Miss-Delectable
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http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/13979542.htm
Hearing is a God-given gift most people do not appreciate until it is gone. Most hearing loss comes so gradually it is hardly noticeable. People mumble and the family complains about loud television, but other than that, the change is undetectable. I began to wonder why the phone only rang when I was next to it or there were other people present. I finally realized that I could not hear the ring when I was further away.
Those are the tones that are gone in my hearing - the high-pitched ones. I remember telling an older friend about a hearing ear dog that would tell his master when the phone or the doorbell rang. She thought that was the dumbest idea yet. Why would you need to know if the phone rang if you were deaf? I explained that I could hear fine on the phone, but could not hear it ring.
About 15 years ago I had an ear infection and my "good" ear tested worse than my other ear, which sustained hearing loss when I was 4. The thought of being totally deaf scared me so I invested in a customized hearing aid for my right ear. The little device helped. I simply put it in, turned it on and went about my business. Then I would get to a meeting and someone would complain about that awful, annoying hum. I would reach up and readjust the setting on my hearing aid. I could not hear the sound even when it was right in my ear.
People with hearing loss learn to compensate in a number of ways. Some become very talkative and loud. In that way they can control the conversation and know what is being said. Others react by tuning out sounds because it just takes too much effort to hear. Others learn to read lips and do quite well.
In my first year of teaching I had a student with a severe hearing loss. I found that all I had to do to accommodate her was to stand close enough so she could see my lips. She loved to read so she did very well in literature class. She did not do as well in science class, however. The teacher did not make any allowances for her and complained the student should be in a school for the deaf.
Recently I updated my hearing devices. I got two over-the-ear type hearing aids. The first day I wore both of them the noise just about drove me crazy. The world is a noisy place. The furnace sounded like a loud truck shifting gears, the refrigerator seemed to run constantly and even the computer keys were terribly noisy. None of these sounds had bothered me before. My voice even sounded foreign, and chewing was noisy. Running water had never sounded so loud. I went outside and the birds were chirping everywhere, the cats were yowling and the cattle in the pens seemed restless.
The first time the phone rang, I nearly jumped out of my skin; it was so loud. Since my husband's hearing is as bad as mine, the television seems to blast. He likes to turn it on mute and read the closed captioning but the spelling is sometimes really bad. One day I walked through the living room while he was watching the news and on the screen I read "Alley Toe." I stopped to see what the topic was. They were reporting the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito. TV Ears help this problem if we can get them to charge properly.
All these devices help the hearing impaired, but they do not perform as well as the ears that God gave us. If you have perfect hearing, try to be patient with your hard-of-hearing friends and relatives. Instead of getting bothered and irritated with the noise from their hearing aids or the loud televisions, quietly suggest other ways of dealing with the loss.
Hearing is a God-given gift most people do not appreciate until it is gone. Most hearing loss comes so gradually it is hardly noticeable. People mumble and the family complains about loud television, but other than that, the change is undetectable. I began to wonder why the phone only rang when I was next to it or there were other people present. I finally realized that I could not hear the ring when I was further away.
Those are the tones that are gone in my hearing - the high-pitched ones. I remember telling an older friend about a hearing ear dog that would tell his master when the phone or the doorbell rang. She thought that was the dumbest idea yet. Why would you need to know if the phone rang if you were deaf? I explained that I could hear fine on the phone, but could not hear it ring.
About 15 years ago I had an ear infection and my "good" ear tested worse than my other ear, which sustained hearing loss when I was 4. The thought of being totally deaf scared me so I invested in a customized hearing aid for my right ear. The little device helped. I simply put it in, turned it on and went about my business. Then I would get to a meeting and someone would complain about that awful, annoying hum. I would reach up and readjust the setting on my hearing aid. I could not hear the sound even when it was right in my ear.
People with hearing loss learn to compensate in a number of ways. Some become very talkative and loud. In that way they can control the conversation and know what is being said. Others react by tuning out sounds because it just takes too much effort to hear. Others learn to read lips and do quite well.
In my first year of teaching I had a student with a severe hearing loss. I found that all I had to do to accommodate her was to stand close enough so she could see my lips. She loved to read so she did very well in literature class. She did not do as well in science class, however. The teacher did not make any allowances for her and complained the student should be in a school for the deaf.
Recently I updated my hearing devices. I got two over-the-ear type hearing aids. The first day I wore both of them the noise just about drove me crazy. The world is a noisy place. The furnace sounded like a loud truck shifting gears, the refrigerator seemed to run constantly and even the computer keys were terribly noisy. None of these sounds had bothered me before. My voice even sounded foreign, and chewing was noisy. Running water had never sounded so loud. I went outside and the birds were chirping everywhere, the cats were yowling and the cattle in the pens seemed restless.
The first time the phone rang, I nearly jumped out of my skin; it was so loud. Since my husband's hearing is as bad as mine, the television seems to blast. He likes to turn it on mute and read the closed captioning but the spelling is sometimes really bad. One day I walked through the living room while he was watching the news and on the screen I read "Alley Toe." I stopped to see what the topic was. They were reporting the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito. TV Ears help this problem if we can get them to charge properly.
All these devices help the hearing impaired, but they do not perform as well as the ears that God gave us. If you have perfect hearing, try to be patient with your hard-of-hearing friends and relatives. Instead of getting bothered and irritated with the noise from their hearing aids or the loud televisions, quietly suggest other ways of dealing with the loss.