To Hear, or Not To Hear

Today was the day for my dreaded date with the dentist’s drill, after my main chewing gnasher developed a suspicious and rather painful crack recently. My leaving the house routine was even more prolonged than usual, what with all the physical and mental preparation necessary to get a confirmed dental phobic to the surgery. The meticulous tooth brushing came first, then the leaden dragging of feet, whilst letting out small moans of distress whenever within the spouse’s earshot. Then there was the constant having to remind oneself to breathe in order to avoid passing out, a laborious task which makes one fully appreciate the normally unconscious workings of the central nervous system. Once the breathing was sorted, the feeling of faintness and tingling in the extremities subsided long enough for me to reach the bedroom to find the hearing aids. As I popped one into each ear, the traffic noise outside switched on suddenly, just as it always does, and I suddenly felt faint again.

Dentist. Horrible noises. To make matters worse, horrible noises via bone conduction as well as through the lugholes. High frequency horrible noises. I felt my hands go slightly clammy and had to remind myself to start breathing again. If this wasn’t a case for putting the Oticons back in their box, I didn’t know what was. Not to mention the harmful effects of dental x-rays on hearing aids. On reflection, I chose to ignore that one, since my own experiments with NHS hearing aids and ionising radiation have not demonstrated a link thus far, and I’ve got an appointment at the hearing aid clinic tomorrow should anything go wrong.

My thoughts were interrupted by the spouse mumbling unintelligibly from his study.

I hesitated. Maybe going hearing aid-less to the dentist wasn’t such a good idea after all, since there was speech involved. I weighed up the cons. There were quite a few. First up, the waiting room and the extra vigilance required for the name calling; that bit had gone wrong before. Then there was the chairside chat; lipreading is slightly more difficult when your eyes are screwed tightly shut in terror. Did he just say “bite down” or “don’t bite down”? Saying the usual “EH” to everything to ensure proper confirmation is difficult when your paralysed mouth is wedged wide open, plus the proximity of a dental drill makes the usual 50/50 guess strategy response that bit more dangerous. Hmmm, yes, things were definitely coming down on the side of wearing the aids in the chair.

My exacting weighing up of the pros and cons was interrupted by the spouse reminding me that I was going to miss my train if I didn’t get a move on. He even spoke to me from the same room to ensure I got the message.

I realised I needed to make a decision, and a timely flashback to an ancient joke finally helped me make my mind up. It’s the one about the guy who takes a car door with him to the desert so that he can wind the window down if he gets too hot.

Eureka! I could wear the aids to the dentist, listen to the first bout of high intensity drilling, then turn the volume right down so that I could appreciate that the noise could be much worse. The large number of clicks on the volume buttons required to do this would also enable me to appreciate getting the one click ‘Mute’ setting activated at Clinic O tomorrow after two previously unsuccessful attempts. Once the drilling sound was turned down, I could then turn my attention back to breathing, and marvel at the beauty of the human autonomic nervous system, whilst reclining for over an hour in a very comfy leather chair with its own pink drink dispenser…and all of this when I should be at work. Life-affirming positivity conjured from extreme negativity! Result.

I headed for the front door with a slightly less leaden step than before, and made a quieter moan of distress whilst passing the spouse.

Pardon?

“Did you have a good break?” I asked a colleague as she held a door open for me after a meeting yesterday.

“Yes, thank you, I finally got a merkin!” she replied enthusiastically.

A terrifyingly graphic image flashed through my mind, causing the cookie bite cortex to spring immediately into ‘does not compute‘ mode. Time stood still as a lightning speed internal dialogue took place.

“Did she just say merkin? A pubic wig? Surely not…you wouldn’t admit to that sort of thing to someone you barely knew at work…especially me. No. It must be something that sounds like merkin, and to do with holidays…hmmm…gherkin? No, that’s even more unlikely than merkin…last thing you’d want on a holiday… okay, I give up. God, no wonder my concentration is terrible these days.”

“Sorry,” I said, leaning closer, “I didn’t quite catch that, you got a what?”

It was my colleague’s turn to look puzzled for a second.

“No”, she said, “I finally got to Ardnamurchan, the beaches were just beautiful.”

“That’s great!” I said with a huge sigh of relief.

What Was That Announcement? Things You’re Unlikely To See #5

Ah, just imagine…live text announcements to your mobile to translate the unintelligible mumblings from a station PA system. A technological step too far for Scotrail, perhaps, but maybe there is an alternative.

I often stare at the Information section of the train departures board in the hope that it will tell me something more useful than not to feed the pigeons, not to smoke within the station or not to leave my luggage unattended. It seems I am the only one, however, because everywhere you look on the concourse there are pigeons wrestling chips with their stumps, and pecking at fag butts and unattended suitcases.

Standalone live PA system announcements for the deaf/ HOH might arguably take up too much space on the board, but what if the pigeon alerts on the board could alternate with text announcements?  It would also help the 98% of the populace who don’t care about not feeding the pigeons and can’t make out the PA announcements either. Two for the price of one.

