Wow, it's a noisy world out there isn't it. Yeah? No? Maybe it's living in London I don't know but it sure is noisy here. However I feel that at this point I should say that it's not just noisy because it's a big city. No, I have extra reason for feeling moderately aggrieved about how blimmin' loud everything is at the minute.
Way back in January some of you might remember that I posted this, about being deaf and trundling off to the hospital to get tested for digital hearing aids. Whether I liked it or not I was being dragged, kicking and screaming into the digital age. Yes, so my old hearing aids were so ancient they don't make them anymore. The lovely audiologists at my local hospital (once they'd recovered from the shock of seeing someone under the age of 60) practically laughed me out of the consulting room at the sight of my aids. Well y'know if something ain't broke, don't fix it.
Anyway having said all that, I knew I needed to pull my finger out and get digital hearing aids. I've been on analogue for so long though - my whole life since I started wearing hearing aids when I was tiny. I asked the hearing-aid-lady what the difference was between analogue and digital was, exactly, and what difference i'd notice - if any. I mean, didn't I hear most things anyway?
Huh, apparently not because basically my analogue old-style aids, figure out what noises at what pitches + levels I *will* be able to hear - and then cut off all other sounds;spanking new digital hearing aids work differently... Although there is still a limit to the range of sound I can hear, the new hearing aids don't cut off the sounds at the end of those limits but extend it a bit at either end. It's a bit like hearing in black and white - and then suddenly hearing in colour. All those little tiny sounds that I wouldn't normally hear add together to flesh out this big picture of sound. It's incredible....
But bloody noisy - as I was saying. So I got my new hearing aids on Monday 4th April and when the hearing-aid-man (HAM) put them in and switched them on I jumped a mile - at the sound of my own blimmin' voice. Yeah - it sounds different, even though it's in my own head. The ticking of the clock was so loud and when the HAM clapped it was like a rocket going off. After fiddling around with the volume and the settings....
Way back in January some of you might remember that I posted this, about being deaf and trundling off to the hospital to get tested for digital hearing aids. Whether I liked it or not I was being dragged, kicking and screaming into the digital age. Yes, so my old hearing aids were so ancient they don't make them anymore. The lovely audiologists at my local hospital (once they'd recovered from the shock of seeing someone under the age of 60) practically laughed me out of the consulting room at the sight of my aids. Well y'know if something ain't broke, don't fix it.
Anyway having said all that, I knew I needed to pull my finger out and get digital hearing aids. I've been on analogue for so long though - my whole life since I started wearing hearing aids when I was tiny. I asked the hearing-aid-lady what the difference was between analogue and digital was, exactly, and what difference i'd notice - if any. I mean, didn't I hear most things anyway?
Huh, apparently not because basically my analogue old-style aids, figure out what noises at what pitches + levels I *will* be able to hear - and then cut off all other sounds;spanking new digital hearing aids work differently... Although there is still a limit to the range of sound I can hear, the new hearing aids don't cut off the sounds at the end of those limits but extend it a bit at either end. It's a bit like hearing in black and white - and then suddenly hearing in colour. All those little tiny sounds that I wouldn't normally hear add together to flesh out this big picture of sound. It's incredible....
But bloody noisy - as I was saying. So I got my new hearing aids on Monday 4th April and when the hearing-aid-man (HAM) put them in and switched them on I jumped a mile - at the sound of my own blimmin' voice. Yeah - it sounds different, even though it's in my own head. The ticking of the clock was so loud and when the HAM clapped it was like a rocket going off. After fiddling around with the volume and the settings....
