Can I hear you now?

If you look up at the banner at the top of this blog, the captions says "Occasional thoughts on growing older." Truth be told I don't write many blogs on growing older, but this is one. I got fitted with hearing aids this past week. I am feeling my age.

I have been well aware of my hearing loss for some time. Noisy rooms, such as restaurants, made it almost impossible for me to understand what was being said. Even in quieter environs, I was missing a lot of what was being said to me. Barb wound up repeating questions and comments to me, but she speaks very softly (and mumbles a lot) and I still ended up not catching all that was said. Finally, just to make her happy, I went to an audiologist and got tested.

This is not my audiogram, but it illustrates my problem. Notice that everything sort of drops off on the high end. In my younger days these two lines would be almost straight across (and closer to the 0 line). Not now.

So to get on with the story, I'm in my "Thirty day evaluation." That means I wear these things everywhere I go and when I watch TV and when I talk to Barb, and I try to get used to the fact that I now hear all these high frequencies that annoy me and startle me, and get used to things sticking in my ears, and a lot of other bothersome details.

So do I hear better? Yes. Am I happy about it? I'll get back to you on that; I'm convinced that not everything is worth hearing, but I guess that's the curmudgeon in me. That happens when you grow older.