I have really good hearing aids. I keep them cleaned and charged up. I pay attention, and I watch the person who’s talking. It’s not always enough. The hearing aids can’t sort out sounds in a crowded room, and no amount of electronic wizardry will bring back my ability to hear some consonant sounds.
There are a couple of people I know, both women, who speak very softly and in a higher pitch than most people. That combination means I can’t understand what they say. It’s embarrassing to me, and sadly, I end up avoiding those two dear women.
I guess we are far enough along, that this won’t be a hi-jack.
I’ve had a cataract removed and a new lens inserted in my eye that does both reading and distance. Had my hip replaced and was sent home that DAY.
Hearts, livers, lungs and kidneys can be transplanted.
Not a thing on tinnitus but snake oil remedies though.
For most, it’s just a little bit a problem for a short period. For those of us that go to sleep with it and wake up with it. Well, it sucks. Going on about 15 years for me.
Had a friend that used to cut my hair. She found out I had tinnitus. And said - “I knew a person with that, It drove him so crazy, he killed himself” Ummm, thanks for that little factoid Laura. She was kinda blunt.
Sucks doesn’t it. I also have good hearing aids. $6000 that was not covered under insurance.
For a year I volunteered to be on our work place personnel board. One person from each department. There where about four of them that I think where pretty shy. They could not project or talk over a mumble while reading pre-prepared notes. They may have had public speaking problems (which would be a different thread).
I’ve wondered how to deal with some people who are like this, but in a different vein. Some people cannot give a 20-second condensed version of a story, they must give the full ten-minute long spiel of the tale. And if someone asks them to condense it down or get straight to the point, they get outraged. They can’t or don’t understand how they are imposing on the ears of others.
My wife insists that I should be able to hear her from across the house. To me it’s just rude to shout for someone from a different room.
Say the sink is running, or the fan, or the radio, all three, she will expect me to hear her when she is walking away, facing the other direction, from a room away, and trailing off. If I ask too many times for her to repeat herself, she acts like I have committed a trespass of some kind.
Yeah, it seems this is a very common problem. I’m not saying it is automatically passive-aggressive nonsense behavior, but it is certainly indistinguishable from passive-aggressive nonsense behavior.
I caught myself in a situation similar to this thread last night, and so I thought about what my motivation was in the “huh”:
Scene: Room is quiet as everybody works on their own screen.
Wife (who is a full person in her own right): I was thinking that tomorrow I can carpool to my class so you can use the car.
Me: Huh?
Wife: <repeats herself>
Me: Oh, yeah, that will work, or I might take the bike because climate change and it’s going to be 70° on December 1, and then you can drive.
I wasn’t trying to be passive aggressive with the “huh?” It served two purposes. First it was an automatic response to the unstated “I want to say something and need your attention,” second, it was a request for a brief pause. I needed time to shift focus from my screen to process the words that were all of the sudden said to me. In this instance it wasn’t a matter of hearing, I heard what she said, I just needed the time to associate the words with their contextual meaning.
This is the same as what other posters have said, it was just interesting to notice myself doing it, and being able to analyze my motives.
Yes, we can get lots of artificial parts. I have two metal knees, a metal replacement for a disc in my back, and new lenses in both eyes, post-cataracts. Fortunately, I’m able to accept my tinnitus.
Nobody has mentioned electronic cochlear implants yet. I hope my hearing never gets bad enough to need them. I have read that the implants ruin music, and I hate to think of losing music.