Talking Hearing Loss

Let me start by saying this: my hearing is pretty bad. Without my trusty hearing devices, I live in a world of complete silence. I use a high-powered hearing aid in my right ear and a cochlear implant in my left. These devices are my lifeline to sound.

Several years ago, I worked as an audiometrist for Blamey Saunders hears. My job was to test clients’ hearing and fit them with hearing aids. Based upon my lived experience with hearing loss, I was also the go-to person for assistive listening devices, guiding clients through the process of finding the best technology to suit their needs.

While I was working there, I decided to take on an additional challenge and spent time in their busy teleaudiology centre. In this role, I helped empower clients across the country by offering support and remotely adjusting their hearing aid settings. Many of these clients were self-motivated, eager to manage their own hearing health.

The centre could get pretty chaotic at times, with half a dozen people all talking at once—over the phone or via video conference—trying to communicate with people experiencing hearing loss. It was a noisy environment.

Now, let me remind you: I’m really, really deaf. And this was the job I chose to do.

You might be wondering: why on earth would someone with significant hearing loss voluntarily work in such a loud setting? Am I a glutton for punishment? A little crazy?

Not quite! The truth is, I knew I had the right tools to get the job done.

About a year before I started working in the teleaudiology centre, I was approved for funding through JobAccess, a program that provided me with the assistive devices I needed to hear and understand clearly at work. One of these tools plugged into the telephone and transferred the caller’s voice directly to my Roger Pen then streamed it onto both my hearing aid and cochlear implant.

This setup allowed me to hear crystal clear, even in noisy environments. My colleagues were amazed that I could navigate phone calls in such a chaotic space, but for me, it was all thanks to the technology at my disposal.

This experience reinforced something I often share with others: hearing aids are incredible, and I consider mine as much a part of me as my ears. They’ve pulled me from a world of silence and reintroduced me to the amazing sounds of life. But even though hearing aids are life-changing, sometimes they’re not enough on their own. That’s where additional assistive devices come in.

I used to call my Roger Pen the “Swiss Army knife for hearing aid users” because it did it all—helping me on the phone, in meetings, watching TV, and having conversations in noisy places. The Roger Pen has since been replaced by the even more functional Roger On, but the principle remains the same: having the right tools can make all the difference.

And Roger is just one of many assistive technologies available. If you’re finding certain situations difficult to manage with just your hearing aids, don’t hesitate to ask your hearing care specialist about additional devices that might help because if a deaf guy can enjoy working in a noisy support centre environment, anything is possible.

There is life after deaf, I promise you!

^{This story was originally published on December 17th 2018}