Ok. Ok. It is NOT what you’re thinking. C’mon, you know me better than that.
My problem was that I was having trouble hearing conversations, especially at school, which can be problematic. This intensified after a severe ear infection that never completely healed. My ears felt stopped up similar to what can happen when descending from a high altitude in a plane. There was a graduation ceremony, mid-infection, where I could not hear anyone. The other band director realized something was going on. Fortunately, school was out.
When a student, more often a girl, would come to me in a rehearsal, we would have to move into the office so I could hear without all the band noise.
One student explained it to another this way…..
He might ask you to repeat things a lot, and he doesn’t always get it right…..but you can be in another room and miss a note and he is on you immediately.
Voices were a problem. Wrong notes were not.
I was fitted for and received a moderately high-level pair of hearing aids.
They were supposed to be able to pull the voices out of the background noise, but that didn’t really work in a rehearsal setting. The band volume would often be painful. In church, I could hear the pastor better, but the congregational singing became too loud — so I stopped wearing them.
Fast forward two years past retirement, it was a large, noisy hotel meeting room with hundreds of people at tables of ten having conversations, which was the catalyst for unpacking the hearing aids and giving them another shot. There were several college friends at my table and I really wasn’t hearing any of them.
I got them out and tried to put them in….but something has died and the out-of-warranty repair cost would be several hundred dollars.
But there is good news.
Now that I am retired, part of my insurance covers an audiology exam AND a healthy allowance toward new hearing aids.
Stay tuned for updates.