Turn up your hearing aids

I don't believe Mom suffered from dementia. I think she lost her mind trying to adjust to her hearing aids.

Ok, that was a little overly dramatic, but truth be told, trying to adjust to my hearing aids has been a lesson in self-discipline (resisting the urge to punch King who mumbles when he speaks) and fighting blue tooth technology.

My venture into the world of hearing aids began with a trip to the doctor because I have tinnitus (ringing in the ears) -- undoubtedly from too many years of listening to rock and roll at five million decibels. They discovered I have moderate hearing loss -- again probably from too many years of listening to rock and roll at five million decibels.

Hearing aids are expensive. We were fortunate King's insurance paid for a portion of them, but even then we opted not to go as high tech as we could have because, well, we like to eat and pay rent. At a time in our lives where we are trying not to have additional expenses, making payments on hearing aids was one expense we decided we could do without. I suppose you get what you pay for, but what we paid was still not cheap. Think purchasing last year's used car rather than a brand-new car.

So I have rather low-end hearing aids and even at the lower end of today's technology they have about 5000 times the technology of Mom and Dad's hearing aids. Dad never did adjust to his. He wore them infrequently. Mom was profoundly deaf and could not function without hers.

I'm with Dad. I hate them and will wear them as little as possible. And that's sad because, as I said,  even at the low end of the budget spectrum, these puppies were not cheap. But I can tell you what a pain in the backside it is to wear them. I have been in and out of the audiologist's office getting mine adjusted more times than I can count. They are simply not the panacea for being able to hear. Case in point: when going out to eat, I prefer hearing the conversation at the table where I'm sitting rather than be able to hear the cook in the kitchen burning his hand on the grill.  When I'm at work, I'd rather be able to hear the co-worker talking to me than to hear the person five desks away crunching potato chips.

And don't get me going about blue tooth technology.

With the simple click of a button I can pair my hearing aid to my cell phone. How wonderful to be able to talk on the phone and hear the conversation through my hearing aids. Never mind that the person I'm talking to can't hear me. If  I want to have a conversation with someone and listen to them say: "What? You're breaking up," then my hearing aids are great. Otherwise I can turn off the blue tooth, pull the hearing aid out of my ear and converse normally. It's a good thing I'm not as stone deaf as Mom was.

Every time Mom talked on the phone she had to remove her hearing aids or they would squeal . . . loudly. We got her a phone with an amplifier so any time she had a phone conversation everyone in the house could hear that conversation. Even Dad without his hearing aids.

And as long as I'm on a rant. . .  Few people can understand the joy of having their ears connected to a cell phone so every time a text message, email or alert comes through there is a little beeping in the ear, the hearing aids go dead for about three seconds and then beep and go back on. Three seconds may not seem like a long time, but when you are in the middle of a conversation with a co-worker and suddenly your ears go completely dead, believe me, there is a lot of missed conversation in those three seconds. Now I can hear reasonably well without the hearing aids, so one might think that when the hearing aids beep off, no big deal, right? No. Hearing aids when inserted in the ears and when not working are essentially like stuffing your ears with cotton balls

I know for Mom the biggest adjustment was learning to filter out background noise. I have been told when my hearing aids are properly adjusted they will do that automatically for me. I have my doubts but I am ever hopeful. Mom did not have that option.

I recall a time when, shortly after Mom got her first hearing aids,  Dad's sister and brother-in-law were visiting. Someone said something and Mom asked them to repeat it. My aunt said to Mom, "Turn up your hearing aids.You spent all that money for them, why don't you use them?"

Pretty rude, right? They were wealthy and figured they could say whatever they wanted. And they often did with little regard to the feelings of anyone else. I find that often to be true with those who feel their social standing is above others. . . Think Donald Trump.

Poor Mom. I can now relate to how frustrating it is to not just have the sound of the person talking to you amplified, but also to have the sounds of water running in the kitchen sink, the blender mixing a smoothie, the washer in the laundry room on the spin cycle and the TV in the living room all competing for amplification in her ears. It's enough to make anyone a little crazy.

It used to be when my work day was done the first thing I removed was my bra. Now it's my hearing aids. Ahhhh. Blessed silence.

So next week, King and I will make yet another trip to the audiologist. He is going in with me this time so I'm hoping the audiologist will adjust the hearing aids to the "understand someone who talks as though he has cotton in his mouth" level.