I had eye surgery @ 3½ and wore glasses from then on. So, viva technology!
Then, in my 40s, when my hearing dropped significantly so I had my hearing tested, and then got hearing aids, it was the same attitude for me. Viva technology! Bring it on! :P
I agree, that likely a lot of the people they are discussing in this article, lived all their lives in the hearing world. They have never learned ASL nor speech reading/lip reading, nor had to use hearing aids or contemplate surgery for a cochlear implant. So, for them, all their family & friends, are likely all hearing. To me, it seemed logical to accept and go after the technology. Hearing aids enabled me to continue working for another decade before I could no longer use a regular telephone and my employability went down hill. :| Affordability now will become an issue for me as my DH & I approach retirement, with a significant drop in income level. And perhaps even medical coverage. Hearing aids are not covered, never were, by health insurance. They won't be by Medicare, either.
But cochlear implants may be, due to the surgery of it.
So, financial ability to pay for medical insurance for cochlear implants, or sufficient income to buy hearing aids can be a factor, for sure. So can pride and not wanting to face that one's body is failing. My dad went through that and refused to wear his aid even after he got one. He also refused to use closed captioning, as yet another symbol he was failing. So he snoozed in front of TV shows and could not follow them, unwilling to develop the skill it takes to read the captions. He could read well, read newspapers & magazines avidly, but captioning reading is a bit different and take some adaptation. He wasn't willing to do that.
Because I had my aids much earlier, ego wasn't an issue with me. It's was just something I needed, like new glasses. Shrug. So I got 'em. Yet, still, if one is having trouble communicating with one's partner, friends, family, it doesn't make sense to me, to deny oneself a tool to help stay connected. Yet my dad, no matter how supportive I was (I was already wearing two hearing aids for some years by then) and how I explained how much easier it made my life, etc., he just saw it as another symbol he was getting old and refused to wear his. And he had recently had to give up driving, so he was upset about that, too. There is a lot of grief in the aging process, and sometimes people just rebel at having to face and deal with
one more thing going wrong with their bodies. :-o And then the "hearing world" rejects them, treats them like they are senile, even if it's only a hearing issue, and it goes down hill from there...
I am grateful for the technology I've always had. I don't know where my progressive hearing losses will take me.
I am facing the need for new aids now, as mine can no longer accommodate my current losses. And facing the lack of $$$ to do so. But I am lucky to have family willing to learn lip reading and ASL with me, and friends in the Deaf community as well. So I will not be isolated and alone. I feel very fortunate that such a gloomy picture doesn't apply to me.
The comments are interesting as well.
...and she misunderstood things all the time and would get "mad" at everybody.....
