What do wrinkles and green bananas have to do with hearing well?

Nothing, except I may have gotten your attention. I love telling hearing stories. I have two recent stories to share with you. Both are about elderly people with happy hearing endings.

One day I tested the hearing of a lady that kept apologizing for her wrinkles. She would look in the mirror then down at her hands and exclaim, "My face and hands are so wrinkled." I remember thinking to myself that I hadn't even noticed her wrinkles until she said something. When I look at people (so many of my patients are over 70 years old) I tend to look into their eyes. Eyes that smile always have wrinkles around them. I looked at her and noticed that she had the most beautiful light blue eyes. I looked past the wrinkles to the person inside. I saw a lovely lady with beautiful eyes with a kind personality who seemed a little depressed. She was concerned that her wrinkles combined with hearing aids would make her look older. Vanity was the reason she had waited so long to get hearing aids.

As she told me about herself and her life I realized she had earned every single one of those wrinkles. Wrinkles are not ugly they are a map of the years of our life on our skin for everyone to admire. What finally made her get a hearing test was that she had to ask people to repeat so often she was losing some of her friends. After fitting her with some tiny hearing aids that were virtually invisible, she got her friends and her self confidence back. Now when she comes into the office she seems to be much happier.

Many years ago an 80-year-old gentleman came in for walk-in service. He seemed to be in very good health except for his hearing loss. He was very adamant that all he needed done was to have the wax removed from his ears. I looked in his ears and he had very little wax. I removed what he had and then talked him into taking a free hearing screening, just to see how bad his hearing was. He reluctantly agreed to let me screen him. The screening showed that he did indeed have a severe hearing loss in both ears, and that he needed hearing aids to hear well. When I explained this to him he said, "I don't even buy green bananas anymore." I realized he was very concerned about his age. I told him that he may live for many more years and that he deserved to be able to hear well for the rest of his life. He blew me off.

Five years after his screening, he called for an appointment to purchase hearing aids. I couldn't believe it! I remembered him and how stubborn he had been about feeling that he was too old to deserve hearing aids. After fitting him with the aids he needed, he made the comment, "I should have done this years ago." I felt so bad that he spent years not hearing well because he thought of himself as too old to spend money on. How he and his family had struggled to communicate just because he was stubborn. Now when people tell me they are too old to deserve hearing aids I tell them the green banana story.

Wrinkles, green bananas and hearing aids are all beautiful in their own way. Life is too short not to be able to hear as well as you possibly can.

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Tia Flynn is a certified audiologist who has been in business for over 16 years. Every Tuesday morning from 9 a.m. to noon, she provides free hearing screenings at 1601 Third St. in Coeur d’Alene. (208) 664-2767. Visit our newly updated website www.affordablehearinginc.com to watch helpful videos or take an online hearing test.