Opt for greater hearing during Better Hearing Month

“Bring the potatoes, Mom,” my daughter hollered (loud enough for the neighbors to hear).

She, along with my grandson, his wife and three kiddies, were at my house for dinner. Everyone was seated, waiting for me. I headed towards the table, carrying a bowl of mashed potatoes, and happened to glance at my 10-year-old great-granddaughter. Her eyes were wide open with shock. I could read her thoughts as though she said them aloud: Gran’ma Jo yelled at Granny B!

I stifled a giggle and hurried to the table, sat down beside her and took her hand in mine.

“Oh, honey,” I said. “Gran’ma Jo wasn’t being mean. She has to holler at me because I cannot hear well, even with my hearing aids.”

Hearing aids aren’t what they’re cooked up to be, that’s for sure. Or maybe it’s my hearing getting worse.

But without these aids, I’d be worse off…I think.

I was deep into a book one day when my daughter stood next to me and asked, “What’s your cell phone number?”

Who in the world knows their cell phone number? I never call it…

But she was in the middle of switching internet companies and evidently needed it, so I pulled myself out of my chair, grabbed my cane and hobbled to my room to get my cell phone.

I took it to my daughter.

“Already got it,” she said, still on the phone.

A few minutes later she broke into my reading again.

“Why do you have your Social Security number on your cell phone?” she asked.

I shrugged my good shoulder, picked up the phone which I hadn’t returned to my purse yet, and looked.

“I don’t see my SS number,” I said. “You asked for my cell phone number.”

“I said Social Security,” she muttered.

“It sure sounded like cell phone to me.”

I better see the audiologist again.

“My right ear seems to be getting worse,” I told him.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

A bunch of tests followed. Soft, then loud creepy beeps echoed in my ears. Some were high-pitched.

Finally, he said, “Your right ear has become deafer since your last visit.”

“Well, yeah.” Do you suppose he needs hearing aids?

“Take them out for me,” he said.   

I took out the little gray thing-a-ma-jigs and handed them to him as he peered into my ears with a miniature telescope.

“Ears look okay,” he said.

Why wouldn’t they look okay?

He monkeyed around with the aids while monitoring his TV screen where zig zag lines ran up and down.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s see you put them back in.”

He watched me struggle for a few moments, then sighed.

“Hold it. You’re putting the left one in your right ear. Remember, I told you the one with the red base on the post should go into the right ear.”

Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t, but I switched them anyway.

“Yuck! Always feels like something doesn’t belong there.”

“I know,” he said.

What does he know? He isn’t wearing them. Just wait, doc, your turn is coming.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said. “Here. Do it like this.”

He pushed the aid into the right ear—all the way where it sat like a blob of gum.

He tested the sounds with the TV again. 

“That should do it,” he said with a huge smile. I guess he was pleased to have one more hard of hearing person leave—me especially. “See you next time, Miss Betty.”