So here’s the deal.  I used to have perfect hearing and I had good balance.  They both went at the same time.  You see, I have Meniere’s Syndrome and though it can make you feel like someone put you in a blender, it doesn’t usually take all your hearing.  I, however, am special.  I’m what they call “atypical.”  Over a period of time, it took all my hearing, starting with my speech understanding.

It was a big adjustment but I learned to cope.  Things were going along splendidly – well as splendidly as they can for someone who used to have perfect hearing and now can’t hear a thing – until I got new hearing aids almost a year ago.  My former ones were obsolete and on their last legs.  For all the non-technical readers, that means old and crappy.  They outlived their expected life span. They were no longer top of the line. Heck, they weren’t even bottom of the line. They were finished, kaput, useless.  But oh yeah, keep them for backup, they told me.

So I got the new hearing aids and this has been the most miserable “hearing” year of my life.  My brand new Starkey Destiny Hearing Aids have been in for repair more times than I can count.  They’ve each been replaced only to have the same exact problems.  They are garbage.  Starkey should be ashamed, but that’s another blog.  Now they’re going in for repair again because they keep cutting out, the volume disappeared, and the audiologist left out a full program on the one they just replaced.  Go figure. They’re the most expensive hearing aids I ever had.  And I hate them, I hate Starkey and I’m not too thrilled with the audiology department at the hospital either.

Anyway, what do you think I’m wearing?  Yup, the old obsolete ones.  Amazingly, the sound doesn’t cut out, the volume is there and they still have some life in them.  But they’re not the newest technology.  They’re more like an old four engine plane instead of a nice sleek jet.  But they still work whereas the new ones don’t.  How’s that for irony?