Monday, September 23, 2013

How To Revive A Hearing Aid That's Been Exposed To Moisture



First of all, I have to be honest. The worst-case scenarios, such as a hearing aid that's gone through the washing machine, are too far gone. If your hearing aid has gone through the washing machine, it's a goner. Don't even bother trying to revive a hearing aid that's been through the washer.

If the hearing aid has only been exposed to mild or moderate moisture, such as rain or falling into a puddle, it might be possible to revive it. The quicker you are able to revive it after exposure, the most likely your aid will “survive.” For the record, I've done this twice. One of the times I was successful, and the other time I wasn't. It all depends on the amount of moisture and how quickly you are able revive it.

Here's how to revive a hearing aid:

Step 1: If the hearing aid will not turn on, disconnect the hearing aid from the earmold tubing, remove the battery, and open the battery pack. (Dispose of the battery. Batteries can't withstand any moisture.)

Step 2: If a dehumidifier is handy, put the hearing aids in it right away. If you don't have it on hand, put your hearing aid in a container or ziploc with a bunch of rice. If you don't have access to a dehumidifier or rice, set your hearing aid and earmold out on a flat surface. Try turning it on again in a couple hours or so. If you get sound, awesome! If you don't, move on to step 3.

Step 3: Turn a blowdryer on low speed and low heat and blow-dry the hearing aid for a few minutes. If you're at work or out and about, the hand dryers in the bathroom should suffice, but don't hold it too close. (Do not blow-dry the mold, just the hearing aid.) If your hearing aid has not been exposed to copious amounts of moisture, it should revive by this point. If it doesn't, you can try leaving it in the dehydrator overnight. If it's still dead in the morning, it can't be revived.

If you don't have a hearing aid dehumidifier or a blow-dryer, get both. Everyone who uses hearing aids must own a blow-dryer, male or female. Blow-dryers are relatively inexpensive and they can save your hearing aids.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Tips for New and Prospective Hearing Aid Users



I don't know how many readers have been newly diagnosed with hearing loss. But just in case someone out there is wearing hearing aids for the first time, or about to get hearing aids, I'd like to share some tips that will, hopefully, make this transition a little easier. I don't have a cochlear implant, but I'm sure this would also apply to CI's as well.

1.) Your first pair of aids should only be used under the supervision of an audiologist. I bought my current pair of hearing aids online and am thrilled with the results, but my first pair came from the audiologist. I know it costs an arm and a leg to get them from there, but it's really worth it the first time around. In the US, health insurance rarely covers hearing aids but most clinics will let you set up a payment plan. I've heard from a few hearing aid users in Canada and the UK and other European countries who said their aids were either covered or mostly covered by insurance. So if you live outside the US, check with your insurance provider, because it may be covered.

2.) When you first put your hearing aids on, things WILL sound weird. Give your ears and brain time to adjust before taking the aids back for a tune-up. I've seen YouTube videos of people getting a cochlear implant activated or putting on hearing aids for the first time. They always seem so excited, and you don't see any hint of shock or discomfort. Frankly, that was not my experience for either pair of hearing aids. Sure, I was excited, but everything was SO loud. Ambient noise sounded like a train running through my head because I didn't remember what it sounded like. And be prepared for the fact that your voice might sound weird to yourself. When I got my first pair of hearing aids, I hated my voice because I sounded like a robot. All the little sounds I'd never heard before drove me insane. This is completely normal and starts to go away anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after your fitting.

3.) Wear them for a few hours a day and work up to full days as quickly as you can. Wearing hearing aids is not like wearing glasses. Your brain needs to adjust to how you hear through your hearing aids. The more you can wear your hearing aids, the quicker your brain will adjust, and eventually you'll get to the point where you forget you're even wearing them. If you're worried about the cost of batteries, I'm with you on that one. Nowadays there are several models that use rechargeable batteries, which will save money and batteries in the long run. (These models can still use regular batteries if something were to happen to your rechargeables.)

4.) Always, always, ALWAYS carry extra batteries and a case. I can't emphasize this enough. You don't want to be in a situation where your batteries run out of juice and you don't have other ones. Even with rechargeables, I have the occasional night where I forget to put them in the charger before I go to bed. And if, heaven forbid, your hearing aids come into contact with water, the battery will be a goner so you will need a new one to use after your hearing aid is revived. Assuming it still works, that is.


