My new hearing aids have lifted my confidence

I was born with poor hearing and fitted with big clunky hearing aids at about age 6 or 7. The kids bullied me at school because of them and it was tough. I had to wear them at school but gave up socially for about 10 years until my late teens when I got some more, but one way or another, I was out of the habit of wearing hearing aids.

In my work now as a salesman at Xceed Real Estate, it’s important for me to be able to hear my clients. Up until recently, I’d made a joke of it when buyers came in with a low offer, (I’d pretend I didn’t hear them), but it wasn’t funny when the discussion was more serious. My wife Renee had convinced me to wear hearing aids, but then one broke and I lost another at work and I was again without my hearing devices.

Came the time when my 3-month-old daughter Bodhi was making noises and giggles that I was missing out on. As a new dad it was devastating. So I am now wearing top-of-the-line advanced technology hearing aids. They’ve changed my life. I hadn’t realised just how deaf I was or how tough I was doing it until I put them in. And it took me a good hour to get used to them.

It is amazing, I can hear my daughter, Renee no longer has to contend with the TV up so loud, endlessly having to repeat herself or taking over or leading conversations in our social scene as she’d had to do in the past, because she knew I wouldn’t hear the discussion. It’s really pleasing that I can now even make small talk, chit chat, that I couldn’t participate in before. And my speech has improved because I can hear myself talking.

In my 2 week trial period, I was much more confident in meetings at work and around the office. Working in real estate, I meet a lot of people and I was never quite sure that I’d heard everything or missed out on an opportunity. It can be really tiring and quite stressful trying to keep up with conversations that you only half hear. But since I’ve had the aids, my success rate is far greater than when I had to make up what I thought people were saying.

And just to let you know, I went elsewhere before coming to Brad Hutchinson Hearing, and the important difference I saw was that Brad actually seemed to care about my situation, my story. I felt much more comfortable here and I want to say to anyone who feels they need hearing help, don’t put it off because, like me, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. And you’re never too young for hearing aids if you can’t hear well.

Brian Conway