Ripping it up with Adaptive Tech: 3 of 3

Hard to believe we’re into December, this year has been my quickest yet. It’s true what they say, everything gets a bit faster the more seasons you’re lucky enough to get under your belt.  

I’m Single Sided Deaf (SSD) in my right ear and have moderate hearing loss in my left. Just want to share my final impressions and experience with some adaptive technology that has changed my life: 

The Phonak BiCros hearing aid.

I am BionicMan: It has Bluetooth, and the remote is worn around my neck, I hear the phone ring and the caller’s voice from the devices inside my ears. I can also play Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” through my iPhone and hear the music through the hearing aids. Thanks to the smart people at Apple, I can use the on-board accessibility features of the iPhone to switch the signal from stereo to mono. This also means I can also use regular headphones without my hearing aids in and still hear the full signal. But that’s a different post.

I set up a music program with the audiologist I use when I'm playing drums at rehearsal and at shows. The music setting boosts the bass and treble and reduces the mid-range, so I can better hear instruments on the right side of my body, something I have had a problem with since I went deaf on that side. Being Single Sided Deaf didn't take away from my ability to rip it up on the drums, but the BiCros has given me bigger ears, as musicians like to say.

I hear the cashier at the grocery store, I hear the kid try to sell me cables I don’t need when I buy a new TV. I hear the woman at Starbucks ask me if I’d like a bite to eat once I've ordered a Triple-Venti-Non Fat-Half Sweet Mocha. I don’t have to rely on my eyes as much to lip read. Shazam!

It no longer matters where I sit in restaurants, or meetings. I can hear my beautiful wife Tess when I'm driving with her in the passenger seat. Although I now have a mute button I can use when she is telling me something I don’t want to hear, like “John, you don’t really need another vintage drumkit”, or “John, you already have two surfboards”.  

This device is amazing and I'm grateful to have it in my life. It’s thanks to my blind and partially sighted colleagues at CNIB that I had another look at this adaptive technology and decided to take the plunge. Thanks to Debbie Gillespie and Martin Courcelles.   

Hearing better helps me see more clearly

Happy belated Thanksgiving! The trees have burst alive into a thousand different shades of green, red and yellow and these colours have never ceased to amaze and inspire me. I’m grateful I can see these colours. Thanks to my friends and colleagues at CNIB as well as our clients, I hope I never take my sight for granted. It’s a pleasure to try to describe our surroundings to my friends with vision loss, I love taking on the role of a walking, talking, coffee loving, audio description tool. I’ve had a busy few weeks and have been unable to put hands to keyboard regarding my experience with the Phonak Solana 312 Bi-CROS but am back and will try to retrace my steps.

I’m Single Sided Deaf (SSD) in my right ear and have moderate hearing loss in my left. I want to go back to the moment Jessie fitted me with the custom hearing aid and how it felt.  For the past seven years I’d been lip-reading, trying to sit in just the right spot in meetings to hear and my ability to communicate was hampered, but I could manage all right. I had no idea how much better things could be.

I sat in the chair, Jessie took me through the technicalities and  put 

the hearing aids in. To say that the world exploded into a burst of audio colour like the autumn leaves change in October might be a little dramatic, but the colour of sound immediately became more vivid and rich and beautiful.

She sat beside me on my deaf side and asked, “How does it feel”? I replied that I could hear her perfectly and asked if she could she whisper something as softly as she might ever whisper. She looked over at my coffee cup and gently whispered….. “Starbucks.” I was overwhelmed, it was crystal clear.

We went through some questions on sound I would have to answer on two subsequent fine tuning appointments and a few more technicalities. Jessie told me she had never seen anyone so enthusiastic and said that many people were hesitant to take the plunge toward wearing a hearing aid. Technology has come so far and you can barely see them now, I wish everyone who needed adaptive technology of any kind could get it. Anyway, I was blown away and the coffee helped. Real world testing is next! Please stay tuned.

Adaptive Technology and Accessibility - A Personal Tale

I was fortunate to come to work at CNIB in December of 2011. Having worked in digital marketing for some years prior to that, I thought I had a fair handle on web design, usability and most things related to the net. I’d like to say that I knew a lot about web accessibility, but that would be untrue. What I had then and what I continue to have is a deep desire to learn everything I can and do something with my working life that can serve to improve the lives of others. When I started at CNIB, I dove into the world of adaptive technology, accessible web design, content considerations, what users need from a universal perspective, what developers need to know, different evaluation tools for web accessibility, implications of rich media, and a bunch of other standards based and regulatory stuff.

I have come to know a whole community of impassioned, supportive, positive and wise members of the accessibility community. But the people that have made the biggest impact on me are the people with vision loss that I know, in particular a few of the blind people I work closely with. They’ve taught me so much about courage, facing challenges with dignity, grace, humour and a limitless desire to make things better. I’m grateful and blessed to be at CNIB and continually inspired by these and many other people.

“What’s this all about John?” Well it’s about adaptive technology, dear friends, and about how my life changed today, just liked it changed when I became Single Sided Deaf (SSD). To recap: I had surgery to remove a 5.5cm benign skull base tumour called an Acoustic Neuroma in 2005. The required surgical approach was through my inner ear, and I came out of the surgery deaf on that side. It was a better than expected outcome; the hearing had to be sacrificed in order to remove the tumour, there was no other choice. Dr. Chen and his team at Sunnybrook are amazing and they did an incredible job, I am forever in their debt.

I recovered quickly and am happy. But coupled with the moderate hearing loss I have as a result of decades of playing music, the SSD presented a challenge. Because of my willingness to get used to my new normal and what I saw as limitations of the technology at the time, I was determined to deal with it naturally and I actually did pretty well. Thus began my campaign of lip-reading, strategic seating in meetings and in restaurants, "pardon me, excuse me, what was that, huh, eh, say again, could you repeat that" and answering "how are you?" with a reply about the weather. My ability to communicate was stilted. Quick banter, witty repartee and tight conversations in small groups would quickly lose me and I love people and conversation and community. I didn't realize how much I was missing.

Today I went to Sunnybrook and Jessie fitted me for a custom Phonak Solana 312 Bi-CROS hearing aid and my life changed. I didn't realize how much better things could be. More to come.