The BS of the hearing test

Did the hearing aid help at all, then?

I’ve done fine with my hearing (so far): I’ve been deaf in my right ear since I was 3. I only found out about 5 years ago what the issue was: enlarged vestibular aqueduct syndrome. I was told, though, that the hearing in my good ear made up for the loss.

Do you know specifically what your issue is?

 

Huh??!!

 

On a serious note, I’ve never had the best hearing either and that’s always the part of any physical that somewhat concerns me. Or maybe I just don’t listen or tune people out like I’ve been accused of countless times in my life

 

Where those people who accused you of tuning them out just happen to be female.

 

That is one subject I spend a life time on.

DOT rules say you need 500, 1000 and 2000 hertz at 40 db or better. Or a forced whisper (Air leak anyone?) in a ear at 5 feet. (But not in a room with 50 orientation applicants answering questions.

When they put you into a sound proof room and measure your hearing they generate a chart. If you are accurate in your responses then the truth is in that chart. They literally have today the ability to prescribe aides to match what you do not have in your hearing to a certain point and emphasize what you do have.

Myself I am a Bass type person, I like noises down low like really low towards say 50 hertz. But I can only hear up to right about 3800 hertz. Without hearing aids I need about 80 db minimum for one ear. That's moderate deafness. The other ear needs 95db that's profound deafness.

With prescription hearing aids of the computer processing type among other features I can get down to maybe 15 db from 5000 hertz on down to about 18. That's the sound of the cookie jar at midnight in the kitchen when spouse gets into the glass lid against a glass container and pulls a cookie. I can hear that across the house.

Now. Today's cars and trucks have insulated against noise so much. The Union Pacific had to change the tone and power of the modern whistles to PENETRATE a car or big truck when coming onto a crossing. That is one thing they were successsful at.

A deaf person like myself with eyes, I see everything. At 10 miles if at all possible. If I am not distracted or otherwise occupied in my head anything that moves Im already processing that situation before it gets to be a problem where possible.

I have no association with the deaf in any way other than being one myself and that's is as far as I go with that. With that said. I present you a link to the following.

It will take you about 2 weeks with a properly fitted mold poured into your ear to adjust and not notice to the hearing aids. You do need to spend 15 dollars for a pack of 12 batteries of your size and go get another pack every month. Hopefully you are on zinc air instead of mercurys. (Computers will fail to boot when zinc air drops below a certain voltage that's why you go through them faster0

Hearing aids are expensive. My co pay is pending at 860 cash against 5500 dollars for a set of two which I expect to last 10 to 12 years at most before needing to be rebuilt or replaced.

DOT Recognizes Deaf and Hard of Hearing Truck Drivers!

 

ROTF.

That's so classic.

If you asked what time it was in Baltimore it will come out as: "DAT's TREE FIDDY"

Believe it or not, I wear a pair of 20 dollar hearing aids sold from the TV advertising section of walmart. 20 each, rechargeable. Hearing range 100 hertz to 3000 hertz flat with a 30 Db boost over. Nothing else in them, that's why they are only 20 dollars. And actually late 60's technology believe it or not. It's literally a workaround I keep on hand. I'll have to have a pair of custom molds fitted (About 30 bucks each) but it's literally not worth it.

There is no computer noise processing or protection in them. We used to go to civil war artillery shoots live fire with NSSA in Winchester and when them things go BLAM sending 3 inch of metal downrange against a mountain wall SMACK! You feel it instead of hear it with the aids off. THUMP, TAP! Listen to that all day. Now double canister is chilling. 300 yards of lead rain. So the aids become a protection.

The modern aids do that post processing internally so when it is approaching 120db it's going to shut down for the duration of that problem before it hurts you physically. They also have telecoil for telephone work and smart phones. You can sometimes install a android app into a smart phone with certain models and adjust the equalizer on the fly within limits.

I don't believe in Miracle Ear. I'll tell you why.

Back in Maryland during the late 60's we sourced hearing aids direct from John's Hopkins. After they dug me out from under a deep chair (Scared bad... not understanding why they were coming for me with those machines...) I remember the drive home across Baltimore in sound to this day. All of it. It was a whole world of sound.

While that was going on, private for profit businesses sprouted like weeds shady selling hearing aids for inflated costs and without sound rooms and so on. Essentially trying to take advantage of people, especially after Maryland's State Legislature Publicly and Fiscally passed into law a new Deaf School for approx 400 children by 1973 year (I was one of the first 64 in and the transitional side... that is mental health side combined with seriously profound disabilities requiring 24/7 individual aides to each were about 150 on that side of the campus maybe) So alot of these hearing aid sharks came out.

