The power of hearing....

Since I arrived in January, Mama has:

1. Used her old hearing aid but hated it. It needed new batteries all the time and she still couldn't hear well.
2. Lost the old one all the time because, since it didn't work well, she would take it out and put it in her pocket, under the couch, or leave it on a table.
3. Finally broken the old one. This had happened many times before and the cost to fix it was in the hundreds of dollars!
4. Gone without the hearing aid until I convinced her that my voice was suffering and I could barely talk.
5. Agreed to get and new one. We took her to Better Hearing, right here in town. The gentleman was great with her. Very gentle and patient. The test proved that she only had 50% of her hearing left.

Yesterday she got her new hearing aid!

The look on her face was priceless when she realized she could hear us across the room when we were speaking at a normal level.

First he checked the fit and then he hooked it up to his computer and set it with the specifications from the initial test. He let her hear the normal sound level but told her he would take it down a couple of levels because since she wasn't used to hearing at that level, it would be irritating. He asked her if it seemed too loud and she said it was. He lowered it two levels and she said it was still too loud. He lowered it one more level.

She has an appointment in two weeks to have the sound level increased. It might take a couple visits to get her up to normal. He said he wanted to get the TV volume down to what was comfortable for everyone and where she could hear and understand what was being said.

On the way home she started smiling and you could tell she was hearing better. Once when I was talking to her she told me not to talk so loud. She even started speaking quieter.

Once we got home MS called and was so excited that Mama could hear her and understand everything she said! She was so excited that she called and told Carol.

Later that afternoon Carol called and talked to Mama herself.

After I posted it on Facebook I got a number of positive responses.

As a side note:

When we arrived at Better Hearing we were able to park right at the door. Before even getting out of the car I told Mama that it would drive John nuts to see so many dandelions. The most obvious one though was in the flower bed. The stems were 10-12 inches tall and there must have been eight or nine blooms. It looked like some exotic, fine petaled chrysanthemum. When we mentioned it to the receptionist she said she had gotten numerous comments about it that day. One of the other girls at the desk got up and went out to see it for herself. It really was pretty (sorry John)!