Friends And Ears

Good day, everyone! I hope the world continues to treat you well.

It’s been an interesting week, and I will start with the big news:

We had visitors from California for an afternoon. There you see Andre, Anne, Anne, and me, all lined up in North Vancouver, with the harbour behind us. Anne and Andre were neighbours back in California, on our shared driveway in the middle of nowhere.

It was — and remains — a lovely place, full of wonderful people, and we still miss them all. As for our visitors, they are (or were… not sure when they get home) on a Canadian adventure and stopped by to say hello.

Thanks for the visit! We loved seeing you! Please give our very best to everyone back home!

On a completely different topic, aging stinks. Yes, I know. Everyone says that. But I have a specific example: my hearing is getting worse. I went to an audiologist to get my ears retested. I’ve known I had some high frequency loss for a long time. I learned it when I joined the volunteer fire department back in… uh… wow. That was more than 15 years ago. Yikes. I really am old.

Anyway, I was told I had some high frequency loss, that it was basically normal, and it wasn’t enough to disqualify me. A couple of years ago — more than a decade after the first test — I had my hearing retested. There had been a couple of weeks during which I had trouble hearing the TV. It got better, but I wanted things checked out. I was told that I’d probably had a cold or something similar that had clogged up my ears. In addition, the high frequency loss was still there, but not bad enough to require hearing aids.

I decided to get checked last week just to keep an eye on things. I know that hearing loss correlates with early onset cognitive decline, something we all want to avoid. In addition, I have tinnitus (ringing in the ears) which can be helped by hearing aids in some cases. And finally, my dad tried on some hearing aids once, but the change was so large he couldn’t tolerate them. I figure if I need such things I should probably make the change earlier, so the adjustment is easier.

Here’s a graph showing part of my test results:

Blue is my left ear, and red is the right. As you can see, the significant (classed as “moderate”) loss is above 4KHz. That’s where certain sounds (like the end of the word “stress”) are, and it’s those sounds (phonemes) that I miss from time to time. How important — or problematic — that is can vary. For example, you can do a lot with context. Imagine you are in a conversation and hear:

“Uncle Jim seams to be going dea…”

You can probably guess the last word was “deaf” rather than “death”. The latter is obviously nonsensical. Similarly, you might hear:

“The main character was visited by the angel of dea…”

Once again, context helps. “The angel of deaf” — while funny — is also obviously not right.

So we can often tell what is being spoken from the context, but we have to work harder to make those connections and it gets tiring. Set that conversation in a crowded, noisy restaurant and things get worse. I have known people who simply stop listening because of the work involved, and that probably adds to the issues leading to cognitive decline.

And at this point, treatment — hearing aids — is an option for me, but it’s borderline. I could still get by without them, but there are times when I have trouble hearing Anne but she can hear me. There are also times out in the world where I ask people to repeat themselves. Reducing those issues makes sense to me.

I tried on a set of hearing aids there in the office. To be honest I didn’t immediately notice a difference. That might be good or bad, depending on how you think about it. It could be bad because it would mean spending money on something that doesn’t make a huge, obvious difference. But it’s good because it means the adjustment to wearing them is easier. As the audiologist and I talked, the first change I noted was that my tinnitus had gone away. I am not really sure why that happens, but tinnitus is a strange beast.

As I understand it, the hair cells in your ear that respond to high frequency sounds are the ones that die off first. Your brain notes that something has gone missing, and makes up things to replace the missing sound. But any process like that can go too far, and eventually that missing noise is there all the time because your brain gets used to adding it into the mix. For some it can be too much, causing all kinds of problems. I am lucky, and my case is mild. I hear it as a couple of very high pitched squeals, similar to what an old CRT monitor sounded like if you left it running with the computer turned off. If I focus on the noise it can become quite dominant, but when I am engrossed in other things I can ignore it. At some level it can also come and go. I think it is worse when I am tired, but as I type this now (on a Friday morning after a reasonable night of sleep) it is pretty “loud.” (Remember, it’s not a real sound, it’s all made up by the brain. You‘ll never hear my tinnitus, no matter how good your microphone might be, or how close you get to my ears.)

To have it go away so quickly was something of a surprise, and I wasn’t sure it really happened. But continued playing — turning the devices off and back on, along with more conversation — eventually convinced me it really had disappeared. It didn’t return in any significant way until a few minutes after we had removed the devices entirely.

In addition, that experimentation revealed a difference in what I was hearing. The devices made things sound a bit more open and natural. It was subtle, and the sounds available in the office were not the best for exposing the change, but it was there.

So what happens now? Next week I go back and get fitted for a pair of these things, and start a 30 day trial. Within that first month I can return them at any point for a full refund, so it makes sense to try them out and see how things go.

No, they are not cheap. In the US a recent legal change has opened up other options for those with hearing loss. It is my understanding that some devices can now be sold by people outside the audiologist profession, possibly at a lower cost. But what you might get in those cases, and whether or not it would be as effective, I cannot say. Here in Canada we don’t have that law, and hearing aids are still the sole domain of the audiology profession.

I will try them for a while and see how it goes. If they drive me crazy, or don’t make enough of a difference yet, I will return them. But if they help — and in particular if they reduce my tinnitus — I’ll keep them.

Age will not be denied, and I would be foolish to avoid something that helps. If you are in a similar place, I encourage you to get your hearing tested. Even if you are fine, establish that baseline. Get a copy of your evaluation — including a chart like the one above — so you can compare it with future test results. Hearing loss usually develops slowly. It’s hard to notice as it creeps up on you, so having some historic data is very useful.

Wow, that reads like an ad, except I didn’t mention any particular brands or offices, and no one is paying me a thing. I’m a really poor “influencer.” Sorry.

I don’t think much else has been going on. Those were the high points of the week.

Next week… hmmm…

First, the remaining towel bars have arrived, so I will probably get to painting the main bathroom soon, possibly this weekend. That’ll be fun.

And I have a lot of work to do for the next issue of the community association’s monthly email, as well as a slew of updates to their website. When I am not painting, those will be keeping me busy. (No, actually it’s more likely to be the other way around: when I am not working on those things I will be painting.)

Life, it seems, is busy. But nothing hugely important is bearing down on me at the moment. That’s good. Summer is here and I’d like to enjoy it a bit before it’s so hot I can’t stand it.

Take care, and let me know how you are doing!