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Advice for those with PD who also wear hearing aids
MAVEN OF MISTAKES
Good Morning (at least it is in Berlin 9 am). This is your Maven of Mistakes, Grandma JatonLouise, waking up to share some information about her mistakes so that you needn't make them yourself, freeing you up to make other, perhaps more entertaining ones.
1. Of course, you all know this one: Learn from your mistakes. This is imperative.
2. Learning from your mistakes does NOT mean REPEATING THEM EXACTLY. Yet, it is surprisingly common that some folks do this.
3. While it is essential to learn from your own mistakes, it's far better to learn from the mistakes of others, which is the occasion of today's lesson. So here is my mistake of the day.
If you don't have PD and are not deaf, you don't need to know this immediately but put it away for when you do need it. If you can remember where you put it.
DO NOT TRY TO PUT YOUR HEARING AIDES IN YOUR EARS WHILE STANDING UP, MOST PARTICULARLY WHEN IT'S EARLY IN THE MORNING AND YOUR BRAIN HASN'T FULLY ENGAGED YET BECAUSE:
• The little buggers are small, and can be wiggly (especially when you have the kind where the battery is connected to the hearing aide rather than the kind that's an all-in-one deal).
• They may go flying across the room if Mr. Parkinson makes his presence known, unexpectedly, as he always does, because he's a tad devilish and loves nothing better than watching a half deaf, half blind generously proportioned octogenarian crawling around on her arthritic hands and knees trying to find those tiny buggers, who after spending a long night in what resembles a coffin (they're too dumb to realize it's more like a feeding station) and they are locked, loaded, and ready to seek out the least likely place to hide from the human who has paid for them and who depends on them. (Did I say they're also selfish little snots?)
• AND, be extra careful if you have pets, such as a cat who confuses ear wax with catnip and just goes bat-excrement nuts at the prospect of getting the Grandpa's ear wax. (Grandma's ear wax is undoubtedly inferior and less fragrant than Grandpa's, but in a pinch, she will consider it, look it over, sniff some more, maybe give it that tentative touch, but it never passes her test, so she them walks away, perhaps tilting her head in a manner to clearly express her opinion that this object isn't worthy of sharing the planet with her, much less this tiny living room.. She gives the object of her scorn that tentative touch but regrets it and blows her nose and vigorously shakes her head to rid herself ot the stench of Grandma's unbelievably inferior ear wax (but not before giving it one last whack, which sends it under the sofa, where her most Beloved PaPa must retrieve it. She feels a tiny amount of regret for making things harder on her favorite human, but such is the lot of the devoted servant such as he.)
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Yes, I also have severe hearing loss from time served in Vietnam loading naval cannons aboard a ship (without being provided hearing protection by the Navy). The Agent Orange exposure gifted me with Ishemic Heart Disease, Hypothyroidism, and Parkinsons Disease.
I also had a new hearing test last Monday and was told by the doctor that my hearing was even worse than before! (I already knew that before she told me.) Now new, even better hearing aids are ordered. She also did molds of my ear canals to have them made into yhe new hearing aids instead of using the little rubber deals usually provided to me over the past 15 years. I need to go pick them up in one month. Hopefully that will help me hear a little better.
Yes, your comment about dropping the batteries to find a place in never, never land is one I share as well. I usually figure out months later where the batteries are when the furniture or the refrigerator needs to be moved to clean under them. No cat is involved!
Barry
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3 ReactionsGood advice about the hearing aids but I am wondering why yours have batteries when all the new ones are rechargeable. I put them in the charger overnight and they are ready to go.
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2 Reactions@barryl
I guess I shouldl have saidd Power Supply. My mearing aides have the piece that goes into your ear. Then there's anoter piece that is attachd to theear piece I don't know what's inside of it, but that's the part that i slip into the little docking pocketd s om my charager. I'm assuming that these are rechargeable batteries. I've never opented that mysterious appendage to see what lies inside. I just know that I put one piece in my ear and pt the other behind my ear (and sometimes my glasses get all tangled up in that. I think they're ilttiated had havingto so so muchwork. The hold my glasses, they hod both pieced of my hearing aide, they held my masks duting covid. zehzyhry muvh wonder why THEY hae to do RVERY THING and all the other face parts do nothing at all, otherthan maybe join in with a smile or a fr ounwn every now andthen.
