a lot deafer than I have ever been. Just more proof that if you don’t use it, you lose it.  As it was, I wasn't using the part of my brain that could recognize words and I think that's worse. I'm better off needing help to hear properly than I would be if I could not understand what was being said. Even so, I have now turned the volume down three clicks and can still hear just fine with the aids. Maybe that will help me be less deaf without them. One can only hope.....

Getting My Ears On

My hearing aid is past it's warranty period and basically worn out.  I have needed a new one for the past couple of years but I have been putting it off. With Covid-19 restrictions I wasn't going anywhere anyway and really only had one person to annoy by making him repeat eveything. 

I found myself tuning into the radio news several times in a day to try to catch what was being said. I'm not sure if that's a hearing problem or if I have just lost my listening skills. I gave in last fall and went for a hearing test. That's when I found out things had changed. Not only had the prices gone up but the warranty period had dropped from five years to just three. You get a trial period with new hearing aids in case that style or model turns out not to be the right one for you.  But I still was not getting to places where it could be tested properly so I decided, once again, to wait. I saw no point in wasting my warranty period when there was little to hear anyway.

But hey people, dispite the fact that there is a new Covid varient speading rapidly normal life seems to be making a comeback. I have been to visit family and friends and attended both the Legion Senior's Lunch and the Ladies Club dinner this past month.  I couldn't follow conversations in any of those situations so I went back to the audiologist. 

My last hearing test had apparently expired so I had to do it over again. There was no change and though I felt like I was not hearing as well, I just need to learn to listen again. People think that comes naturally but really, it's a skill. I need to practice.

I will be getting my new aid just in time for an upcoming event where I may get to talk more than I have to listen. There will be a small crowd there and I expect a lot more noise than at the meals I have attended. This will be an excellent testing ground to see what adjustments will be needed to my new assistive device. I do expect I will still need some people to repeat things but maybe I will at least be able to watch tv without closed captions.  One can only hope....

Invisible vs Practical

I am forever asking my friend if she has her ears on. She's supposed to wear hearing aids but she seldom does, at least when I'm with her. We have weird conversations as I'll say something and she will respond as if I said something else entirely. I've often wondered why she so frequently leaves her hearing aids in the box at home. I wear one too, but for me putting it in is just part of getting dressed. In fact, it may be the first thing I reach for in the morning so that I can understand what my family is saying to me as they get ready to go off to work.

She isn't the only one I know who I often catch without their assistive devices. One won't have hers on if she's at home until I come along and start to talk to her.  Then she will dash off to get it. Another old dear loves to spend time with people but will get upset when they ignore her. She has hearing aids but she doesn't wear them. She's in her 90's and just can't manage to put them in as her hands are rather arthritic. She has the tiny kind that nobody would notice in her ear. I wondered why someone had not taken her back to the audiologist and told him that this style simply is not suitable for her. I know I could have done that whenever I got a new one. She has a valid excuse for not wearing hers, where as I always assumed the others I know that are often running around without their aids in just never bothered to form the habit.

Hearing aids do take a bit of getting used to while you train your brain to distinguish one sound from another all over again. The thing is, if you have a hearing problem not only don't you know what it is you are not hearing, but you are more prone to both dementia and balance problems that could lead to falls. It's important to wear the darn things!

Recently I've had trouble hearing properly and have been making people repeat themselves entirely too often. I decided it was time to go see if it was me or my assistive device that needed help. My husband went so far as to tell the audiologist that this was the worst hearing aid I've ever had (it's my 4th). The audiologist was visibly shaken to hear that and asked me why my hubby would say such a thing. After all, this was a top of the line unit that he fought to get for me when the last one was found to be defective. I told him the truth. I make the poor man repeat everything he says and it's driving him nuts. Him and a lot of other people, I might add. I said that I was sorry to have to come in complaining but he quickly told me that since I'm an experienced user, he trusted that I knew when I was having a problem. He put the aid on a testing machine and looked closely at the results on the screen. He was quick to say there was definitely something wrong and pointed out several numbers that he said were out of line with what they should have been. He wanted to send it in for repairs.

That was December 13th. I had a play to go to that weekend, and my grandsons were coming for their birthdays. I suggested we wait until after Christmas, but he assured me that I'd have my unit back before Christmas and he'd give me a loner.

I have mentioned in a previous post that I don't wear the newfangled invisible style of hearing aid because I want people to have some clue as to the fact that I'm not ignoring them on purpose. If they can see a sign that I have a hearing loss, perhaps they will be more gracious if I don't immediately know what they are saying to me. Most people these days though seem to be a little more vain and don't want people to know they need help to hear. It's like they have to admit to getting old or something. Such nonsense!

Well, the loner was one of those. A little plug fits right into the ear canal, and a clear plastic tube runs to the actual hearing aid hidden behind my ear. I will admit the sound quality was good, but I now understand completely why my friends would rather go deaf and leave their units in the drawer.

It's not easy to insert that plug into my ear. It's not easy to know how to even hold the unit so it's facing the right way. If I had two of them, as most do, I'm sure I'd be doubly confused.  These things are a real pain to put on, even without arthritis crippled hands. I'm so glad I have my large, noticeable unit, and I could hardly wait to get it back.

So, if you, or someone you know is in need of some help to hear properly, unless you or they are extremely vain, you might want to reconsider taking on one of these invisible models. Think ahead and ask yourself how well you expect your hands to work in 5 to 8 years down the road. If you are  young perhaps this might still be the right choice for you. If you are in, or approaching your senior years, you may be better off with the larger unit. I know I am.

