a more silent world

I had an important meeting this week.  The meeting room is huge, and what sound doesn't "disappear" turns into echoes.  To make matters worse, I knew for a fact there would be soft-spoken people present, as well as people with strong foreign accents.  So I decided to bite the bullet and use an interpreter for my first time ever. I have to admit, I was a bit anxious about this whole ordeal.  Probably more of a "fear of the unknown" thing, but nonetheless not an easy thing to come to grips with.  I worried about my ASL proficiency not being quite good enough.  I worried about being able to pay attention both to the faces/emotions of the people speaking as well as the interpreter.  Overall, I must say that my fears in this case were completely unfounded.  It was wonderful to sit through a meeting and not wonder what I missed when "that person" was talking and I couldn't hear and/or understand them. I hope all future interpreter situations are as ...

So, after having this set of hearing aids for three years now, I can say that I am still quite happy with them. The bluetooth streaming has proven to be an absolute life-saver for watching movies at home, and being able to hear at church.  The longevity of the aids seems good, since I haven't had to send them in for repair yet.  I have replaced the receivers a couple times, but the first time or two was covered by the warranty, and they are only about $100 and do not require sending them in for repair, and thus being screwed for a couple weeks.  I managed to break my bluetooth remote once, but that was my fault, and I had to pay like $350 out of pocket to get a new one, ouch. Overall, I would highly recommend these aids, especially to younger or more tech-savvy people.  Once the tuning was tweaked a few times to my liking, they are really nice.