To Soar Above The Clouds

Dealing with death is really hard for me. I don’t like going to funerals at all primarily because they are so emotional for me. Over the years I have had so many patients pass away and on my own I mourn the loss. I am happy to sit with their family in office and talk, share and grieve yet I have a hard time getting myself to go to funerals. Recently I had a patient pass away unexpectedly, this was someone that I have known in excess of 15 years. I was so saddened by his death and felt it deeply. After a few days this gentleman’s wife came by the office to talk and to donate his hearing aids. We spent time talking about their life together and the special relationship they shared. This lovely lady eventually asked if I would come to the memorial service that was to take place in a few weeks. I said I would come. As I said I do have a very hard time with these types of events but I said I would be there and knew that I would go. This last Saturday I put on my best suit and headed out to the funeral home.

It is amazing what a small community we live in and the way out lives cross. At this memorial service I ran into patients, friends and acquaintances that I had no idea were connected to these folks. The celebration of life was full of stories that amazed me moved me and yes, made me cry. You see this man was stricken with polio at the age of 9 and was hospitalized for three years returning to his family at the age of 12. I heard stories of the fierce determination that he possessed to overcome and be a part of society without the boundaries of inhibition that polio had rendered in his life. I heard a beautiful love story set around his love for sailing where he met the love of his life, his beautiful. I heard of their special life in a cottage community swimming and sailing and enjoying the company of friends and family, I heard about their travels to Brazil or the West Coast of Canada. All through this story I continued to hear about the determination that persisted in this man that helped him overcome and adapt to life’s challenges and the further limitations in mobility that afflicted him. It should be no surprise to me that when he saw me in the context of seeking help with his hearing loss that he approached this disability with a will to find success and did.

One of the most beautiful parts of the service was when his wife spoke and shared pictures of their life. Towards the end of the talk she shared with us his love for airplanes and how he loved to fly. At one point in her story she shared with us a story, a special experience. Even though this man was wheelchair bound he wanted so badly to fly an airplane and eventually found his way into a glider with another pilot.  In order to get him into the plane they had to remove much of the safety equipment that would be of little use to him anyway. This lovely lady shared the story of his time flying and how the pilot let him fly and even extended their time significantly given the sheer joy that this man felt gliding silently through the clouds. When listening to this story many of us were brought to tears because as his wife shared this was a time in this mans life where he felt like he was not limited where he felt free. As she concluded with this story we could all infer our own belief system and how we viewed death with this visual in our minds. In the end I was lifted up by having attended this celebration of life being blessed by the experience.

While many have limitations either of mobility, or hearing or visual acuity etc. it is an important lesson in life to take on that challenge and find ways to live you r life to the fullest and in the way you choose. This very specific message is one that we as a company have been communicating this year through our marketing campaign. The message is to life your life in the way you choose being empowered to control what you can and in our case this is about hearing loss and communication. In the end I was honored and blessed to have experienced this celebration of life, as it was another learning experience for me.  Determination, stubbornness, a will to succeed can be such a valuable characteristic in life.

Selective Spousal Hearing Loss

Why is it so hard to hear your spouse  (insert smile)? Is this really an intentional inefficiency or is there more to it? I mean is "selective hearing"a real thing? I can't tell you how many of my patients come in because their significant other is telling them that they need to get their hearing checked. While often there is validity to the concern and hearing loss is definitely a part of what is going on there are other possibilities as well.

Certainly when one encounters hearing difficulty they themselves are often the last to know as they base normal upon themselves and their experience. Many times it is ones significant other that can see how hard it is for their partner to hear and is able to point it out. When you have known someone for a very long time it may be more obvious to you than another that they are not functioning the same way that they once did. In some cases it can be that split second of pause while filling in the parts one didn't quite catch or that look of confusion that quickly passes and is covered up with a smile or a nod or some other compensatory mechanism. Perhaps the domination of the conversation is what is witnessed as it is too difficult to follow. Whatever the difficulty may be it is common that those suffering are the last to know or accept the reality .
Now for another possibility. So many of the people that come in to see me because their significant other thinks they have a hearing problem have no hearing problem at all. The reality is that when you are comfortable with another you tend to do things in communication that may be very inefficient. In our own homes we try to have conversations from one room to the next or while on a different floor or with the television on or at the kitchen sink with the water running. The point is we communicate in ways that we never would with someone that was visiting our home. When we have company in our homes we tend to be in the same room conversing while atleast facing each other without the television or a lot of other background noise present, we tend to introduce our subject and converse in a manner where there is listening taking place as well as leading in conversation. In this context that individual that might be considered to have hearing loss may have little to no difficulty at all simply because of the efforts made to communicate well.
The responsibility for good communication is a two way street where all parties involved in communication have a responsibility. If you really want your husband or wife, family member friend or significant other to hear something and understand, then take the time to optimize your approach in communicating by limiting the background noise, by physical proximity, using your eyes, introducing your subject and a variety of other good communication habits. 

