After a hearing test that came back showing 50-60% hearing loss in both ears, and a few surprised enquiries along the lines of 'how have you been managing?!' (Answer, very effective lip reading and a lifetimes practice at filling in the gaps. Effectively I guess!) I am now kitted out, at the grand old age of 32, with 2 very expensive, and thankfully, small hearing aids and have a month to decide if they are 'for me' or not. I have been asked to keep notes on progress to discuss at my next appointment, thought about them taking the form of a blog 1: so I don't end up losing the notes! 2: you never know, they may be useful for someone else facing the same decisions.
So far the words 'exciting' and 'enjoy them' have been used and I feel a bit of a killjoy replying that these are not really words I'd associate with having to resort to hearing aids at my age. Clearly I am aware that things could be lot worse and in the grand scheme if things I would consider myself pretty lucky - both because that otherwise I am healthy and reasonably fit, and also in that I have the financial resources to solve the problem... However 'excited' may be pushing it! Having had them now for around 5 hours, my main thought is 'Do I really need to be able to hear all this?!' Particularly disturbing is the loud disembodied robot voice I appear to be using, as well as noises of eating. I can do without this! Apparently it's all very normal, obviously I am used much less sound and am hearing all the things that those with normal hearing filter out automatically. Over the next 3 weeks I will hopefully get more used to them, will try them out in different situations (and report back)...
