The Hearing Aid Enigma or Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

Sometimes, just sometimes, a tale is uncovered that contains a message for everyone, and I got the feeling that this could be the case when I first heard about what I have called the hearing aid enigma. New technology is frightening to most of us unless we are under ten years of age. That may be because we are wise enough to recognise it as new-fangled, but youngsters are not, and therein lies a tale.

Our subject was a tailor in Leeds, the home of the Rag Trade, as the garment industry is called, in Yorkshire, England. There could be some difficulties in a tailor who was hard of hearing, especially if any of his clients had one of those soft or vague voices, and pour man recognised this and took steps to remedy his deficiency by attending a clinic where the latest in hearing aids was available at a suitably reassuring price that ensured no poor person would ever be able to afford one.

Being a busy man, and enjoying a somewhat increased hearing facility, though by no means what he had been led to expect, he laboured on, adopting a somewhat resigned attitude to the lack of acceptable amplitude, but, being a man of extreme patience and fatalistic in his outlook in no small measure, he complained little, and then only to his equally patient wife, who asked what could be done without expecting to be answered, which she never was.

And so rolled by the years, and the grey hairs – those that remained – outnumbered the brown locks of his youth, and his joints grew less supple, making his cross-legged posture on the large sewing table in his workshop less comfortable than it had been, and more difficult to get out of at the end of his long day’s labour, and he talked to his wife and they knew the time had come for him to lay down his tape measure and his needle.

They were not rich, but a life of hard work combined with his wife’s wonderfully thrift ways had secured them a nest egg that would keep them comfortable during their retirement. They talked about their future, how they would spend it, and where. His wife suggested that he have another hearing aid fitted, but he was reluctant.

What’s the use? I have had this one for twenty-seven years and it has not helped more than a tiny bit, and with all it cost it should have given me back my hearing. 

That was a long time ago, and things are better now with all this science. Give it another try! She insisted.

He did not want to do so, but in the end, she wore him down, so, with a marked degree of mental and physical reluctance, he went to a hearing aid place he read about in an advertisement in the Yorkshire Post, having first made an appointment by telephone.

Sat in the consulting chair, he poured out his list of complaint and disappointment. He told his history to the specialist, explained how he had suddenly lost most of his hearing and how that had caused great difficulties for him in his business, and how much he had paid, how much he expected to be improved, and how greatly he had been disappointed. Can you do anything, or am I wasting my time?

We need to have some tests first, said the specialist. Would you please remove your hearing aid for me?

He reached into his ear and took out the small pink plastic earpiece that was attached by wires to the receiver He handed it to the consultant who took it and examined it. Both his eyebrows shot up as if they were on elastic when he looked at the earpiece. He cleared his throat and the slightest intimation of a smile hit the corners of his mouth.

“How long did you say you have been wearing this hearing aid?”

“Twenty-seven years and, and a few months.”

“Hmn!” The consultant pursed his lips, “And you have always worn it in your right ear?”

“Yes. Always, even though it was not very comfortable at first, but I got used to it in time.”

The consultant did not speak, but he moved behind the puzzled tailor, and slipped the earpiece into his left ear, then he went back to stand in front of him.

“How’s that?” he asked especially softly

The tailor’s hand shot up to his left ear. “I heard that! I heard it loud and clear!”

“Sir,” said the consultant, “You had it in the wrong ear! It was made for your left ear, not for your right one!”

The distance between a human’s ears is about six inches. The distance between simple facts and our understanding them can be infinite.