@sdcz my hearing aids are rechargeable; hence referring to their little feeding stations dduring the nigh but I can see h ow that was unclear.All thi s sciency sstuff is magic to me. I'm grateful for gavity , t hough, because I've seen what those poor astronaughts have to contend with. At lealst when I drop something I know which wayit's going to fall. They don't have that luxury. ;
@sdcz mine are like that tool I just assumed that the piece that doesn't go into my ear canal is where the rechargable battery lijves. I don't optn them up ever. Just just pu6 that little what-ever-it's called -- the piece that doesn't go go into my ear canal but spenss its days hiding behind my ears
@sdcz
@sdcz AND NOW, I,ve lost my place in my own verbiage But I was g oing to finish wiith a flourish mentioning those other devices that have baffled me over the uears, Visicalc, Visiplot, Word Star and God only knows whatall else we were tortured by as we started to come up out of the swamp and into this fresh new world with all these things that were promised to save us time and trouble. ..... tata for the nonce and enjoy your weekends@ 😉 PS, If these same folks were tasked with solving our trafic problems I hesitate to even beging to imagine the outcomem so maybe it's beter hat this ohtre stuff occupies us all too much to solv the other problems.
@sdcz- Because the VA provides my hearing aids AND the batteries. You're not able to charge your hearing aids if you are not at home, or if you're wearing the hearing aids when they go dead. Batteries are by far the best choice for me. I carry a couple in my pocket if I'm away from home. I simply change the batteries and I'm good for 3+ days again.
When we lived in the US, our battteries were free, but we had to go to the audiologists to get them. and we lived in Washington, DC< one of the places that's at least in the top 10 when it comes to traffic jams. We dropped by when we could but sometimes it wasn't worth 2 hours of my time (which is an increassingly large percentage of my time left on earth every year, so I that's somethign I thread into many of my decisions on how use my time. Now we live in Berlin, the audiologist is a mere 4 walkable blocks away, and our time is our own because we're retired and the brandbabies no longer need someone to pick them up from school and we're free as a bird. But of course, here in Germany they don't give you free batteries.(In the words of Roseanna Dana, "It's always something...") We generally rely on our audiologist to pick out the most suitable hearing aides for us and you're right -- we're more or less tied to the charger. You're absolutley right that batteries are more manageable -- if our electricity were to go out for several days we would be out of luck and, if we were out and about, and they chose that day to go belly-up, even if we carried the charger every where we wherever we may roam,, there's the problem of where we could plug them in to recharge. The hearing aides I before were like yours -regular bateries, and the technolgy was all in the same pod and I would just put a battery in whenever I needed to. Both my husband and I are so hard of hearing that I believe (can't say for sure) that whatever technology it takes to keep both of us hearing takes more technology than will fit in the all-in-your - ear hearing aide, so they put some of it in the aide, and the rest of it in the extra little back-pack thing to allows us to hear more like what normal folks hear, Wwe have some features on these hearing aides that may be part of it. For instance, we can watch TV and make the sound go directly in our ear - it's sent from the TV to our hearing aides via bluetoth. and we can use our cell phones to control several options for different enviornmenets - restaurants, outside, etc. No doubt our neighbors would be most irritated if we turned the TV up to hear. D
Someone had their TV on as loud as it would go and for some reason the landlord though it was us. , so we invited hiim in to hear what he could hear while we watched TV and turned up to as loud as high as it could go. e He couldn't hear squat. And the other piece is that as we age, and I have PD, our fine motor skills aren't as good as they should be and then there's the chance, that mischievous little Mr Parkinson might get involved. in. Putting those teensy batterines in that teensy little slot is something that might take me all day to do -- butit might be fun to watch, or to bet on....How long will it take the Octogenarian of bucolic Lichterffelde-West to pui her battery in her hearing aide this morning.? Will that mischievous Mr. Parkinson throw a tremor he's been meaning to foist off on her for a week now, but the opportunity hasn't come up and maybe he'll take this one. Do I have any one who wants to bet she can do it in 3 hours? Separate bets about how many times she'll drop it, whether on not . the 16 pound Siamese will be sstrolling about the flat, looking for something to do, and sees me trying to put a battery in my hearing aide , will he assume the posiiton, close to the ground ,with his butt up in the air and his tail going back and forth, s taring intently at the battery, hoping she=ll drop it and he can snap it up before she even realizes he is in the room. The excitement at Grandma JatonLouise's house never ends!
I am so sorry you have joined us in the PDboat - but I am very glad I get to read your missives!
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