The experience when I put on hearing aids was written: how I decided to buy them, how I am using them now.
I had had the cerebral hemorrhage just before reaching the 40-year-old and was continuing to devote myself to rehabilitation. When my generation began to fuss about aging, I was conversely continuing to feel the slight rejuvenation because of the rehabilitation effect. But the feeling of rejuvenation ended at about 70 years old. Now I am ordinarily feeling aging.
Three or four years ago, I noticed that I failed to hear the words of actors/actresses on TV sometimes. So I carefully watched TV and found that the announcer's words of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) were easy to listen and the words of many actors/actresses and the common people were difficult to listen. I didn't pay so much attention to it and I thought still that their vocalization was poor. But when I noticed that I was able to understand the NHK announcer's explanation about the chirps of "Suzumushi (a kind of a cricket)" clearly but was not able to listen to the chirps entirely, I began to doubt my ears.
I understood that the pitch of my tinnitus and the chirps were probably same because my ears have been ringing for a long time. But when I realized that my English listening ability began to fall off and that I failed often to hear my wife's Japanese, I was puzzled. I talked about my confusion to my physician in charge one day. He introduced an ear, nose, and throat specialist to me. The specialist listened to my explanation and said at once, "Your case is incurable.", "It's a phenomena of ageing." In any case he measured my hearing with the audiometer. As had expected, my hearing of the high tone had fallen off considerably. But he said, "You don't need to put on the hearing aids." He judged so as a doctor. But I wanted to put on the hearing aids to improve my hearing even if it was a little. So I went to a hearing aid store and showed the result of the measurement.
The store had some types of hearing aids. I chose a type of short and thick flesh-colored IC chip which was equipped with a very small microphone and speaker. A sales engineer chipped off the two chips in order to fit my ear-holes, and inputted the data of the measurement to the chips from a computer. The made-to-order hearing aids were completed.
When I put on the hearing aids first, I was surprised by the loudness of the noises in the kitchen, which were caused by running water and touching of dishes. Surely I had not been able to hear the high tone. When I read a newspaper, the rustle of the pages bothered me a little. When I went for a walk, the sound of running cars on the street, which contained the noise of friction between the tires and the road surface, was pretty noisy. On the path of the low mountain behind my house, I had been thinking that the twittering of little birds had decreased recently, but I was surprised by the loudness of the twittering. At the English conversation class at where I had wanted to use the hearing aids most I was able to catch the teacher's voice more clearly than I had expected. And the footsteps and voices of the people who were walking the corridor reached my ears through the door.
Though I am satisfied with the performance of the hearing aids, I was not able to hear the chirps when the mimic called a Mr. Yanagiya imitated the chirps of "Suzumushi (a kind of cricket)." Of course I was clearly able to understand his explanation. I thought that the pitch of the sound of my tinnitus and the chirps were maybe same completely as had expected. I supposed that the true chirps and his imitation must have been same, and I was impressed. And I cannot understand even the sudden change of the topic in Japanese conversation, and the Japanese young's rapid conversation. These phenomena show that the hearing aid is only a monofunctional loudspeaker. So I put on the hearing aids only when I need them like my glasses.
Now, I cannot listen to the small voices without the hearing aids, cannot even do an easy calculation without the pocket calculator, and cannot write a postcard without the word processor and the electronic dictionary. Have I begun to become a cyborg?
uploaded
November 1, 2006