Why haven't I written anything? Because I haven't really been thinking about hearing loss or worrying about it very much.
I've been wearing a pair of Oticon OPN 2 hearing aids during that time and its a sign of how great they've been that I haven't really had to think about them or to worry about hearing loss. I've been meeting people, going new places and entering situations confident that I'm going to be able to hear to the best of my ability. Confidence in being able to hear is everything, it means I can get into the conversation, can participate, can be myself.
I have a severe loss so of course I haven't been able to hear everything all the time, no hearing aid is ever going to give me that. But I know my limitations and the OPNs have just been perfect in the situations that I know I can hear in and want to hear in: one-to-one conversations, small group conversations, at restaurants/pubs and outside in the wind.
The Oticons have just worked for me in pretty much every situation in the last few years. I do occasionally use the phone app to increase the volume by one notch when I'm in the office as its a large-ish open-plan office and people tend to talk quite quietly so as not to disturb other people.
One time I did have to change something on my aids was when we went to watch Coldplay in London last year, initially the music sounded awful (insert Coldplay joke here), it was just a mess of noise. I used the phone app to switch to Music mode and the difference was night and day. The music was crystal clear, the volume was good, I could hear the lyrics perfectly, I could also still here people I was with and others nearby in the crowd. I think that's probably the first time I've ever used Music mode on any hearing aid, I always seems to forget to try different programmes.
I leave them on charge overnight and they run all day, so no worrying about a battery change. They've been worry-free for years now, couldn't really ask for more.
My hearing ability did recently take a hit when I had a bad bout of hay fever for a week or so, it was basically like have a cold, my ears were feeling blocked. I lost quite a lot of volume in my left ear but I also lost a lot of clarity in both ears, so I could turn the OPNs up easy enough but I still had trouble understanding people. It was this episode that made me realise how well I had been hearing for a long time and how good that was making me feel, how much easier things are when hearing is not a major effort.
