Meet Sandi DeLaCruz, audiologist. A brilliant young woman, Sandi can take apart a hearing aid and figure out what works and what doesn’t work. Her tiny fingers turn out the chip in a hearing aid (shown here—next to a pinky finger) while at the same time explaining, “There is more memory power in this equivalent of a sim card than was in Apollo 13!”
Replaced and voila: sound!
In my family, significant hearing loss runs through the males. As far as I can remember (back to a great grandfather), all the men needed hearing aids. As much as he resisted, my twin brother finally agreed to wear them—much to the happiness of his family who shouted and his students who didn’t.
That’s the rub. I am a twin.
For some reason—known only to the DNA strands, I am the first female to have a hearing loss. While not as severe as my brother’s, I nevertheless need assistance when I am in large groups, in a car, or trying to hear questions and comments from my audiences. Consonants are muffled and the mumbled utterances of the Downton Abbey kitchen crew are beyond my understanding. Yahoo for closed captions.
Small things. Hearing aids. Closed captions. And yet—when deprived of what words are really spoken—one enters a world of confusion and misunderstanding. I think it’s all rather a miracle.
Which leads me to conjecture: might everyone in Congress need hearing aids and closed captions? Perhaps then they could truly listen to each other. Perhaps they could hear constituents who are not the very rich but the average person on the street? Not that WOULD be a miracle!