I think all of my patient stories are good. I love hearing about anyone with positive results, because you might get it be something that we take for granted, like hearing the bird song. It’s the ones that catch me off guard that even I take for granted like, “Oh I could hear the sound of my feet when I was walking along.” Which you just don’t think about when you’ve got perfectly normal hearing. And you don’t think about it when you’ve got hearing loss as well, but then when you get the hearing aids and you realise that this is what things actually sound like then it’s lovely to hear people.
Sometimes it’s the things that people find annoying at the beginning that they actually grow to love, like the sound of the clock ticking, it might drive them a bit mental at the beginning because they’ve not heard it for a while, but then afterwards they use it as an indicator that yes, they are hearing well. Their hearing aids are in and they are hearing well because they can’t hear the clock without their hearing aids.
I’ve recently seen a lady and she was fitted with all singing, all dancing top of the range, Bluetooth streaming hearing aids. One of the things that she said to me was the fact that she was going to her son’s wedding and it was in Australia and she really wanted to be able to hear him say the vows, because she knows that she struggles with her existing NHS ones. And that she really struggles as well to communicate with him when the Skype. Now I know its hard enough for people to communicate when you are at opposite ends of the world anyway, finding the time, and then if you’ve got those short moments that you are wanting to have a chat with your loved one. But she could then connect to her laptop via Bluetooth on her Phonak Marvel hearing aids and she could walk around and still be hearing things because they’ve got a microphone in the hearing aids as well so she could be talking and not necessarily be sitting right there. The same with the phone as well, so I know that it’s really, really changed her life.
