Deeply Ambivalent

Picked up the loaner hearing aid. It's a conventional hearing aid connected by wire to a small processor that vibrates the skull. Charlie will now hear what someone on his right side says, but he'll hear it in both ears because you can't only vibrate part of your skull. So he'll get more of what's going on, but the aid will not help him locate where sound is coming from. The mom of the kid who had this loaner before we got it managed to attach the pieces to a soft sweatband that happens to also fit Charlie's head, and it's kind of the same color as his hair. I was expecting a metal band so this is better--I worried I was going to end up struggling to get Charlie to wear something that isn't even anything like the one we'd buy if we do decide to buy one, but this is actually pretty close.

I plugged my ears and tried it myself. It's such a cool technology. I could hear the audiologist but her voice was a little robotic sounding.

We put it on Charlie and he looked a little surprised. He said he could hear, and after a minute or two asked us to turn down the volume, which is what most kids who get their first hearing aids do. Then he played with the toys in the room and periodically put his hands up to the band, as if to take it off. The audiologist made a pinkie promise with him that if he wore it until she came back from the photocopier he could have a sticker. (Never mind that another patient in the waiting room had already given him a sticker.) When the audiologist left the room I said, "Hey Charlie, do you have superhero hearing?"

And Charlie said, "What you said?"

Then today, when the kids were watching cartoons after school, Charlie said "Mom, you are whistling?" He could hear Jeff whistling OUTSIDE THE HOUSE, like 40 feet away from where Charlie was sitting, OVER the sound of the cartoons. Maybe because that's a high-frequency sound? I don't know but it was weird.

We're going to Florida for a couple of days so I decided not to try to break him in on the hearing aid until we get back.

Comments

[Lee]

This reminds me of the time I tried Junie's bark collar. I put it around my neck and barked, but felt nothing.