Christmas in July

I visited my favorite public library the other day to return some books. I noticed one of the library staff speaking to me from across the way, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. I walked over to her and rather unexpectedly, she said "I thought Santa had come in." I looked at her blankly. She saw my puzzlement and added, "because of all the jingling." I looked down at the key ring dangling in my hand and mumbled, "I'm hard of hearing and didn't realize..." I wanted to drop through the floor from embarrassment. The library lady shrugged it off and said it was a nice sound.

Have you ever been caught in a similar embarrassing situation because you could not hear a sound? If so, please share in the comments. I promise not to laugh (ho, ho, ho).

Oops! Not Again!!!

I took my hearing aids out Friday night and noticed an ear dome was missing. Uh oh. It had stayed behind in my ear!

An ear dome is the tiny tip that fits inside the ear canal.

Regular readers may recall that this same thing happened to me once before, almost exactly a year ago. That time an ENT doctor removed the stuck ear dome. Because it was evening this time, I had to go to extended care hours at a local clinic and see a regular doctor.

Fortunately, the staff on duty were able to find an instrument they could use to safely extract the tiny piece. It was a two person operation. The nurse held a lighted otoscope, while the doctor used one hand to stretch my earlobe and the other to gently pull the hearing aid part out of my left ear. The doctor was surprised when he saw how small it was. I assured him that he had gotten "all of it" and that I was good to go.

I was so thankful they were able to remove it. They had warned me if they couldn't I would have to go to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. If that was the case, I was going to wait until Monday and see my audiologist. I would have done that in the first place but I remembered being warned last year that not removing something stuck in your ear as soon as possible can lead to an outer ear infection.

Today I visited the audiologist and got a replacement part. I was also given spares and shown how to replace them myself. From now on, I'm to put new ones in once a month. I am also trying out a smaller sized ear dome. I hope this never happens again. Yikes. I'm starting to feel as mishap prone as Jerry Neumann.

Hearing Aid Mishap

See that tiny tip at the end of the tubing?
That part got stuck in my ear!

On my way home from work and en route to picking up my son from school, I casually reached up to switch programs on my hearing aids. Something I do without thinking every day. This time was different. One of my hearing aids didn't switch programs. I've had that happen before so I tried again. This time it switched but then the sound went crazy with feedback. "What on earth?" I wondered as I reached up to pull it out of my ear careful to keep my eyes on the road. A second later when I glanced down at it on my lap, I noticed the tip was missing. Uh oh. At the next stoplight I felt around my ear and thought I might have touched it. I was almost to my son's school by then so I continued on to get him. When he got in the car, I pulled over into an empty parking space, got out of the car, and checked around the driver's seat and on my clothes. No hearing aid tip. I asked him to take a look inside my ear. He couldn't see it. I decided to call my ENT's office.

Fortunately, the staff had not left for the day and they told me they would wait until I got to their office even though I was about 20 minutes away at the time. I was so relieved to have a plan of action although I did worry a bit in case the tip turned out not to be in my ear. Would the doctor be angry with me for wasting his time? I fretted until the thought occurred to me that as much money as an ENT doctor makes, it would hardly be a waste as I was sure I would be charged either way.

When we got to the office, one of the audiologists took a look in my ear with an otoscope. "I see it," she announced to my relief. Then the doctor came in took a quick peek of his own in both ears and took out something that looked like a thin wire. One of the staff told me to hold very still. In a jiff, he had extracted it. Phew, I was glad that was over. The audiologist left the room to get me a new tip and tube. Meanwhile the doctor was looking at my chart. "It's been more than a year since your aids have been reprogrammed, why not have it done now", he suggested. "After all you've come all this way", he said persuasively. "Do you have time now?" I asked the audiologist when she returned. "Yes, our office holiday party is this evening and I live too far away to go home first. I was just going to hang around here anyways."

With that settled, I decided to go ahead. Despite having an impatient, hungry teenager on my hands, I wanted to get my hearing rechecked. I was pretty certain I wasn't hearing as well as before and having it looked at now beat the hassle of scheduling an appointment around my job for another time. In my next post, I'll reveal the results of that test.

