Recruitment, Hyperacusis and Tinnitus

Check out this paper on hypersensitive hearing conditions. It explains why we automatically pick out our name from a noisy background, even when we can't distinguish any other speech.

http://www.tinnitus.org/home/frame/Hyperacusis_handout3_Nov00.pdf

That Crazy Lady with the Earplugs

That Crazy Lady with the Earplugs

Last week, I was parked at a local gas station, while a mechanic looked at the headlights on my car (both bulbs had blown out within days of each other). I couldn’t help noticing a group of construction workers sawing through the concrete pad where the pumps were, making an amount of noise that was really unbelievable unless you were right there in its midst (in which case it was painful). The worker nearest me did not appear to be wearing any hearing protection. I rummaged around in my car and found a pair of earplugs that I had squirreled away, and walked over to him. I handed him the earplugs, and gestured for him to put them in his ears. He seemed to understand, but walked away with them in hand toward a man in a forklift cab (who was wearing earplugs).

I tried to focus on my headlight repair, and paid the mechanic. By then, all the workers had pulled the hoods on their sweatshirts over their heads, and the noise had stopped. Odd, I thought. So, not being one to shy away from a confrontation, I walked over toward the man in the forklift cab. As I neared him, he shouted, “Ma’am, I have a glove box full of earplugs! That guy you talked to is the only one who won’t wear them!” So, I walked back up to “my” guy, and asked if he was wearing earplugs, and he showed me that he was, under his hood.

As I got into my car, he came over to the edge of the work site (surrounded by tape) and showed me his earplugs again and smiled. I smiled back and showed him my hearing aids, and shrugged.

Kathi Mestayer,

That Crazy Lady with the Earplugs

Hearing-Impaired Moment #4

This past weekend, I'm walking/birdwatching at the Greensprings Trail (red-headed woodpecker, juncos, bluebirds, cowbird, red-winged blackbirds) and I hear this loud, insistent and very clear bird call. I look around, asking myself what it is, and decide it must be a carolina wren. So, I stand there looking for it in my binocs and tweeting back at it. Finally, gave up and decided it must be hiding in the brush.
As I neared the parking lot, I heard my cellphone signal to me that I had a message. "But why hadn't I heard the phone ring?" I wondered. I programmed it with a nice, clear, bird-call ringtone. Kind of like.....a carolina wren....
Oh, okay. Duh.

Hearing-Impaired Moment #3

At the neighborhood pool one afternoon, I was reading and huddling in the shade, waiting for "adult swim" to start. Finally, the lifeguard blew the whistle long and loud. People started getting out of the pool, as they always do, and I got out of my deck chair and jumped in off the diving board.
When I surfaced, my friend Jill was at the side of the pool, gesturing to me to get out. I soon (but not soon enough) realized that the lifeguard had blown the whistle to get everyone OUT of the pool because of a thunderclap, which I didn't hear. He must've thought I was a recalcitrant scofflaw; jumping into the pool just as he ordered everyone to get out.

T-Coils: Not Just for Telephones Anymore

Most hearing-aid wearers know what the T-Coil, or "telephone setting" is. It's normally a button on the side or a hearing aid, or sometimes an automatic mode that the aid goes into when it's next to a telephone receiver. It picks up the telephone signal and then your hearing aid amplifies it.

Well, T-coils are not just for telephones. When you attend a meeting of the Hearing Loss Association of Williamsburg at the Downtown Library, you can turn on your T-coil and hear everything that is said into the microphone. As a new member of the HLA-W said, "This is the first time in years that I've been in a meeting where I can hear everything!"

And it's not only the Library. Several churches in the area have loop systems. Williamsburg Drug Company has one for facilitating private consultations between the pharmacist and hard-of-hearing customers. Some systems require a neckloop for good reception of the audio signal, others work at the touch of a (T-coil) button.

That's why it's very, very important for people to get hearing aids that have T-coils. Some of the tiny, "open-fit" (no ear mold) aids, and those that fit completely in your ear canal, are too small to accommodate T-coils. Hopefully, miniaturization will fix this problem in the foreseeable future. But in the meantime, make sure you, and others who ask your advice, insist on aids with T-coils!

Don't miss out!

Hearing-Impaired Moment #3

I was talking with a friend of my son's who knows I'm HI, and I must have gotten that blank stare of I have no idea what you just said, when I "heard" him say "Why don't you have earrings in"? Looking a bit puzzled, I reached for my ears and replied "I don't know, I usually do". Of course he immediately started laughing hysterically and repeated what he said "Why don't you have your hearing aids in"?
Chris Reedal

H.I.M. #2

The other day, I was trying to remove my left hearing aid to talk on my cellphone in the car (never a good idea), and instead removed my glasses. All of a sudden, things got really blurry. When that happens, it is REALLY time to stop using your cellphone in the car. When it's moving, that is.

H.I.M. = "Hearing-Impaired Moment"

You've heard of Senior Moments? Had one or two? You might get a kick out of the "seniormoment.blogspot.com" where you can share your own or chuckle at other peoples'.
Well, today I coined a new acronym: Hearing-Impaired Moment (H.I.M.). It's when someone says something, and you hear something completely different, and continue to listen to them, trying your very best to make some sense out of it. A Pilates instructor told me a good one today:

"A friend was telling me a story about what happened to her the other night. At one point, she said, "And then "nature called." I heard "And then Rachel called." So, there I am, listening to the rest of the story, and it's not really making any sense, so finally, I ask, "Who's Rachel?" She said, "Rachel who?" Well, that was good for a laugh!"

Do you have an HIM you'd like to share?

The good, the bad, and the equivocal

I've been thinking about hearing loss in the "good news, bad news" framework lately.
Of course, at first glance, it's all bad news, but there are little rays of light, like the fact that you can sleep through a thunderstorm.

Here are a few thoughts; please send me yours:

Good:
I can ignore things much more effectively (commercials, little speakers at the gas pump that holler at you while you pump your gas). I call it "studied oblivioiusness."
I often hear something very different than what is really going on, and sometimes it's amusing. On the plane yesterday, the flight attendant's announcements sounded (through my earplugs) exactly like bluegrass music. I had to pull the plugs out to convince myself that it wasn't bluegrass.
My parrot has learned how to leave my hearing aids alone, and that she had better be on my "good ear" side if she wants me to hear her insisting on getting her way.

Bad:
I can become isolated without even realizing it; just get lost in my thoughts and space out.
I have to be especially careful to let people in my neighborhood know I'm hearing impaired. Otherwise, they could call "hello" to me from next door and I wouldn't respond. This doesn't help with the isolation part, either.
My parrot broke a piece off my hearing aid once.
Too many people don't know enough about being an educated consumer of hearing aids, and end up with aids that either don't work, or aren't the right aids for them.

"Embarrassment is the death of possibility."
- Johnathan Lethem

Send Photos of Your Decorated Hearing Aid(s)!

I will be happy to post photos of people's decorated hearing aids. (Please don't damage your aid by festooning it!)

Manifesto

1. If a good friend, or your spouse or partner, tells you you need a hearing aid, believe them.
2. Getting good aids and wearing them is necessary but not sufficient. It is the way we make a good-faith gesture to all the people who help us communicate with them. It is meeting them halfway.
3. It's not our fault that we don't hear so good.