My mother couldn’t hear. My father couldn’t hear. So it’s no surprise that as I’m about to turn 68, I can’t hear as much as I used to either. Back in the day, I used to say I could hear a bee sneeze. Now I go to a meeting or a poetry reading and I miss half of what’s said. I go to a yoga class and if I’m in a posture where I can’t see the instructor, I don’t know what to do next.
My mother waited too long to get hearing aids. My father never got them. He missed so much. I’m not doing that.
Therefore, welcome to my first pair of hearing aids. They’re the fourth most expensive thing I have ever purchased, behind the house, car and my master’s degree. I have known since 2016 that I needed them. Medicare and private health insurances do not cover hearing aids, and I just didn’t have the money.
The Hearing Loss Association of America reports that 20 percent of Americans and one in three people over 65 report some degree of hearing loss. Only 20 percent of those who could benefit from hearing aids use them. On average, they wait seven years to get them. Why? Because the cost is ridiculous, and the results are less than satisfying.
The people I went to back in 2016 wouldn’t take credit or time payments and refused to accept my answer when I said I couldn’t afford it. They sent me home with loaner hearing aids. I’m sure they thought I’d be so thrilled I’d come up with the money. Those hearing aids were not programmed for me, and they came with no instructions. I wasn’t even sure I had them in right. I could hear my clothes swishing against each other, but when I went to a poetry reading, I still couldn’t hear the readers. When I tried to talk to people, it was like talking underwater. I couldn’t wait to give them back.
But I knew hearing aids were in my future. I could tell that my hearing was getting worse. Thanks to my inheritance from my father–who should have used his money on his own hearing aids–I could buy them now. Enough with nodding and pretending to hear what I couldn’t. This was a different experience. William Beaver at Miracle-Ear was understanding, supportive, and excited about what I’d be able to hear.
The first couple days were a rush of new and remembered sounds, but on Sunday, I wanted to throw them across the room. Playing and singing with the choir at church, everything was TOO LOUD, even when I turned them down. My ears itched like crazy. At home, I was annoyed by the roar of the gas fireplace, which I thought merely hummed. The ice maker dropping ice into the tray scared me. Annie’s nails clacked on the floor. Even these computer keys made little clicking noises. Clearly, hearing aids are a mixed blessing.
I like quiet. Sitting in my backyard yesterday, I loved the songs of the birds I hadn’t heard in ages. I hated the neighbor’s motorcycle and the helicopter warming up at the nearby airport. But later, when I turned on my tablet to watch a movie, I could hear it without headphones. When I turned on the TV, I could turn the sound down from 40 to 29. With nobody else living here, how would I have known if it was crazy loud? I remember how I could hear my dad’s TV clearly from the backyard and occasionally wore earplugs if I wanted to watch it with him in the living room.
I can hear the stove timer now when it shrieks. Before, I would just get a feeling it might be going off. I can hear the washing machine chugging. If someone knocks on my door, I’m thinking I’ll hear it. This is good.
Hearing aids are not like glasses, which I have worn since age 16. With my glasses on, my vision is 20/20. You cannot get 20/20 hearing. It will never be like it was when you could hear naturally. Some sounds that wouldn’t normally be loud are exaggerated. In a crowd, the clamor is confusing.
Today’s hearing aids are infinitesimally more sophisticated than those of the past. You can program them for all kinds of special sounds. We’ll be working on getting the music part right. Right now the acoustic piano is too loud, the classical guitar sounds twangy, and my voice sounds like I’m hearing myself through a microphone, which I am. I can control volume, direction and treble or bass with an app on my phone. It’s another machine to get used to, and yet another thing to plug into a charger at night, and I’m tired of machines, but I can hear what I couldn’t hear before, and that’s good.
I probably won’t wear my hearing aids to play at church next time—the music is loud, and Fr. Joseph shouts, but when I go to that next meeting, workshop or reading, I will be delighted to hear what the others hear. When I visit the family, I will be able to hear the soft-talkers as well as the ones with big voices. The next time I take a yoga class and the teacher says to close our eyes, I’ll be able to hear when she says to open them again.
I’m sad that I have lost the good hearing I used to have and will never get it back. I don’t want to deal with any of this. Getting used to my hearing aids is frustrating. But I’m grateful I can hear so many things again.
If I seemed to be ignoring you when you spoke to me, maybe I couldn’t hear you. Try me again.
I welcome your hearing aid stories and advice.
My dryer buzzes a Bb. My oven timer sings out a high D and the microwave offers a B above middle C. The doorbell ding-dongs a pleasant F down to D, but the tea kettle, old and weary, starts at F# and tends to go flat. My house is very musical. I’ll bet yours is, too.
Unleashed in Oregon 