I had a follow-up visit today with a man I fit with Phonak Nios III’s. I was a little nervous; he and his wife were a bit of a challenge and were very skeptical of everyone they meet. To help you understand a little bit better, let me back up and give you a brief history about this couple. He is 97 and she is a young 80. Both are very intelligent (almost too much for their own good). When I first met them it was at one of our hearing clinics in 2006. They would come by once a month and have his ears checked for wax and get his hearing aids cleaned. His wife would always state “he can’t hear” and “he never talks when we go out to eat with friends.” His wife would never allow us to test his hearing; they were always too busy to have this done.

Now his wife would always complain about how he can’t hear and they can’t do anything fun, but she would never do anything about it. Finally about a year later she let us test him and his hearing was indeed very poor. He did need new hearing aids as his were old and not appropriate for his current level of hearing loss. Well, his wife did not want to proceed and her husband didn’t have a say in the matter. So, every month it is the same thing…she says “he can’t hear” but they (she) won’t do anything about it.

Okay, so let me fast forward to 2009. He and his wife came back to the clinic and wanted to just speak with me in private. I talked with them for awhile and they decided to get him tested again. To make this long story short, they decided they would finally proceed with getting him help with his hearing.

At the delivery of his new Phonak Nios IIIs he did phenomenal. I was working with an almost flat 65db loss but sloped down at 4k and 6k to about 80db and his word recognition was 64%. I started to make some minor adjustments and after I finished and re-tested him, his word recognition he was at 84%. I believe the key is Sound Recover shifting the high frequencies over to an adjacent frequency for better understanding. I was really excited for him but his wife was not satisfied yet. She was still very skeptical of the new hearing aids, even though he did very well. I said “let’s get him out into the world and give them a good test.” She agreed.

Well, today was the day…his one-week checkup. Being a little nervous about how things were going, I walked into their home and the first thing that his wife said was “he is doing exceptionally well.” My mouth about hit the floor! He said, “I could never hear anyone in the car and now I can hear everyone.” He also said, “We went out to dinner and I could actually hold a conversation with our dinner companions.” His wife interjected and said, “I told the couple who we usually go to dinner with that he just got new hearing aids.” She also stated that after the meal was over their friends said “it was nice to be able to talk with the both of you and have your husband be part of our conversations.” His wife was so happy because she says he always just sits there and can’t join in.

I was very happy for this couple. The most ironic thing is that his wife looked at me and said, “he can be a poster boy for these new hearing aids.” Wow! Would have thought that this could be possible, considering the history we have had with one another. It now seems like all her skepticism and distrust is gone! Amen.