I have been working with a patient for 3 years now, she is an amazing woman that has a very hard time communicating. She had several pairs of hearing aids all her life and didn’t have great success, but kept wearing them in order to communicate the best she could. We tried a pair three years ago and she was doing pretty good until the last several months. She wasn’t able to hear her daughter unless she was right next to her. After time and time again adjusting her hearing instruments I could not make her hear any better and she was very frustrated.

A month later I attended a seminar that Phonak was giving about new technology that was coming out in March. I listened about a new product called Naida, it sounded to good to be true. I started to think which patients we had could benefit from this new technology. The lady that I am discussing unfortunately was not in my mind at the time. It was one day I had an appointment with her and the same frustrations came out and I happened to have a pair of the Naida’s with me, which were for another patient to try later in the week. So I decided to try them out in hopes to have better results. When I put the hearing instruments on her she could hear pretty good, and I thought at that moment there was hope.

I let her wear them for a few weeks and we ran into a few problems, but we got through them. I had her wear them for a few more weeks and after every visit it was better and better. When I saw her last week she looked at me and said ” out of all the hearing aids that I have had, none have been better than these”. She also stated ” I can hear my daughter from six feet away and could never do that before”, she went on and on and it was great! She then proceeds to say that at her age why bother and spend the money (she was wanting to leave her daughter the money when she passes), she is a very thoughtful woman. Her daughter asked her if she was happy with the way that everything sounds and she said “it could not be any better and my daughter sounds more like she did years ago”. After that being said she decided that she would like to be able to hear like this everyday, oh yeah did I forget to tell you that she is 98 years young. Wow, what an awesome lady!

Hello,

What is the purpose of this website? I wanted to start a blog so I could document the life of hearing impaired people who I work with on a day to day basis. My name is Michael Smith, and I am a National Board Certified Hearing Instrument Specialist in New Port Richey, Florida. I work in the rehabilitation department with a group of awesome individuals, in which the words “I can’t” is not in their vocabulary. Our job is helping people to hear and understand speech to the best of their ability through a battery of tests designed to improve understanding over a period of time.  I can’t express the feeling it gives to help someone who has become isolated, depressed, angry or misjudged and help them get their life back on track.

The best definition I have heard to describe hearing loss is as an “Invisible Disability”. The person with the loss, most of the time, does not know he/she has a loss.  Their family or friends usually notice it first. I decided I wanted to keep a diary of the people who I take care of and publish their real life stories(no real names used) online so hopefully it might help other hearing impaired persons better deal with their hearing loss. I believe that true life stories help people understand that they are not alone when facing a new challenge in their life. I will be adding more to the site very often so keep checking back.