Allright, listen up everyone...
Hearing....It is NOT worth $8k! My god, people.. Eight thousand to hear noise? I know this is going to offend some of you and I'm sorry but this is unfuckingbelievable..
This is wordy, but I felt the need to respond with my thoughts from my perspective and experience...
Maybe I would pay any amount if I *could* feasibly afford new digitals even at the old price we paid, of $5000, because I could still hear the voices and understand the words of people I love. I could listen to favorite music, hear birdsong when I am out in the backyard. As someone who has lost hearing later in life, I have spent most of my life hearing. So, all these things are very important to me. And because all my family, extended family and friends have always been fully hearing. None of them had occasion to learn ASL, as I did not. So, now we are working on it, at least my DH (husband) and DD (grown daughter), and DH & I are making new friends through our ASL and lip reading classes offered by the local Deaf/HOH advocacy agency. But I want to hang on to hearing what I can as long as I can because it's all I know and have known all my life. It's how I have always connected to the world. Now that I am at the point of financially not being able to afford new aids as my hearing continues to drop, I have to figure out ways to remold my world to make it still enjoyable, satisfying, and keep connected to those I love and care about. It'll happen. We'll figure it out. We'll find our way. But hearing aids kept me employable for 15 years after my hearing loss began, until I could no longer handle telephones. Then no one would hire me, regardless of years of skills and experiences. I had the option to retire early and we live on a tight budget as DH still works and will for another year before he retires. Then times will be hard financially. But like everything else, we'll figure it out, like other people do.
I just wanted to reply that sometimes the expense is worth sacrificing a lot because it's all you've ever known, and don't know how to function otherwise. I am totally dependent on my hearing aids, even if they aren't doing what I need them to do any longer. I don't like that dependence because of the cost, but we are trying to figure out new ways to live and communicate as my hearing loss continues and hearing aids become unaffordable. But I am having trouble, grief and hurt, leaving that world I took for granted all those years, that is now rejecting me. I have known nothing else, no support system anywhere. So, I am reaching out and finding there is support and there are alternatives to running faster than I can keep up trying to stay in the hearing world. But it's hard to give up what you know and not want to grab onto expensive technology to delay the giving up finally. And if I was still working? And had to have the aids and I could still function with them, likely it would mean my job if I did not get the aids. And a lot of people are in that boat, too, having to spend the $$$ to stay employed. Because employers have all sorts of ways to get out of accommodating. And will use them. I've learned that the hard way, too. :|