I know for a fact this system could work. Scotrail love alternating displays, and already have a sophisticated system in place at minor stations which only have one monitor. It somehow detects when you are about to look at the screen for vital train information, and immediately switches to a useless warning not to leave unattended luggage. I find the system is particularly effective when you are rushing.

I used to try and trick the sensors by pretending to look away as I approached, until I misjudged some stairs in the bowels of Glasgow Central and nearly ended up under the Garscadden train. If the secret alternating display system could be deployed usefully to make space for live text announcements on the main destination board, however, my embarrassing slip might not have been in vain…

Background photo cropped from Departures board, Glasgow central railway station  courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Update Jan 2024: Scotrail now has a phone app to tell you what platform a train is departing from, but it still doesn’t tell you if there has been a last minute alteration. The sensors which switch monitor displays from departure information to useless information whenever you’re in a rush, have been upgraded. They can now detect your mobile before you even enter the station, and instruct the Scotrail app to display an error message until your train has departed.

Auntie Mo is back

The cookie bite ears have taken a bashing from three solid days of back-to-back academic presentations at the Enhancement Themes 2013 conference last week. This has inspired Auntie Mo, resident agony aunt at the Cookie Bite Chronicles, to do one of her occasional columns…

 

Microphone muppet 

 Every time there’s a Q&A session at a conference, there’s always a cocky person who refuses to take the microphone and says “It’s okay, I don’t need a microphone, I’ve got a loud voice”. What’s the best way to make them understand that not everyone can hear them in a huge auditorium?

Snatch the unused microphone, tell them you’re deaf, and announce that if they’re not going to use it, you’re going to sing a song…

 

Lunchtime lipreading

I dread lunch breaks at large conferences because there’s a wall of noise and I can’t make out what people are saying while they’re stuffing their faces with mini-quiches and chicken drumsticks. How can I make lunch breaks less stressful for myself?

Simply take a hearing aid out, pick up a used chicken satay skewer and say, “Hold on a second, I just need to clear the wax out of this tube”. Your conversation partners will put their plates down and make their excuses pretty fast after that. Although originally devised as a hearing loss strategy, this technique also works if you want to get the cheesecake all to yourself.

 

Troublesome typist

 I was enjoying a fascinating paper presentation the other day, when the guy next to me started typing on his laptop at a hundred miles an hour, drowning out what I wanted to hear. I moved away from him during the break, but various others started doing exactly the same thing. Aside from the hearing issue, am I the only one who thinks that typing emails and constantly checking your mobile while someone is presenting is just plain rude?

Unfortunately, this type of behaviour is becoming quite prevalent at conferences these days. Don’t, however, move further away from the offender next time it happens. Instead, get yourself nice and close, then lean intrusively over their shoulder as they type. Hopefully this should cause them to retreat to the corridor where they belong, but if it doesn’t work first time, just try cupping a hand over your hearing aid to create some annoying feedback right next to their ear.

You can find more of Auntie Mo’s unique problem solving solutions here and here

Make a colourful cover for your beige NHS hearing aid

The remnants bin at the local fabric shop was the site of an unseemly battle with a determined pensioner over some Lycra scraps. The pensioner won, holding aloft a prized shocking pink piece like a trophy scalp en route to the till, but I came off not too badly. I got enough bargain offcuts to fashion these prototype hearing aid covers, and about 500 more, should the need ever arise.

If you fancy having a go yourself, there’s a link to BatteryBot’s patent template below, and I’ll do a tutorial if anyone wants one. In the meantime, just hide any dodgy stitching on the side next to your head…

hearing aid cover pattern template

update 17 Jul 2013: Hearing aid cover tutorial

Kookybite Innovation #11

I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon recently. At noisy social events, when people try to speak directly into my ear in the mistaken belief that I will hear them better, I instinctively turn my head to get a view of their lips instead of staring blankly into space like everyone else. This makes the speaker very uncomfortable both in terms of the unexpected eye contact at such close range, and the loss of proximity of the ear in relation to their mouth. It makes me very uncomfortable because my neck is now twisted painfully.

In response to my head twisting to see their lips, they then turn to follow the ear, I twist further to see their lips, they turn further to follow the ear…you get the drift. To the outside observer, it must give the impression of a slow motion version of an Exorcist-style 720º head rotation, or some sort of bizarre mating ritual. Help is at hand, however, and the Kookybite Aidcam is designed to prevent all that.

I am also working on a low-tech version, which is simply a hearing aid sticker that says “TALK TO THE FACE”

 

Update 7th May 2015: Well I never, ahead of my time yet again, check this out. Look me in the ear and tell me it’s for real…

More from the team involved here…

O ye of little faith, enter here  Update Jan 2018: Don’t bother, AOHL have deleted the link.

It’s all relative

“What’s even worse than having to do a phone interview?” I asked my colleague the other day, as we passed in the corridor whilst doing the annual round of student recruitment interviews.

