By Damien Woods, Business Manager, A Better Ear, an independent hearing clinic serving the Redlands community.
WE have a good news story for our readers this week.
Shane, one of our patients, told me this story with the happy disbelief of a man who had already imagined the worst, then had the whole thing turn out all right.
He had gone to his regular Tai Chi class near the Cleveland Museum and it was starting to spit rain, so he quickly threw on his lanyard, got his gear from the car, and headed inside.
Then came the moment every hearing aid wearer dreads.
“I just automatically check them every now and again,” he told me.
“I can’t feel them, so I put my fingers up to my ear to make sure they’re there.”
Then the realisation. One was missing. That is one of the strange compliments we can pay modern hearing aids.
When they are fitted well, they can become so comfortable that people almost forget they are wearing them.
Shane put it simply: “It’s like they’re not even there.”
But when one is suddenly not there, comfort turns into worry very quickly.
Shane rang Wendy at home – she searched the house. He checked the car, the bathroom, the charger, and all the usual places. Nothing.
By then, he had started thinking about insurance, replacement costs, and how long he might be without something he benefits from every day.
Then Wendy asked the question that changed the afternoon.
“Fortunately, I’ve got a clever wife,” Shane said. “She said, don’t you have that find my device thing on the hearing aid app?”
Shane had thought the feature would only work if the hearing aid was nearby, within Bluetooth range. But when he opened the app, to his surprise, it showed the last place the hearing aid had been connected to his phone.
“That’s where I parked the car,” he said.
He drove from Victoria Point back to Cleveland. The map led him to the street, the building, and the parking spot.
When he arrived, there were a few anxious moments where he worried it might have been driven over by him or someone else.
Then he saw it, lying on the bitumen, directly under where the car had been parked.
“I picked it up, dusted it off, and put it straight in my ear,” he said, “and I’m back to normal.”
Then came my favourite line of the story. “I didn’t find it. The app found it.”
This is a good news story, but there is a quiet lesson inside it. Hearing care today is not just about hearing clearly. It is about helping people understand their whole hearing experience: the fitting, the phone connection, the app, the daily habits, the small safeguards, and the confidence to use them.
At A Better Ear our clinicians take time with these details.
Amanda, Penelope, Jasmine and the team all work to the same evidence-based standard, because best-practice care does not end when the hearing aids are fitted.
Shane said the feature “takes a lot of worry away”.
Good hearing care should help you hear better, but it should also help you feel more at ease living your life. A Better Ear can help you understand what is possible, then leave the choice in your hands.