When I wrote about this mishap on facebook, I think I gave the wrong impression that a part of my hearing aid broke off or that a piece of the hearing aid tube snapped off in my ear. That wasn't what happened. I want to clarify that the round tip is a separate piece that fits very tightly onto the tubing. It's slipped off while I've cleaned it perhaps once or twice but never while wearing it. I don't know how this happened but the audiologist says it does happen occasionally. The important thing is to get it out as soon as possible. My audiologist said if I had left it in for a couple days, I risked getting an outer ear infection. Not to mention that my ear felt pretty sore anyways. I left my hearing aid out of that ear all day yesterday just to help it recover. Today it's feeling fine.

I hope this never happens to you, but if it does, get help as soon as possible. I'm glad I did.

An Echo in My Ear

Since Wednesday night, I've been experiencing an echo in my left ear. For the last week and a half I've had an upper respiratory infection. On the weekend I had a very bad nosebleed. I think this is what has led to this new symptom. It is so annoying. I made an appointment with an ENT doctor but I can't get in for 3 weeks. Have you ever experienced this or known someone who has? Any ideas on what I should do until I get in to the doctor?

Update - Thanks to the power of Facebook, I had a friend contact me with the name of an ENT who might be able to see me sooner. I made an appointment for 2 weeks time. While talking with the receptionist, she said my problem is very common and is probably due to fluid in the Eustachian tube. Just hearing that reassurance made me feel much better.

Zzzzzap!

I was walking through the mall with my friend Linda recently. We live about 2 ½ hours away from each other and like to meet at a mall located halfway between us and shop until we drop. My friend Linda is something else! She can outwalk me any day of the week. This was the first time we’d met to go shopping since I began wearing my hearing aids. I wondered how it would be different now. I did pretty OK hearing her soft spoken voice in the noisy food court when we had lunch. But later on as we continued shopping, I got so tired of coping with all the loud sounds around us that I turned my hearing aids to their “T switch” setting. This is the closest to an “off” switch I’ve got without removing them altogether. Well, I promptly forgot that I had done this and was I in for a surprise when I passed through a security gate at the bookstore. Zzzzzap! I winced and probably even staggered. If it's possible I had just been "electrocuted" by sound... Linda looked at me like "What's your problem?" The problem was invisible. Ahhh....hearing aids.

This was originally posted October 5, 2007. Since then I have continued to zap myself - believe it or not. It happens most often when I walk in the vicinity of the security gates located next to the library's circulation desk and main entrance while wearing a PocketTalker (an assistive listening device). When I forget I reel back as if someone has hit me, when I remember in time I make a strange and sudden retreat from the area. I'm sure our circulation staff finds me pretty amusing at times.

Stupid, stupid, stupid

Fall 2006
My hearing aids came with a 60 day trial period. Thank goodness for that because very soon after getting them I did the stupidest thing. I wore them while blowdrying my wet hair. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The instruction booklet warned to keep the hearing aids away from 2 things: water and heat. Of course I learned this afterwards. Have you ever heard of a librarian who didn't carefully read an instruction booklet? Yikes.

Well, needless to say, soon afterwards the aids failed. I took them in to the audiologist and she sent them off for replacement. Fortunately it was during the 60 day period and they were replaced with no questions asked. Of course I had to live without them for about two weeks while they were getting fixed but I got by.

Then about a month later, one hearing aid failed and then a few days later the other stopped working. I knew I had done nothing wrong this time. I tried replacing the batteries with no improvement. What could be the problem?

I returned to the audiologist again this time in a little bit of a snit. If these things were going to be breaking down so often, what was the point of wearing them? Never mind that it was all my fault the first time.

If you wear hearing aids, then you probably know what the problem was. But for everyone else I'll reveal the culprit: ear wax. The audiologist unscrewed one earpiece from its hearing aid and placed a thin plastic wire inside the tube. She pushed out a clump of ear wax just visible to the eye. It was the same problem in the other one. "Stupid, stupid ear wax," she said. To myself, I thought, "Hooray, all is not lost. Ear wax I can deal with." In fact, the audiologist gave me a few of the plastic wires to take home so I could handle the problem on my own next time.