“Having to do a phone interview via Skype?” he proffered, quick as a flash and stealing my thunder with a much better answer than the one I had been about to give about not being able to do a phone interview because the candidate had put the wrong contact number on their application form.

“Jeez, never even considered having to interview by Skype”, I said with horror.

The thought of the candidate being able to watch me writhe like a worm that’s been chopped in two, as I strained to decipher broken English via an echoey satellite connection, was traumatic. Throw in the unedifying spectacle of fiddling with squealing hearing aids as well, and it made such an inhumane test of endurance for both parties, that I wondered if I could sell the idea to Channel 5 for a reality TV show.

When I did finally manage to make contact with my elusive phone interview candidate on the other side of the world, just seconds before a pneumatic drill started up outside the open window, I simply stuck a finger in the non-phone ear and reminded myself it could be a whole lot worse if Skype was involved.

Tubetastic Turquoise

NHS Oticon Spirit Zests with a difference

The spouse found himself in a spot of hearing aid hot water when he decided to phone the hearing aid spares company on my behalf, to find out what had happened to my eagerly awaited delivery of pimping supplies. It was now two weeks late.

The conversation was going swimmingly until the person on the other end of the line decided to ask what had been ordered. The spouse, who was pretending to be me, for convoluted reasons to do with names on joint account bank cards, was somewhat thrown by this sudden demand on his hearing aid technical knowledge. Fortunately, he managed to dig deep into memories of three years of fraught tirades from his beloved.

“Er…tubes and domes…and a few other bits and bobs”, he spluttered, wondering if his cover as a hearing impaired impostor was about to be blown in a very embarrassing fashion.

“Bits and bobs?”, said the person on the other end of the line as they accessed the order details. The spouse began sweating, since it seemed his deception was about to be uncovered. He had reached the limits of his hearing aid know-how. Fortunately, help was at hand from his inquisitor, who filled in the missing details for him with a breezy “Ah yes, seems we’ve got an expander tool and some antiseptic wipes on here as well.”

“Expander tool?”, repeated the spouse with trepidation, wondering what was going to be expanded and wishing he’d never picked up the phone. Fortunately his torment was over.

“The Super Seals expander tool has been out of stock until this week,” said the person on the other end apologetically, “but your order will be despatched tomorrow.”

True to their word, it was indeed despatched the next day and, after some excited thread wrapping, I now have several interchangeable sets of coloured tubes to match my necklaces. Even better, the tubes still have their retention tails on them, and there has been a marked increase in volume as a result, since the domes now sit further inside my ears.

Despite the successful outcome of his phone interventions, the spouse has now handed in his resignation as my PA.

Tubetastic: Coloured tubes for your NHS aids

My continuing quest to find ways of turning beige NHS hearing aids into colourful objects of delight, which can be speedily converted back to boring beige for attending audiology appointments, has resulted in this perky pair of pink tubes.

They’re customised by simply winding sewing thread tightly round the tubes. Fiddly, yes. Totally unhygienic, yes. Costly when you accidentally snip the tube with your scissors because you didn’t put your glasses on, yes. But, hey, they look a bit nicer than a yellowing piece of pvc, and if you like to ring the changes you can have different colours any time you like.

Do be careful with the scissors, though, those tubes are much softer than they appear…

Square Peg In A Round Hole

The lunchtime office chit chat was hotting up.

“Did I show you the photo of my big lump of skin?”, asked my colleague whilst reaching for her phone. Those in the immediate vicinity gathered round excitedly, but I wasn’t that keen.

“Eeeeeuw”, I said, peering over the top of my computer, ” Big lump of skin? What happened?”

“Not big lump of skin“, said my colleague with exaggerated mouth movements, “I said big romper suit!”

Cripes, I thought. What was actually said was even more unlikely than the Cookiebite version for a change. I returned to sifting my email and was just wondering how I’d managed to get on the mailing list for the NHS Obesity Conference 2013, when the twice weekly fire alarm test sounded. It seemed very far away.

I stared at the wailing red dome on the ceiling for a bit as if that would explain everything, then asked everyone if the alarm sounded different to usual. It didn’t, apparently, so I reached to my ears for an explanation instead. I got one right away. The newly fitted domes attached to the newly fitted tubes attached to the brand new pair of Oticon Spirit Zests acquired at Clinic O the previous day (don’t ask) had freed themselves from my lugholes yet again, and were broadcasting to fresh air.

Swearing under my breath, I inserted a pinkie into each ear in the time-honoured fashion, and pushed the domes firmly back inside, wondering what audiological genius decided to put painful plastic corners on something that goes into your ear canal. 30 seconds later, they popped straight back out again. So I pushed them in even harder and held them in place for a bit to let them get used to the idea. It didn’t work.

“That’s it. I’m giving you one last chance!” I spluttered, forcing the recalcitrant domes into position a final time, before giving up and increasing the volume instead.

My minor observation, whilst being retubed at Clinic O the previous day, that the domes were a slightly different shape from the last ones, seemed to be of some significance after all…