DID YOU HEAR THAT?

Diagram of the ear

Early hearing aids

Results of on line hearing test

When you were little, in a room full of older people, did you ever wonder why:

Uncle Bennie was quiet?

Grandpa Benhard put his hand behind his ear and cupped it forward?

That answers from someone didn't match your question?

Do you, in a room full of people:

Have trouble hearing a conversation?

Making out words?

Wonder why people are mumbling?

Do you listening to the TV louder than the rest of the family?

Do you turn up the volume on your phone?

Dang! It is like having to hold the newspaper farther away and then.........are arms aren't long enough just like our hearing isn't good enough.

Although Tom has a steady chirping in his ears, the volume on the television is at 15; I prefer 20. Does that mean my hearing is worse? I wondered. I found a hearing test on line and took it using ear phones. The television was on. I am stating that because the test wasn't perfect. The graph above is the results. I am NOT a half-deaf Viking snapping off one of the twin cow horns from my battle helmet, hollowing it and cutting off the tip, before holding it to my ear when listening to a conversation at the other end of the sofa!

Mother probably could have heard a dog whistle, Daddy on the other hand was a loud TV watcher and an ear bender. I can still hear her saying, "STAN, that TV IS TOO LOUD"! and "STAN, LISTEN"! It is hard to say how he became this way, was it noise? Or was it just Stan.

It was always a sad day when Ryen came home from school and said he had flunked his hearing test. No child likes to be singled out to sit in the front because of sight or hearing. We followed all the rules including having tubes put in and adenoids removed. The ENT said he was a bright child and doesn't miss much because he can read lips and watch body English but let's give him the benefit and do the tubes. Ryen doesn't have bat ears like his grandmother, yet he knows what he can't hear. He told a co worker her voice was a range he didn't hear well.

Numerous articles state children of today are ruining their hearing with loud music! They said the same thing about that 'rock and roll racket'.

Some folks grow up deaf. They learn sign language and they can communicate. They have a sense of humor. Because when they are around hearing people and hearing people don't understand, they have a special extra to make the bridge. Such is the case with a man our family met in the mid seventies. He and his girlfriend worked at Ready Spaghetti in Olathe. She was related to the children's father. They came to visit frequently and would attend baseball games with us. At supper one night, he asked for a toothpick. I told him we didn't have any, would dental floss do? He laughed because he wanted the toothpick to get a pickle out of the jar. We all learned the signs for hamburger, French fries, and soda from him that summer.

While working with the elderly, I met a bright woman who had suddenly gone deaf decades before. No amount of hearing aids were going to help her understand ordinary conversations. She could not hear the minister at services, yet she went anyway. We used a lot of body language to help her understand what we were doing. She did very well in classes like exercise and one on one craft projects once she had the directions.

Old Trunks will agree that age has a way of taking sight and hearing. It took time for Ella to realize who I was at a visit. She could not see me well enough to know who I was nor hear my voice well enough. We spent several minutes with her saying, "You remind me of my very good friend from Fargo". The connection was made. That was before hearing aids.

A friend in Wisconsin has two hearing aids. I met her at the lake. When she comes to visit there, she wears the hearing aid on the side I am sitting. She doesn't want to wear them out so she only wears one at a time. She also states that while using one, she doesn't get all the back ground noise. When she fishes, she doesn't wear them. Try hollering across the boats in the wind at her. She won't hear; only answer with how the fishing is!

Isn't it our responsibility to try to bridge the gap?

Google hearing aid test, see how you do.

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