In due time things shook out and very few hearing aid companies were left standing. One provided me with I think 5 sets of hearing aids all my childhood into most just about all of my trucking as well. They only stopped selling a particular type of hearing aid because the company in America that built them finally went out of business (Qualitone) I think in the late 90's The last pair from them was 1500 dollars which would be about 3200 in today's dollars. And only lasted 7 years in trucking and after before wear and tear requires them to be rebuilt. Come to find out the company is out of business and it's no longer possible to source parts, wires or skilled lab to do the work, in the trash they went.

The reason I am so expensive is due to my hearing chart for one. It requires big time power. And boy howdy what power. I can hear things around that 18 wheeler or whatever with them. But they are expensive.

With such things and wonders of modern technology why in the world am I using 20 dollar hearing aids? Well for one it matches the hearing almost and two it's rechargeable. The extra money not spent in batteries each month (About 20 dollars) goes to the replacement co pay fund which when reached will result in a final set for my life time.

I do not follow television advertising at all. The audiologist (Properly licensed and experienced) will know exactly how to fit you for a aid matched to your hearing where you need a little boost. Just like glasses for eyes. Without that you have nothing.

That's one of the reasons why Qualcomm was very valuable back in the 90's We were still using teletype to communicate. Large dishwasher sized machines munching on a roll of paper and shaking the building with the keys and motors. That went away. Or should I say evolved.

My smart phone has a speech to caption feature. I have not tried it yet but it's possible that if I am talking with someone face to face it should generate captioning. (And record everything too... ugh)

A very long time ago a 16 year old boy invented a set of hands when tied to your hands and into a fast enough small enough computer that goes onto your belt will convert sign language into a sort of machine voice for the hearing person. The one reason it was probably not a success is probably because there was no real way to convert words spoken back to the deaf person in caption in real time.

Finally but not last, I leave you with a memory of Virginia Beach's Fightertown, where Navy fighters screech into the sky in burner over the pay phone. When they are very active telephone converstation is completely impossible. It's futile. That's one of the reasons dispatchers liked that qualcomm.

It's more difficult for a hearing person to adapt to wearing a hearing aid than a deaf person to adapt to one. There are barriers that are imagined or real that needs to be overcome by the hearing person. Finally but not last, there are still two great controversaries left in the deaf world. First. Not all deaf can use a hearing aid or should. By the same token it's the same applys to some deaf whose voices are so poor it's best they never try to use it. What comes out cannot be unheard. It's unnatural.

The second controversary is parents. They have a baby. Then discover that it's a deaf baby. OMG they say. Spend 120,000 dollars and implant a cochlear implant into that child's ears. Regardless if the child wants it or not. They literally used to cut a hole in the skull behind or near the ear where there is a bone in the middle ear that captures sound in a certain way. You hammer on that bone with magnetic impulses and boom. That person is going to hear mommy and daddy squealing in delight.

There lies the big problem. Freedom of choice. For some deaf they CHOOSE to remain deaf because to them, it's how God built them, how they are born and how they live without giving a thought for a minute that there is a problem or limitation by being deaf. It's actually a asset when other senses of the body, eyes, skin, feet, temperature etc all kick in. Especially the air movement of a passing person inside your own home for example. When the wife goes from one part of the home to another I can sense that by the way she displaces the air around her. And read her emotions by how much air how fast.

Little things like that tends to make life very intense. Almost a drug. But to forceably spend a bunch of money and install a one or pair of implants to hammer on that middle ear bone? Without asking the child freedom of choice? That's a big problem to this day.

Maybe that is why I get sometimes to be a warrior for those who have defects and don't even understand they are defective at all. They literally live through a series of workarounds with the body and mind so that the defect does not exist.

Even better if a handicap is not a barrier to living, marrying, raising a family, buying a home and doing things you want to in life. (Ive done just about all that and then some my way) because there are so many who are living in the room secluded from society even to this day. And think I am some kind of God when they find out I am a trucker. No no no. It's a failure to breach barriers and assert yourself and live life your way, not anyone else's way. Particularly if parents (Or work shop staff) told you to. Which is a great injustice and disservice.

 

Bose Quiet Comfort headphones will drown out the noise of an engine inside a truck.