How Hearing Loss Is Good for The Health Of Wild Turkeys

 The motivation to do something about ones hearing can be different for everyone. One of my patients told me a funny story regarding his moment of realization that I thought I would share.

This particular man is an avid hunter enjoying all kinds of hunting. On this particular occasion I believe he was bow hunting. One of the things he really likes about hunting is being out I the woods by himself enjoying nature. This particular year he was in his regular tree stand and noticed that the woods seemed devoid of any kind of animal life, no squirrels running around, no birds in the tree, and certainly no turkeys to shoot.

When this man got home his wife and daughter both finally asked him what the loud beeping sound was that seemed to be following him around. Apparently what had happened was that his watch alarm had gone off emitting a high pitched beeping that he was unable to hear but that all the woodland creatures heard very well and avoided leaving hi sitting in his tree stand with no company.

When he told me this story and told me it was the final straw in recognizing that he may have a hearing problem he had me laughing out loud especially since he was telling it a s a humorous story. The happy ending to the story is that he got his hearing aids and wild turkeys are no longer safe

Flying and Hearing Loss

 

As a little boy I loved the idea of being able to fly. Superman’s greatest gift in my opinion was his ability to fly, yes faster than a speeding bullet able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, was it a bird was it a plane, no it was Superman! I would run around the house with a towel wrapped around my neck jumping of my bed trying desperately to fly. I loved the idea of flying but never really loved heights. I remember that first time I recognized this failing in myself when we visited the Grand Canyon and I got that wobbly feeling in my knees and that tingling in my feet as I approached the edge. Even though I don’t love heights I still love the idea of flying which is why the idea of flying via the indoor vertical wind tunnel also known as indoor skydiving has really intrigued me. This is one of those things that I have really wanted to do. I have watched the video and have talked to many people that have tried this and loved it.

Recently I had a patient come in to see me after having taken part in an indoor skydiving adventure. The patient shared with me their personal experience with indoor skydiving. I have known that this was potentially a fairly noisy thing to do, as it is the powerful wind turbines at close proximity that allows you to be lifted off the ground and into the air. This particular patient did report that he was given earplugs but that they were ill fitting. The reported noise was painful to this gentleman and upon exit he had a hard time hearing with his ears feeling full and plugged. Initially the thought was that perhaps he had suffered from temporary threshold shift but as days went by the ears did not get any better as the plugged feeling persisted. After a few weeks and several visits with his Physician he was sent to see me. Unfortunately what I ended up finding was a significant noise induced hearing loss that is permanent. The loss was mild to moderate in severity and was primarily in the high frequency spectrum which was why he felt plugged primarily hearing low and mid-frequencies normally.  When I tried to research the sound levels encountered in these structures there was not a lot of information available though most sources reported the sound levels exceeding 120-130 DB. These sound levels approach and exceed the threshold of pain for a lot of people. These levels can and did cause significant damage in the short time of exposure that most of these events are limited to. The thing about foam insert hearing protection is that every ear can vary in shape and size and even if there is s small crack in the seal the effect of the noise is the same as if you were not wearing hearing protection.

I still really want to fly like superman but I think I will make sure that I wear excellent hearing protection before flying. 

How to Hear Your Television Better

One of the first places that my patients report having difficulty with their hearing is while watching television. When I was a kid television certainly is not what it is now. I remember our black and white television with a tiny screen and rabbit ears. My kids would find this concept beyond foreign. My new tablet probably has a bigger screen than our old television. The sound produced by those old sets was also fairly poor even though some of them were built into those massive stereo systems that you might have considered big enough to bury someone in. Today’s televisions are huge with huge pictures connected to massive surround sound system and yet they can still be hard to hear. In actuality they may not be hard to hear but more specifically it may be hard to understand what is being said.

What we know about hearing loss is that for noise exposure as well as the aging process it is the high frequencies that deteriorate on us first. The high frequencies would be what we know as the treble sounds versus bass. With typical hearing loss we loose sharpness before volume. When we watch television with t hearing loss we often try to turn up the volume to help us understand speech better however it is the clarity that we struggle with and turning it louder does not make it any clearer and yet we still try. In reality turning it louder can potentially further distort the sound.

