New Hearing Aids . . .

I asked for and got an appointment with the Audiology Clinic at the Veterans Administration (VA) clinic in Fort Worth.  And to my good fortune I got the same young lady that examined me some five or six years ago.  We did a quick test, basically the same test I originally had back when I first got hearing aids.

She told me my hearing had not change much but probably my hearing aids were failing, or wearing out.  No matter, some where along the way I had those hearings repaired when both receivers came off.  She told me I should have brought the repaired hearing aids in to have them recalibrated or tuned up. This I did not know thus have suffered for the last three years with subpar performance of the devices.

So she ordered up new set of hearing aids for me.  This time I also got a Blue Tooth television set up.  That allows me to listen to the TV through my hearing aids.  That is really neat and I find I can turn the TV sound almost off and still hear what is going on.  Before with the subpar old hearing aids I still had the volume up pretty high.  Now I can hear though the hearing aids and the sound can be set way down as to not bother anybody else.

I can also answer my telephone via the hearing aids even to the point I can use the hearing aid on the left side to reject a call or even hang up on a call.  And of course I can communicate through the hearing aids to the phone.  If you think about it, hearing aids have a microphone so it can be used to talk to a caller via hearing aid to the cell phone.  So the phone can stay on your belt or be elsewhere and I can still answer the call.  That is a really neat feature too.

The new hearing aids are much more sensitive and I hear much better.  I really do hear all the clicks and clacks of typing on a key board, or the change jingling in my pocket.  The hearings aids also have programs to work jointly, focusing on the someone talking to you or even suppresses road noises while riding in a car.  All of that is programmed into the operation of the devices.  All of that in a tiny little container sitting behind my ear and with a terminal in my ear (called a receiver).  These are Receiver In Canal (RIC) devices.

I find the VA gives first class hearing equipment.  Mine are Phonak brand (Swiss Made like a fine mechanical watch) and top of the line devices.  I looked up the prices, of course these are prices everyone gets charged and was astounded at how expensive they were.  I am sure the VA buys them in bulk and gets a better price but even so they are quite costly.

I do have a service connected disability for hearing but it is rated at zero.  Getting compensation of hearing loss means you really have severe hearing impairment.  I can hear but I do not hear much above 4,000 cycles.  This is known as telephone hearing because that is about the fidelity of our telephones.  So while I do not collect any compensation I do get hearing aids and I am thankful as they are pretty expensive devices.

Any how I did not know how much I had been missing.  And all that sound is catching up to me again.  Some things are really painful to hear amplified like water coming out a kitchen sink faucet.  Man, that is very irritating especially if I am standing over sink and running the water.  At distance it is not so bad but up close it almost hurts it is so harsh.

It is good to be hearing again!