I Can Hear You Now

Today marks one month of being bionic. The hearing aids are working out well, I think, and much better after a tuning session last week with the audiologist. First and foremost, they help me hear a lot better in a lot of different situations. I can't complain about that: it's nice to not have to be two feet away from someone to hear what they're saying. Second, the world seems a lot livelier than it did. Of course, I thought that things were just quiet. Turns out they weren't: I just couldn't hear passing cars, chirping birds, chattering students. The aids have been programmed to work most in the sound ranges where my hearing was worst: very high and very low sounds. Now, Mingus basslines sound even better than they did, and Julia's voice is more rounded, less musically sharp. Third, and oddly, my physical awareness is markedly better than it was pre-H.A. The audiologist explained this by saying that the areas of prioperception are closely interrelated, and that improved hearing often leads to improved physical coordination. I should have reacted to this news by falling off my chair.

Beyond those benefits, the aids are kinda neat. They play a cheery little four-note song when I put them in each morning, for instance. If I cover one ear with my hand, they generate a little buzz of feedback, which can make even the most banal setting seem a bit like a rock concert. A banal rock concert, but still. And at last week's tuning appointment, the audiologist downloaded all kinds of data from the devices, such as how long I wear them each day (17 hours a day!) and the kinds of sound settings which I tend to experience (mostly quiet at the office or home, but with spikes of loud meetings or toddlerism). It's a bit creepy to think that these tiny little things - no bigger than my pinkie fingertip - include enough computing power to do all that. Who knows if they're also recording everything I hear...

All that's not to say that the aids are entirely positive. It's been hard to get used to having plugs of plastic inside my ear canals. The sensation is not unlike the unpleasantly full feeling you get just before your ears pop in an airplane or elevator - only of course my ears never do pop. Another drawback can be summarized in twelve letters: sweaty earwax. And then there's the batteries. They're costly, for one thing, and for another, they die, like any battery. I'm getting good life out of them right now, and the aids make an unmissably harsh tone when the battery's about to run out of power, but still, carrying a spare pair of tiny and toxic little batteries everywhere is annoying. On the other hand, batteries mean we have nothing to fear from our robot overlords: we can just wait for their AAAs to die, then whomp 'em.