Beyond our hearing ability there are other variables that make television listening more difficult. In the “old days” the television shows we watched were more dialogue based with music and sound effects interspersed on a minimal level. What we watched were shows with people talking. Given the size of the sets we also sat closer to them. In todays world the television shows we watch are like watching action movies in the theater with sound effects constantly where dialogue is embedded in in competing noise making it so much harder to understand. Our television sets are so large that we sit in the back of our rooms to watch television. Our surround sound systems are wonderful for the sound and fury of the television shows but often the systems are not set up correctly to allow for a focus on speech.

Here are some things that can be done to help hear television better. While hearing testing and hearing aids may be the best solution here are a few other things that can be done as well. If you are watching a television set that has built in speakers go into the audio menu and turn up the treble and turn the bass down to create a clearer sound instead of a louder sound, this will be far more useful than volume. The same kind of approach should be taken in adjusting your surround sound system with a priority given to the center channel and the higher frequencies that make speech understandable. It may be a good idea to sit a little closer to your television as when you cut the distance in half you double the volume according to the physics of acoustics. Another great solution is a wireless set of earphones that give you a direct sound from your television without the ambient room noise and which you can control the volume for yourself independent of the others in the room.

As I have said before television is often one of those things that allow us to see the possibility of hearing loss, as we have to directly compare our sound levels with what others prefer. While the strategies I outlined are wonderful ideas to help compensate understanding your hearing needs and your hearing loss should be your starting point.

Running With A Sharp Stick, Exceeding Expectation

I was at a conference the other day where I was able to hear Andy Andrews speak. I had never really heard of this man before and did not know what to expect. When I heard this man resume I felt a little ashamed that I only now was getting to know who he was. Without getting into his amazing qualifications I wanted to get to one of the memorable points he mad during his talk. I have said this before but it might be worth saying again. I am amazed that some of these really smart successful lecturers and authors make a living pointing out what should be obvious to us.

The point that Mr. Andrews made was that when we visit a business we have a predetermined expectation of that business. If we walk into a restaurant that has a reputation of excellence we would expect nothing less than that excellence. The reality is that when we experience a business or clinic etc. that simply meets our expectations we don’t necessarily feel the need to say much more about it to anyone, as it was exactly what we thought we would encounter. We certainly do feel compelled to tell others when we encounter businesses that have poor service or fall well short of our expectation, we might even put a nasty note on Yelp or similar websites to warn others. On the flip side of that we do tell others when a business exceeds our expectations in a significant way. We tell others when we encounter the extraordinary. When a business does the unexpected or treats me in an unexpected way that is positive I want to tell others about my experience. I can think of personal encounters where this was my reaction to exceptionality. I once went on a tour where the tour guide was amazing beyond my expectation more informative than I expected, more personally interactive than I expected and as a result I did something that I do not often feel compelled to do, I gave that company a very positive review on Trip advisor.

We have been talking amongst our staff as of late about this very subject and have been reviewing what we do and how we do it, considering what people expect of our clinic and what we can do to exceed their expectations at every point of contact. It is a world in which so much seems the same from business to business from clinic to clinic. It is sometimes hard to see what makes one place different from another. Andy Andrews went on to say ”to exceed average you have to take extraordinary measures”. “To be different than your competition you have to go in a different direction than your competition in a big way”.  Mr. Andrews went on to say that “having a satisfied customer allows you to stay in business but having an ecstatic customer allows businesses to flourish.

While I have considered what this all means in the context of my business I have also had to consider what this means in my personal life. What do people expect in their interactions with me as a person and do I strive to exceed those expectations. Do people expect a lot of me or do they expect very little?  Am I one of those people that says hey this is the way I am, like it or lump it or am I someone that strives to affect the lives of those I come in contact with in a positive way.

Mr. Andrews made me take a look at my world in a different way than I had before as a matter of fact he proposed that his greatest gift in life was seeing the world differently than others, for example when his mother told him don’t run with that sharp stick as you might poke your eye out, in his mind he was thinking that this outcome was improbable as you might poke it in but probably would not poke it out. Mr. Andrews also told the story of his encounter with his father as a young boy where his father was lecturing him about what Abraham Lincoln was doing at his age proposing that he should strive to achieve such heights. In Andy’s mind he recalls thinking but not being stupid enough to say out loud, “well dad at your age Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States of America (insert smile).