Community Blog – Page 14 – Open Ears Archive

The Day I Heard Santa Claus

It was 6 A.M. on Christmas morning. My brother, Doug, and I had woken up much earlier, but our parents said, “Don’t wake us up before six.” Each minute seemed to drag before, finally, we could spring into our parents’ bed shouting, “WAKE UP! IT’S CHRISTMAS!”

Both of them rolled under the covers, in hopes of grabbing a few more seconds of sleep. My dad cried, “Spirit! Haunt me no more!”, before letting my brother and me climb into bed. It was very easy to fit two parents, a four-year-old boy, a six-year-old girl, and a two-year-old cat under the same sheets. We were all warm, snug, and full of Christmas cheer. Inevitably, my Dad would always ask the same question, and it would always break my heart.

“Did you hear Santa last night?” My dad asked.

“Sure did!” Doug replied.

“Oh…yeah…me too…” I stammered, faking a smile.

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About Being Confused

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been trying out a variety of hearing aids as part of my newly-found “guinea pig” position at Phonak. As a geek, I love playing with new technology and trying things out. As a person with hearing loss, I’m curious about how good things can get for me.

One of the challenges I’ve come upon trying out hearing aid solutions is confusion. You know what happens when you’re shopping for perfumes, and after a (short) while you can’t distinguish smells anymore? That’s a bit what it feels like with sound. Maybe it has to do with the rather strong “habituation” component there is in the way we process sound.

Some situations are clear-cut: for example, after trying out the Bolero Q90 hearing aids for a few weeks, I switched back to my Widex Clear 330 ones to see if I could spot a “reverse difference”. One situation where there was no debate was at the vet’s: I’d been going there regularly throughout my Bolero trial, and when I went back with my Widex aids in, I really struggled to understand what my vet was saying. The room is a bit echoey and she speaks quite fast. To make extra sure I wore the Boleros next time around.

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As One Song Ends, Another Finds Its Voice

In late summer of 2010, my wife was dying.

Managing the late stages of a rare and fatal cancer was challenging enough, but our communication was deteriorating as well. Her voice had weakened to a whisper and my poor hearing and inadequate hearing aid could not compensate. We sat quietly in her final weeks making contact with our eyes and hands when words failed us both.

And then she was gone.

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The Inadequacy of Grateful Journals

Thanksgiving just went by in the United States, and Christmas is arriving exactly 28 days after. With the arrival of a season revolving around thankfulness and generosity, I have thought a lot about how people show their gratitude. A common method promoted by inspiration sites and figureheads like Oprah is the “Grateful Journal.” One is expected to write a list, ranging from three to ten items, of things for which they are thankful and explain why. Grateful journals are often suggested to individuals going through difficult transitions to maintain a positive outlook on life.

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Top Three Surprisingly Relaxing Visitor Attractions in Florence

As you’ll have seen from my profile/Gravatar I’m a travel writer (as well as being a deafened entrepreneur). Recently, I was in Florence, Italy and not having the best time of it because of the noise pollution and my hyperacusis. My only remaining hearing is in the mid-to high range in one ear and without my hearing aid, I can still hear very loud, very high sounds. (Like anyone with Otosclerosis, my audiogram is like an upside-down version of most people’s and my hearing deteriorated from the lower frequencies first.) This, coupled with my sensitivity to certain frequencies, meant I found the traffic noise in Florence particularly difficult to bear. I did however find some quiet attractions that I thought I’d share with you here.

View-from-Amphitheater-(C)-Angie-Aspinall-small

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What a Sound Difference!

I have been wearing hearing aids all my life, I was born deaf.

I grew up learning to adapt to new sounds and listening from the hearing aids.

But as we all know, hearing aids don’t last forever which means new upgrade, new sound quality, new everything. I have been wearing behind the ear hearing aids since I was a baby. I have had these particular old hearing aids for 10 years.

Ten-year-old hearing aids plus lifestyle changing equals different sound quality and environment. I can say for sure it’s a huge difference and improvement when switching from these old hearing aids to these new ones.

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But Your Hearing is Perfect

We’ve all talked on this blog about how different the perception is between viewing aids (better known as glasses) and hearing aids (better known as “my ears” by people wearing them, and as “prosthetics” by people seeing them). A few months ago we were on holiday at the beach — don’t let me get me started on Corsica, one of the finest places in the world. We spent two weeks there; every day we’d go to the beach and dive among schools of fish.

Without my hearing aids, discussions on the beach were some approximate gibberish mixed with outcries from happy children playing around, the buzz from some distant sea scooters, the splashes, the regular pounding of waves. In fact I heard less than half the conversations. But you know how beach conversations go: most of the time it’s more chit-chat than life-changing decisions, so I didn’t really mind and decided to let go. I love reading books on the beach anyway.

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Hearing Things and Horror Movies

When I was thirteen years old, I loved horror movies. The scarier, the better. Bring on the bloodbath, and the ghosts and the ghouls. The louder you could scream, the harder I would laugh. Nothing in a horror movie could scare me, and I wanted to see the most shocking, frightening things possible. Sadly, my brother was terrified of horror movies, so I could not get the R-Rated ones into the house. No matter how hard I tried, he’d tell Mom and Dad, and I’d be forced to put them back. With a little bit of quick thinking and the line, “it’s only PG-13”, however, I managed to see The Grudge in the summer of 2005.

That summer was a series of firsts. Along with my first time succeeding in getting a horror movie back home, it was also my first summer with a functional eardrum and working two different jobs.

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Learning About Hyperacusis

Since losing all my hearing in my left ear suddenly in 2011, I’ve suffered with bouts of sensitivity to sound. Ordinarily, I manage this by retreating to a quiet room or going to sit in the garden (if the weather’s decent). I read a book, write something, or distract myself with social media – or I sit quietly with our dog, Tilly, brushing or stroking her and generally trying to relax.

Sometimes, I take out my hearing aids for a bit, other times, I switch them to ‘Comfort in Sound’ or ‘Speech in Noise’ but, usually, I manage to ride it out without getting too distressed by it all.

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It’s World Usability Day!

Today, it’s World Usability Day. More than a hundred events will be held around the world by passionate people — I am one of them — who believe that usability is key.

Usability is about making products, even complex ones, easy to use by everyone. Of course, that is the ideal goal and you would probably agree with me that we are really far from it! It’s even worse: it looks like appliances like ovens became less usable in the past years. A few years ago I shot a 2-minute video showing a well-known Swiss politician explaining how he struggled with his new unusable oven. This was part of a project launched during World Usability Day 2006. The video (in French) is still available on Dailymotion.

Unfortunately, the oven is an example among thousands of others. Ironic as it sounds, I am writing these lines on a PC which is far from being a model of design and usability — I wish I could use my Macbook at work! But I am unfair. My PC is far better than my unengaging desktop phone. By the way, do you know why we, employees of companies and public bodies around the world, seem to be condemned to use these horrible phones ? How did they survive to the iPhone era?

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