I’m profoundly hard of hearing. I also say I’m “hearing impaired” but apparently that’s a faux pas. Impairment suggests that my ears are defective and that they can be fixed. I’ve learned that hearing loss can not be corrected, especially not in the sense that vision can be corrected. Put on a pair of eyeglasses and you can see 20/20 again. Put on a pair of hearing aids and it’s a whole other world – using the Rx glasses analogy, they make the world kind of clearer but mostly brighter and often they make it so bright you can’t make out the details of the faces around you and your eyes feel like they’re going to pop from all the excess light.
Hearing aids make voice easier to understand but only in a quiet environment (no televisions, no radios, no car noises, no conversations going on between other people). Hearing aids increase sound – all sound which sometimes can make your head feel like it’s going to pop. Like when you’re next to a truck and it backs up – the warning sound will make me jump out of my skin and hold my head so it doesn’t explode.
I don’t know sign language, I don’t lip read although I need to see a person’s face to get a better grasp of what they’re talking about.
