A broken hearing aid throws life into chaos for Hayley… thank goodness for a helpful audiology department
Wednesday evening, in the car
Hayley’s just got into the car after finishing a day’s work experience placement at a hotel, as part of her college course. Before I can ask her how it went, she’s launched into a full-on rant, on the verge of tears.
“Oh my god, you’ve got to do something! My hearing aid’s broken, I can’t hear anything, I’m not going into college in the morning if I can’t hear! I don’t care if I get into trouble, I’m not going!”
I try to calm her down, but there’s not much I can say because we can’t do anything until tomorrow when the audiology department will be open and hopefully sort us out.
She’s really upset because she’s struggled to hear for six hours, including instructions from the chefs and front of house manager, and she’s embarrassed. Normally she manages so well that the issue never comes up anywhere, even at work where she’s a part time kitchen assistant in a pub restaurant; no-one’s even asked about her hearing aids.
It’s funny how you get to take things for granted, especially when you’re seeing it from the outside.
Hayley is moderately deaf in both ears, wears two hearing aids, and without them – and a bit of lip-reading – she struggles desperately. In her waking moments she’s never without them, you almost get lulled into forgetting she’s deaf. I still get surprised when I go to wake her in the morning, and talk to her and she can’t hear anything I’m saying, until she reaches over for her hearing aids and pops them in.
We’ve grown to take it for granted over the 10 years since she’s worn them, whereas at first we were more aware of whether she could hear, of how exhausting a school day was for her straining to hear in the chaos of the classroom, corridors and playground.
Hayley’s become so independent with it all, now we don’t give it so much thought – until a blip like this.
She’s done well really, she’s had hearing aids since she was eight and she’s only broken one once before, and lost two (one left on a train after she took it out to put headphones on, the other got eaten – well thoroughly chewed anyway – by the dog).
I know what the problem is this time. It’s the hook that’s broken – the little bit attached to the electronic part of the hearing aid which the tube pushes onto.
What’s happened is that after much nagging, she finally re-tubed her hearing aid this morning and because she’d left it so long the tube got brittle, was hard to pull off, and the pressure cracked the delicate hook.
Next morning I call the audiology department and they say bring it in. It’s 45 minutes’ drive and sure enough the lovely staff sort it, and within two hours I hotfoot it back to deliver it to Hayley.
“Yes I’ll re-tube it sooner next time,” she promises as she runs off for her train to college.
Even Hayley takes her hearing aids for granted, but I think this time maybe she will do it!
Sounding Off! 