I am a Family Court Mediator and had a mediation the first Monday I was back from my road trip to Gardner Audiology. There were two attorneys and one client with me in a conference room; the second client appeared by conference call. I was amazed! The volume on the speaker phone was on high and was much too loud. (The week before the same phone was not loud enough.) So with my new hearing aids in place, I used words I hadn’t said in years, “Would you turn the volume down, please.”
That afternoon my granddaughter (age 7) came to my house after school. She began testing my hearing aids – whispering to see if I could hear her. I repeated what she said. Then she ducked behind the kitchen counter and whispered; I still got it right. We were both impressed. But she was quickly bored with this whispering game and began playing on the counter with a large magnet and several spoons. I didn’t know a magnet could make so much noise! I tried to turn the hearing aid down to low but my fingers couldn’t find the toggle. My granddaughter showed me how. Low volume helped, but what helped most was to put the magnet back on the frig and the spoons back in the drawer.
Shortly after the magnet was resting quietly on the frig door, two of my granddaughter’s friends came over. They are delightful children; they are also sisters and screamers. They just like to scream, so they scream at a spider and at anything that might be a bug. They scream ,laugh, and run; laugh, run, and scream. Somehow I didn’t realize how loud they are, until I got these new hearing aids. But sometimes being hard of hearing is a blessing; I took the hearing aids out and sent the girls outside to play. They laughed, screamed, and charged around the yard for a while, then bolted back inside for a snack. With my hearing aids safely in the drawer, I didn’t fuss at them a bit.
Dan’s Response to Laura
Alright! You hear your granddaughter again! She said you did when I talked to her on the phone. Loud sounds are uncomfortable?
Oops! Did I forget to tell you that we often need to made adjustments during the first several weeks after fitting new hearing aids? We can adjust your aids so that you continue to hear soft children’s voices but louder sounds are comfortable.
Time for a road trip to Gardner Audiology