Can You Hear Me Now?

There are all kinds of handicaps. Some people are born with them. Other people acquire them though illness, accident, or aging. Some handicaps are visible and some are not.  Most people are ready, and willing to help people who are having difficulties due to most of these problems, in any way they can.  The problem is, certain handicaps actually have the opposite effect. 

Deafness is an invisible handicap. People often have no patience for it.  My audiologist offered me a tiny little hearing aid that would do the job of helping me hear very well, and nobody would even see it. She laughed when I told her I would rather have a bigger one that people could see.  I prefer people to understand why it is that I make them repeat themselves, or face me when they talk. I figure that if I give that visual reminder, they wouldn't forget.  I was wrong, of course.

Let me lay out a few rules for those of you who know people with a hearing loss:

1.  Don't talk to them from the far end of the house.  They will know you are talking but they will not know what you said.

2.  Don't start talking and then turn your back and walk away before you are finished.  Many of us rely on being able to read your lips, and even if we can't, your sound waves are going out in front of you.  What flows back toward the person you walked away from is distorted and hard to understand.

3.  Keep your hands away from your face.  Like I said, it helps if we can actually see you talk.

4.  If you normally talk a mile a minute, do try to slow down.  It's hard to catch what you are saying if it's all jumbled together.

5.  Get the deaf person's attention before you start to speak to them.  Simply calling them by name would likely help.

6.  If there is another sound in the room, like a TV or a radio, make sure that other sound is not between you and the person with the hearing loss.  That other sound will be picked up more easily than your voice when you are beyond that sound.

7.  If you want to have a conversation, it would be greatly appreciated if you turned off any competing sounds first, if that's at all possible.

8.  If you are being met by a puzzled look, even after you have repeated yourself several times, find another way to phrase what you are trying to say. Hearing aids may make sounds louder, but understanding what those sounds mean is not always as easy as you may think.

9.  If you know the hearing impaired person can hear better in one ear than the other, try to position yourself accordingly.

10.  Don't snap at us if we don't respond.  We have a Hearing Problem!

Please try to help us the same way you would if we were blind, or missing body parts, or had other more obvious difficulties.  We are doing the best we can with our particular handicap.

The Latest Technology

Seven years ago I started to wear a hearing aid.  Even then, it was likely over due. But the darn things don't last as long as you would think, given the price, and though I got a couple more years than expected, the old one finally died just before Christmas.  Oh yes, I have been driving people mad by asking them to repeat things ever since.  As I said, they are not cheap and there were other places to spend the money but since I could no longer stand not to know what the people around me were talking about, I finally went and got a new one this week.

I was told that the technology had changed a lot since I got my last one. In fact I was even warned that the new technology might be too much for me.  So, while I was very excited to be going to get the new assistive device, I was also a bit worried about what they meant by that statement.

My old unit was a good one. It had a wee button on it that let me adjust the sound to get rid of background noise, and it was also supposed to be adjustable so that it would work with the phone. Well, I never did get it to work with the phone, though I had it adjusted a couple of times because of that. I ended up listening on the phone with my right ear, so I had to hold it there with my left hand if I had to write anything down. Awkward, but at least I could still hear on the phone. 

Yes, in case you are wondering, I am supposed to wear two hearing aids, but I guess it's a good thing I only accepted one, or I never would have been able to use the phone at all. 

The old unit also came with a little remote control, so I could adjust the volume.  I only ever used it if I was at a play, or in a restaurant. Then I would get rid of the background noise and boost the volume.  That worked very well for me.  The other setting on that remote put the whole unit into automatic mode. That means it would adjust itself, as needed, as I went from one environment to another.   I found that to be very annoying as it had a slight delay and usually changed as I was leaving the new environment and passing on to another one that it was no longer set up for.  I gave up on that option shortly after I got the first hearing aid.

This new aid has that little button and a remote too, but it has a few interesting differences.  I don't need to set it up to use it on the phone. It changes settings on it's own, both when you start to use the phone and when you stop. It senses that all by itself.  Other than that, there is still a little button on the unit that gets rid of background noises, and has another setting for wind!  That surprised me, as when I got the first hearing aid, I was told these little computers don't like wind.  This new one has a wind shield and with this new setting, I might actually hear people I walk with on windy days. I'll get to test that out this week.  My fingers are crossed for that to work!

The main difference with this unit is that it sends me signals as to what it's doing.  It will play me a little tune when it first turns on, so I know it's up and running. It will tell me in words, what mode I'm in as I change from on to another. Yes, it talks to me!  It will even tell me when the battery is about to die.  If I mess around with the volume control on the remote control to much, and loose track of what setting I have it on, I can reset it by hitting the Home button, but if I still don't think that it's set to the original mode or volume, then I can open and close the battery door three times and it will reset everything, or, if it can't, it will actually tell me, "Make an Appointment!" 

I've been wearing it since Friday morning when I got it.  It doesn't have too much technology for me, and I'm still not sure what they meant by that.  I'm doing fine, and so happy to be back in the world of the living.  I was almost in tears one night last week as I sat in the home of some friends while they had a good visit with my hubby. I couldn't hear my friend, who was sitting right beside me on the left. I couldn't hear my hubby who was sitting on the opposite side of the room. I could only hear the person on my right, and he didn't do much of the talking.  Not being able to hear is not fun!  Last night we were at a little dinner party with two other couples, and even though it was outside on the patio, I had  no trouble hearing at all.  I'll be needing a slight fit adjustment, but otherwise I'm quite happy with this new unit.