why she never got a hearing aid (MySpace 1/26/2008)

Subject	why she never got a hearing aid
DateCreated	1/26/2008 12:08:00 AM
PostedDate	1/26/2008 10:23:00 PM
Body	My mom is one of those old folks who refuses to get a hearing aid. "Too expensive." "Doctor says I don't need one." Oh? My phone conversations with her got increasingly detached, until I couldn't stand talking with her any longer. "Mom, call the phone company! Just tell them you are deaf!" The special phone arrived two days later. Some time afterwards, I called and was surprised that the TV was not blaring in the background. Lifestyle improvement? No, she could no longer hear the TV, and was very depressed. Somebody she knows came to the rescue and activated the "closed captions". I arrived for a visit Sunday. She was very talkative, in the same way she has been for years - overly analytical, and pre-occupied with her presumptions. But now she could hardly hear a word I said to her - it bothered me lots more than it seemed to bother her. Monday I made a quick side trip to some neighborhood stores and came back with $45 worth of audio miscellany. Rigged her up with an "amplified listener" to wear around her neck, and headphones for a direct hookup to her TV. She expressed gratitude that she could now hear again. Our communications improved, yet were somehow, in a fundamental way unchanged. Tuesday night, waiting for the third set of "Slavic Soul Party" at Barbes-Brooklyn, I turned to the west coast acquaintance sitting next to me, and said, "You know, even back when she could hear, she had trouble listening!"  That comment reminded him how his elderly aunt had come to him distressed about what was happening to his mom, describing all the flakey things she was doing. He told his aunt, "But that's the way she's always been!