5.) Get a hearing aid dehumidifier. Nothing can wear out hearing aids and molds faster than moisture. If you use rechargeable batteries with an electric charger, the charger sort of acts as a dehumidifier so you won't need to use it as often. But even if you have a charger, you still need a dehumidifier. On super humid days, you'll need to throw your hearing aids in there whenever there's significant moisture buildup, and they can be very helpful for reviving a hearing aid that has gotten wet.

(Reviving a wet hearing aid is a topic that deserves its own post. I'll work on that and get it posted as soon as possible.)


6.) Keep them out of reach of pets and small children. I don't know what it is about pets, but they love hearing aids. My previous cat would take them out of the dehumidifier while I was in the shower if I didn't shut the darn thing all the way. She would play with them, and throw them around, and hide them places. If your dehumidifier has a screw-top lid, make sure it's screwed all the way tight. If it's only screwed on part way and a dog or cat knocks it over, it will break open.

7.) NEVER take your hearing aids off and put them in your pocket. If you need to take them off, put them in a case or dehumidifier. This is asking for trouble. You could forget they're in there and run them through the washing machine. You could drop them in a puddle trying to get them out of your pocket. I've done both of those, I'm sorry to say. The possibilities of what could happen are endless. Just don't even mess with this.

8.) Be patient with yourself while learning how to use the phone with your hearing aid. I'll be writing another post about hearing aids and phone usage at some point, but know that it takes some getting used to. Don't be afraid to use other communication modes if it's easier.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Things That Weird Me Out



  1. Bow-tie pasta. Why would pasta need to don formal wear before it gets digested?
  1. Pregnancy websites and books that compare the baby to fruits at various stages of development. I get that you have to compare it to something because you want a mental picture of the bundle of joy that is borrowing your body for 9 months. I get that the image of different kinds of fruit is pretty vivid right off the bat. But for some reason, I don’t understand this whole idea of comparing the baby to fruit. Maybe it’s one of those things you have to be pregnant to understand. But right now, I’m not pregnant and I think it’s weird. So it’s on the list.
  1. When I see the following warning on a jar of peanut butter: “Allergy warning: contains nuts.” I don’t even know how to respond to this one.
  1. Jellyfish. They don’t look like fish. They don’t even really look like jelly. I don’t think they are even scientifically in the fish category.

Monday, September 16, 2013

To Everything, There Is A Season...



A time to sing along to the Veggie Tales rendition of “Footloose” while cruising down the freeway.

A time to say up until midnight watching “Downton Abbey” because you are hooked, and every episode ends with a cliffhanger, and it's driving you insane.

A time to talk baby talk to your cat.

A time to drop everything and bake a cake.

A time to drop everything and eat chocolate.


And no, these have all most certainly NOT happened to me in the last week or so!

Why would you think that? :p

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Christians and Movie Choices: My Two Cents


Christians tend to lump movies, books, and music into the category of “media choices” and use the same barometer for all of them: If it's produced by a Christian company, it's okay. If it's produced by a secular company, it's not. This is absolute bunk, to put it mildly. It's not that simple, as much as we might want it to be.

With movies, I am more interested in WHY a particular movie contains violence, profanity, etc, than whether or not it contains those things. In general, I am not opposed to movies that dipict violence in order to make a point, such as “Hotel Rwanda,” “Mississippi Burning,” or “The Devil's Arithmatic.” I firmly believe that older children and teenagers should watch such movies when their parents decide they're old enough. In showing them these movies, we are not glorifying violence. We are showing them what can happen when humans inflict it on each other.

I do have a problem with violence just for the sake of violence. I got to a point where I felt like CSI falls too close to this end of the spectrum to continue watching it. With a lot of the action/adventure movies out there, it's kind of a tossup where they fall on the spectrum. I take it on a case-by-case basis.

Other than the examples I just gave, I don't feel the need to get into more specific details about what movies and shows I've chosen to watch or not watch, because that's exactly my point. I'm not you. I don't know for sure what's okay for you and what you need to avoid. We need to own our own choices, and that may mean that two sincere Christians come to two different conclusions in a given situation.

Friday, September 13, 2013

CC, OC, SDH, and Subtitles: What's the Difference?



For the longest time, I would admittedly get frustrated with hearing people if they didn't understand why I needed captions, or how to tell if a DVD is captioned or subtitled. But then I saw the light and realized I spent more time talking about my frustration than I did educating people on the issue. (This actually pertains to a LOT of aspects of being HOH in the hearing world, not just captions!) So I decided I'm going to start blogging about these subjects as they come up. I guess you could call this the unofficial, blogging version of “Hearing Loss For Dummies.”

