Why my sister wants me to wear my hearing aids

cattybird

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This morning AC said, "I'm going to try to get a PARTIAL Day today. I heard,"I'm going to try to get aPOSSUM STEAK today." Last night on TV it said,"The committee will SIT AND THINK about the problem. Well, never mind what I thought I heard. A neighbor said they were going to get a NEW VAN, I wondered what they were going to get a NEWS BAN on. I could go on and on, but I guess I should just start wearing my hearing aids, huh?
 

jcat

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You sound like me. A couple of years ago, I thought my husband said, "Ich gehe einen Kasten Bier kaufen" (I'm going to go buy a case of beer). For the life of me, I couldn't understand why he came home and told me it would be delivered the following Tuesday. Well, what he said was, "Ich gehe ein Klavier kaufen" (I'm going to go buy a piano)!

Last summer we were sitting in a restaurant when he "told" me he'd found a Frenchwoman in his nightstand. It was actually some old French francs! We spent the entire meal giggling. :lol3:
 
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MoochNNoodles

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Oh boy!  I worked for an audiologist for a while before DD was born.  People used to come in with some good stories.  Especially the ones explaining how they got damaged.  I believe one lady mistook one of her aids for a peanut somehow....  I think she had put it in a dish on her coffee table next to the peanuts.  She may have needed new glasses as well.
 

yayi

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When my son was in college, he got very sick and had to miss school for a few weeks. To help him I had to go to his school and try to get notes from one of his teachers. I was given the schedule and made sure to be in the classroom after lectures. When I got there nobody was around. After I while I saw a pretty coed and asked her about the teacher, she said he was absent for the day, and so I asked her if she knew my son. I don't know why but I was sure I heard her say "Yes, he's my husband".  All I could say was "Excuse me?", 
 Anyway, she told me her first name and then left. 

When I asked my son about it, he said she was her classmate. So apparently she must have said CLASSMATE. If you think about it, the two words sort of sound the same, right? 
 
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jcat

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Oh boy!  I worked for an audiologist for a while before DD was born.  People used to come in with some good stories.  Especially the ones explaining how they got damaged.  I believe one lady mistook one of her aids for a peanut somehow....  I think she had put it in a dish on her coffee table next to the peanuts.  She may have needed new glasses as well. ;)
They're so tiny nowadays they're always getting misplaced. One of the guys at work has two and often takes them out because he gets an echo in some of the classrooms. I've lost count of the number of times we've spent 30 - 60 minutes looking for them after school. My m-i-l comes over, takes hers out and doesn't realize it till the next day, by which time it's already been turned into a cat toy.
 

Winchester

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One of my biggest peeves is people who have hearing aids and won't wear them. (I'm really referring to my mother, I think, more so than anybody else.) Mom has two hearing aids and finds all kinds of reasons why she can't wear them: they hurt her ears, they buzz, they whine, whatever.

Meanwhile, try talking to her. All you get for a response is "What? What? What? Huh?" It's annoying. There are times when my sister and I get so frustrated with her that we just walk out of the house. My sister has pretty much stopped taking her phone calls because she has to scream at her to be heard and it's simply not worth it anymore. Mom's had several different pairs of hearing aids now, but she finds fault with all of them. And hearing aids are not cheap. Even though insurance pays most of the cost.

Conversations with Mom usually go like this:

Me: How are you this morning?

Mom: What?

Me (Louder): How are you this morning?

Mom: What did you say?

Me: HOW ARE YOU THIS MORNING???

Mom: Huh?

Me: BYE! (And I'm gone)

My mother will call me at work, just to chat, and I have to literally scream at her on the phone so she'll understand me. I work in a cube (no ceiling) and people can hear me. It's annoying to my co-workers to have to listen. I finally told her to stop calling me unless she has her hearing aids in because it's not fair to me or my co-workers.

I don't have the time or the patience to repeat everything I want to say three or four times. My sister and I have talked about it and it makes us both crazy. (We've tried talking to mom about it, but she says that we are the only ones bothered; nobody else cares that they have to shout or repeat sentences....it's just us.
 Of course it is.) 

And my BIL probably should have hearing aids, but he refuses to get tested. And it's pretty obvious that he has a hearing problem because often he doesn't participate in conversations and I think it's because he can't hear what's being said, especially when the background noise tends to get a little loud as in restaurants. I tend to speak a little louder when I talk around him, just so he will hear me. But I don't get it....why would people not want to hear? I think it's a very selfish gesture on their part not to wear their hearing aids and yet expect others to deal with them.

