So here’s where things stand now.  I tried the Widex hearing aids and they were better than I ever dared to hope.  But I wanted to make a careful and informed decision so I took them back to try the Siemans. Well, let the confusion begin!  There were many things about the Siemans I liked, but I kept thinking the Widex might have sounded better.  But the Widex don’t have custom user programs – they’re on or off and I could make them louder or softer, but they didn’t have specialized programs to take out background noise and enhance voices. 

It occurred to me that I might have been romanticizing the Widex in my mind because they were the first hearing aids I’ve had in 2 1/2 years that made sounds come back for me. Was I in love with them becuase they were great or because they gave me back my hope?  Can you see the lightbulb go on here?  Darling Hubby called Wonderful Audiologist and asked, “Is it possible for her to have them both at the same time so she can compare them in the same situations?”  Wondeful Audiologist agreed and I then had both the Widex and the Siemans.

The Widex sound was a little more clear, but the Siemans blocked out background noise. More and more I found myself putting in the Siemans and putting the Widex away.  If I could have two sets of hearing aids, I’d have taken them both, but alas, I can only have one.  Well, Wonderful Audiologist did some programming magic and made the Siemans sound more like the Widex.  Abracadabra! I was in heaven.  And I gave back the Widex and I’m keeping the Siemans.  There is still more programming she can do, but these last few weeks have been the best hearing weeks I’ve had in years.

I’m not knocking the Widex by any means.  I loved them and the time may come when I’ll go back to them, but for now, I’m thanking my lucky stars to have the flexibility of the Siemans.  Before I go, here’s a funny story and I swear it’s true.

I was driving and waiting to make a left turn when I heard a knocking sound in my car.  “Oh noodles,” I thought. (Ok, it wasn’t actually “noodles.”) Something is wrong with the car.  I was thinking I better call Darling Hubby in case it wasn’t safe to drive, when I noticed the knocking sound seemed to be in sync with the turn signal light.  I turned off the turn signal and the knocking stopped. I turned it back on and it started again.  And then I realized I’d never heard the turn signal in that car before.  Wow, it’s loud!

I was pretty depressed when I wrote my last entry because I thought I had no options – I certainly didn’t have any on paper.  But I’ve learned something: Life isnt always the way it appears to be on paper.  I forgot something important too – never, and I mean NEVER give up hope.  Here’s what happened:

I went to my audiologist and she spent over an hour reprogramming the Phonak hearing aids.  I could tell they weren’t going to work out for me, but agreed to give them another try.  In the meantime, she brought in the Widex and the Siemans, which weren’t supposed to work for me.  On paper, they didn’t meet my needs.  Nothing did.  If the Phonak aids didn’t work, nothing should.  But what did we have to lose by trying, was our thinking.

So before I left with the re-programmed Phonaks, which were still sounding awful to me, we decided to quickly try the Widex.  After all, I used to have good experiences with Widex before my hearing loss hit rock bottom, so let’s see how they sound now.  We put them in my ears and it was like someone turned the world right side up again!  Now the Widex are on, off or telecoil – no programs to choose from, no Bluetooth, no bells and whistles.

Without any fancy programming, without any extra features, sound was so much improved, I cried.  All of a sudden I wasn’t struggling to read lips again.  I wasn’t making anyone repeat a million times.  I was reading like I did two and a half years ago before getting the Starkey hearing aids!  (I didn’t even realize until now how much the Starkey aids muffled the sounds!)  Sound was sharper, there was no echo, the noise wasn’t overwhelming, and all my hope came rushing back.  Don’t get me wrong – I can’t hear again.  That will never happen.  But I got enough sounds to read well again.  It makes all the difference in the world.

“Can I try the Siemans too?” I asked.  “I don’t have time to program them now, so why don’t we wait until your next appointment for that,” she said.  “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease,” I begged. “I just want to see if they sound similar to the Widex because they have the bells and whistles that could really enhance my life!”  We tried the Siemans and the sound was very similar to the Widex.  Not quite as sharp, but they can be programmed and very fine tuned.   They may be what I’ve been praying for.

We ordered the Siemans and I’m getting them tomorrow.  And guess what? She decided to let me use the Widex so I could have a better life while waiting for the Siemans to come in.  This week has been so much better for me communication-wise than the past two and a half years have been. And the best thing is, I know if the Siemans don’t work for any reason, I can have the Widex.  Two options from none.  I’d say it was a miracle.

And, with that, I’m going to leave you with this little poem I’ve always lived by and forgot to remember. The author is unknown:

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

People tend to wonder how someone who’s deaf can still lose hearing.  And why, though the person has no speech understanding, hearing aids help her read lips and she can’t read well without them.  Of course, that person is me.  I was telling someone that I’ve lost more hearing and she couldn’t understand how you can be deaf and still lose more heairng.  It’s a fair question, but when she said to me, “Can you be deafer?”  I couldn’t help but laugh.   I think it was an innocent question – after all, either you can hear or you can’t, right?

Well, no, that’s wrong. Hearing loss and sounds are complicated. Sounds are in different frequencies and can be heard at different volume levels. You can be profoundly deaf and still have a few frequencies with sounds left – until you don’t.  Which is where I am now. I’m out of frequencies and decibels.

The bright side is, I can sleep on the runway of an airport and the sound of the plane won’t wake me up. Of course the down side to that is that I’ll get run over and squished by the plane, but that’s a whole different ball game.  In reality, sleeping on the runway isn’t part of my plans.  But in reality, I’m not communicating too well. You can always tell I’m in trouble when I do a lot of the talking.  If I’m talking, I don’t have to hear and I don’t have to suffer through uncomfortable silences.

This time with the new hearing aids has been interesting.  There are moments I think I’m doing better, but overall I’m not.  But they have such amazing features, it’s frustrating me terribly that they’re probably not going to work for me.  For instance, they have a “sound recovery” system.  That means they take the sounds and move them to the frequencies that do work for you.   Like playing an instrument in another key!

Unfortunately I don’t have the frequencies to put them in so they bounce around and around and they echo.  The bad part of that is I can’t hear and they drive me crazy. The amusing part is that I can sing a duet with myself and it always sounds like I’m in a crowd!   Finally I have imaginary friends.  I wish they’d say something different though.