Closed Captioning and Open Captioning are both coded through the television monitor as opposed to the DVD player. Closed Captioning is white text enclosed in a black box. Open Captioning is white text that is not enclosed. The DVD program on my computer uses OC, whereas my television set uses CC. The one disadvantage of OC is it can be hard to see if the background is lighter. CC is much more common, probably for that reason.

You turn on the captions through your TV's menu. Since everyone's TV is different, a tutorial on how to turn on the captions would be pretty pointless. If you're starting to develop hearing loss and want to start using captions, take a look at the instruction manual for your TV. If you didn't keep it, you can probably find instructions online. Once you turn the captions on, they will stay turned on unless you manually turn them back off. When your TV is in CC mode, captions will go on automatically for DVDs, shows, and commercials that are captioned.

SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing): SDH is coded through the DVD player instead of the TV. It looks a lot like Open Captions. The text is usually white, but sometimes it's yellow. DVD's that don't have CC usually have SDH. Some have both. If I have a choice, I choose CC because, again, it gives you more contrast against lighter backgrounds.

Subtitles: The huge difference between subtitles and captions or SDH is what's in the text. The intention of subtitles is to make a movie accessible to a hearing person who speaks a different language. Often, they are not word-for-word, and they don't have sound effects that a person with hearing loss might miss, such as a knock at the door, a scream off-stage, etc. I'll use subtitles in a pinch when there are no other options, but they are not the same thing as captions or SDH.

How to tell if a DVD has captions or SDH: The CC or SDH icon will be on the back or spine of the DVD case. The “CC” is usually encased in a little TV symbol or a thick square. The “SDH” letters are sometimes in a box, but usually they're just by themselves. They often have an asterisk with the explanation of “subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing” at the bottom of the case.

If you've ever watched a movie with me, you've seen me check the DVD case to make sure it's captioned. This is what I'm looking for.

The legislation regarding what has to be captioned is a bit complicated. I'll have to do more research and go into more details in another post. But here's the short version: In the US, movies produced for entertainment purposes need to have CC or SDH by law. Special features do not. Documentaries also are not required to have captions. PBS puts captions on all their stuff, thankfully. Needless to say, the lack of captions on non-PBS documentaries made college a living nightmare!

If you have any other questions, please feel free to leave a comment! :)

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Things Jesus Did NOT Say In Telling Us To Love Our Neighbors

For awhile now, I’ve noticed a really disturbing trend, both in myself and in the church at large.  We are adding to Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbors.  Here are some of the most common “additions” I’ve seen so far:

-“Love your neighbor only if they’re straight and are vehemently opposed to gay marriage.”

-“Love your neighbor only if they vote the way you do.”

-“Love your neighbor only if they interpret every last ounce of Scripture EXACTLY the way you do.”

We are called to love whoever G-d puts in front of us.  Loving them means acknowledging that G-d created them, and they are precious to Him.

Loving them means taking the log out of our own eyes, separating people from their issues, and admitting that we can’t possibly know everything about what causes same-sex attraction.  Loving our neighbors means embracing them as the individuals that they are.  Loving our neighbors means letting go of expectations and meeting them where they're at.

If Jesus wanted to create exceptions to the “love your neighbor” commandment, He would have.

But He didn’t.

Which means we don’t get to.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

The Comparison Addiction

The idea of comparing ourselves to others is not new.  Heck, “thou shall not covet” made it into the 10 Commandments, for crying out loud.  Isn’t coveting really just code for comparing ourselves to others?  Maybe we don’t always get jealous of physical possessions or apperance.  Maybe we’re jealous of more abstract things, like strengths and character traits.  I’m having one of those moods where my personality feels like a cosmic joke, and I wish I could be anyone else.  Thanks to Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, comparison just got a lot easier, and a lot more addicting.

Yes, addicting.  Comparison is, essentially a spiritual drug addiction.  It impairs our judgment and our ability to make sound choices.  We lose our true selves to who we think we “should” be.  We know it’s bad for us, but we keep wanting more. 

If the church looked at comparison as a drug addiction, how would that change the way we see ourselves and everyone else?  Gotta wonder…


Saturday, September 7, 2013

The Bullying Epidemic

Bullying is a subject that I hadn’t thought much about until recently, when I saw a discussion about it on a friend’s Facebook wall.  Ever since I read all those posts, I’ve been thinking more about my experiences with being bullied in late elementary and early junior high. 