And again, this isn't about anybody here.....it's my mother. She makes me crazy, I swear.
 
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natalie_ca

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One of my biggest peeves is people who have hearing aids and won't wear them.
Mine too!

In my work I've had to deal with many patients who are hard of hearing, both in person or on the telephone. When I was working in a hospital and was looking after a patient that was hard of hearing, and had hearing aids but didn't have them with them, I would tell the family to bring them in the next time they came for a visit. If they didn't, then I would approach them and tell them that it was impossible to communicate with the patient, and tell them that in order to provide proper care to the patient, that someone from the family would have to stay with the patient 24/7.  I've actually had visitors go home and get the hearing aids and come back.
 

Draco

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I am 30, and have worn hearing aids all my life. My situation may be different than those requiring hearing aids later on in life.. but I can never understand why people won't wear them! is it a pride thing? Are they too shy and embarressed by them? I am POSITIVE one's life will turn for the better if they'd give them a chance!

I am not profound deaf, but I have bi-lateral hearing loss. Worse in my left ear than my right. Without the hearing aids, I can only hear bangs and deep muffles. For 27 years, I've worn analog hearing aid in my right ear.. nothing in my left ear. I was comfortable.. until my audiologist convinced me to try digitals, in both ears. I was scared to try it in my left ear. With no vocalization in my left ear, but I was amazed at how much my hearing, and localization improved! I am no longer only turning right when I hear something.. I turn in what ever direction the sound comes from! I admit, it took me on a short emotional roller coaster since I can now hear sounds I couldn't hear before.. like whispers, feet shuffling the ground, and even someone breathing, and I can now hear the difference between "S" and "Z" sounds! These are sounds most people take for granted.. and you have no idea how excited I was to hear them! and I was told that my speech has improved too, now that I can hear the words better.

I am SO lost without them. The only time I take them out (other than showering and bed time, in which I am thankful I can't hear a thing, noisy neighborhood and such!) is the rare occasion at work when my coworker in the next cube yaps too much and I don't want to listen to her! then I get nervous that someone may be calling me and I can't hear them, lol

I encourage anyone and everyone to at least give hearing-aids a good chance!
 
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lovesmycats

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I was born with hearing loss. For a shortwhile in elementary school, I wore the big hearing aids that you could see from the moon. I stopped wearing them because I was embarrassed. I was shy when I was younger and even though no one picked on me, I felt awkward wearing them. I had my hearing tested several years ago and it is definitely worse. 40-50% hearing loss in each ear. I do want hearing aids, but what I have never understood is why they don't have hearing insurance. You can get vision insurance so why not hearing insurance as well?? Hearing aids are expensive if you can't get financial assistance. I do want them and I am planning on getting them. I almost always have to ask others to repeat themselves. It is aggravating to me as well as them.
 

MoochNNoodles

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I was born with hearing loss. For a shortwhile in elementary school, I wore the big hearing aids that you could see from the moon. I stopped wearing them because I was embarrassed. I was shy when I was younger and even though no one picked on me, I felt awkward wearing them. I had my hearing tested several years ago and it is definitely worse. 40-50% hearing loss in each ear. I do want hearing aids, but what I have never understood is why they don't have hearing insurance. You can get vision insurance so why not hearing insurance as well?? Hearing aids are expensive if you can't get financial assistance. I do want them and I am planning on getting them. I almost always have to ask others to repeat themselves. It is aggravating to me as well as them.
Oh yes they are expensive!!  I think it would be nice if they could be covered too.  Especially for kids.  Very few plans will and then they want the price for them adjusted; which is really not possible.  Basically when a doctor or someone similar provides a service they get paid a negotiated amount.  Insurance companies want there to be a negotiated amount for the hearing aids; but they are dealing with in my case the audiologist; not the hearing aid company.  And they want to pay just a small fraction of it.  My old boss was good about trying to help people find something to meet their needs within their budgets.  But she also believed that you get what you pay for sometimes.  And the cost for a hearing aid vs glasses....well it makes buying glasses look like nothing sometimes!

I remember the big aids. And the ones little kids had to strap to themselves.  My Mom worked for the State Deaf School from when I was a toddler to elementary age, before we moved to another state.  Things are so different now!  You can find aids to blend with your hair color.  Or you can get some crazy colors and make a statement.  We had one teen insist on getting one pink and one orange aid.  She was proud to have them!  That was nice to see; her not being embarrassed by it but embracing it.
 

Draco

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I am covered for hearing aids. I get up to 5k for a hearing aid for every 3 years. I guess some insurances don't cover
 
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