As for finding a solution to this epidemic, I’ve come to a conclusion that will probably ruffle a lot of feathers: 

Bullying is a complex, societal problem that does not have a “quick fix.”  Most of the ideas I’ve heard from well-intentioned parents and teachers are great in theory, but they don’t always work in practice.  The two most common “solutions” to bullying these days are putting your child in private school and trying to create a school environment where students take a stand against bullying and peer violence.  I can’t say that these solutions never work, because for all I know someone else might have had better luck with them than I did.  But they don’t solve the bigger societal issues that contribute to bullying.

Here are the major problems in a nutshell:

1.)  We don’t practice what we preach.  Parents and teachers tell children that they need to treat each other with respect.  Unfortunately, we live in a world where most adults don’t do that.  If we respected each other, it would come more naturally for our kids, and bullying wouldn’t be anywhere near as common. 

2.)  Most children who turn into bullies have a rough time of it outside the classroom.  I knew enough about my bullies to know that every single one of them was dealing with something major.  Several of them had parents who were going through horrible divorces.  I remember in 5th grade, one classmate in particular was having awful side effects from an ADHD medication, and he bullied everyone.  With so many students dealing with those kinds of situations, the odds of finding enough students to put together some kind of coalition is slim.

3.)  Even if there was enough interest in such a coalition, there is very little support and protection for students who actually want to take a stand against bullying and peer violence.  I’ve heard countless stories of high school students who were either suspended or threatened with suspension for breaking up fights, or standing up for a friend who was being harassed.  The “zero tolerance” policy isn’t going to work as long as there is also “zero tolerance” for students who actually want to do the right thing. 

I really wish I had an easy answer to the question of how do we stop bullying.  But the truth is, there is no such thing as an easy answer as long as we’ve got these bigger societal issues to contend with. 


Thursday, September 5, 2013

Why I Blog

Every so often I try to work on one of the two books that are currently rolling around in my head, and I’m starting to come to the conclusion that writing a book is not for me, at least at this point in my life.

My reasoning for not wanting to publish a book right now is two-fold.  First of all, in order to get a book published, it has to be VERY good.  The competition is fierce.  Frankly, I don’t care whether or not my writing is good or bad.  I don’t do a blog because I want to be a good writer.  I do a blog because I want to be an honest writer.  I write what needs to be said.  Whether it’s good or bad is completely irrelevant.

Second of all, I hate the idea of someone not being able to read what I write because they can’t afford to buy my book.  Sure, I could write a book and it could end up in some library somewhere, but libraries don’t have every book.  Not being able to afford books is a bigger setback than most people realize.  I’ve gotten several messages from people telling me how much they appreciate what I write.  It’s such a joy to be able to share this gift with others.  I don’t want anyone to be deprived of that because they can’t afford to buy a book.  I’m playing around with the idea of putting a PayPal button on my blog, since I do put a considerable amount of work into it, and it would be nice to have a little more money to work with.  But the difference between that and selling a book is I wouldn’t be making people pay for it.  I would be asking them.  

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

20/20 Hearing? Not So Much

Recently I wrote up a list of common misconceptions about hearing loss.  I forgot about another big one, which I’m going to address right now: “Wearing hearing aids will give you ‘20/20 hearing.’ “

For awhile it really irritated me that people believed this, but now I can understand why some people think that’s how it works.  After all, eyeglasses and contacts correct most people’s vision to 20/20, or at least close enough to 20/20 that they don’t feel visually impaired when wearing their glasses or contacts.  If glasses can help people see “normally”, then it should stand to reason that hearing aids can help people hear “normally.”

How well a person hears with hearing aids or a cochlear implant (or two) really varies.  Some people do hear quite well with their aids or cochlear, and therefore don’t feel all that “impaired.”  But some people, while receiving some benefit from their aids or CI, still don’t hear very well, and might still struggle with background noise and talking on the phone and whatnot.  So if you see a person with hearing aids or a cochlear implant, don’t assume that they can hear and understand everything, because they might not be able to.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

It's official! I'm on Facebook!

After some work and a LOT of technological temper tantrums (I dare you to say that 3 times out loud), My Sacred Pathway finally has a Facebook page!  

I'll be back with more posts soon, but in the meantime, click here to check out the Facebook page! :)