Devices give new life to those with hearing loss

Dusty Owens got his first set of hearing aids when he was 18 years old.

He suddenly entered a world so loud the simplest noises hurt his ears.

“I couldn’t stand water running,” Owens, now 25, said. “I couldn’t stand going to a restaurant and hearing a knife scrape across a plate.”

As a child, Owens’ speech was difficult to understand, which led a pediatrician to diagnose a hereditary hearing loss and take steps to protect what hearing the 3-year-old had left. Owens had 10 sets of tubes in his ears by the time he was 11.

Owens, a Columbia resident, was one of three people to win new digital hearing aids through the Dothan Eagle and Physicians Hearing Center’s essay contest. Out of 45 essays, three winners were chosen to receive the devices made by Oticon and fittings compliments of Physicians Hearing. The devices received by winners ranged in price from $3,000 up to $7,000. Contestants were given evaluations by Physicians Hearing to determine their level of hearing loss.

Along with Owens, Ron Catalano of Dothan and Genell Weeks of Kinsey received hearing devices.

While Catalano wrote his own essay, the essays for Owens and Weeks were written by others. Owens’ friend Mamie Alexander nominated him, and Weeks was nominated by Dianne McArdle, the secretary at Kinsey Baptist Church where Weeks is a member.

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month.

Owens sat in a chair at ENTcare’s Physicians Hearing Center as audiologist Julie Ann Rikard explained the details of his new hearing devices. The open-ear devices, she said, will make a difference in his quality of hearing.

“Things will sound more natural,” Rikard said.

His new open-ear devices are Bluetooth compatible and can be synchronized with seven other electronic devices — cell phone, iPod, house phone, television, computer. But even better, Owens — a mechanic for AAA Cooper — will be able to hear his wife, Erin, when she speaks to him. He’ll be able to hear his 7-month-old daughter, Gabby, when she begins to talk.

“They’ll help me out with every aspect of my life,” Owens said.

A box of samples sat before 59-year-old Ron Catalano as audiologist Gracie Clements-Herndon fitted him for his new hearing aids. The samples showed the variety of open-ear devices that wrap around the ear and then enter the ear drum canal through a thin clear tube that’s barely visible. Multiple colors, animal prints and even one designed like a golf ball are available.

Catalano’s devices are gray.

“It goes with what little bit of hair I have,” he said.

Catalano began to lose his hearing as a teenager — the possible result of a high fever as a child. He’s had hearing aids in the past but they never seemed to work well for him. He could already tell a difference when he was fitted on Thursday.

For Catalano, hearing loss dramatically impacted his quality of life. He always enjoyed social outings and helping others, but limited his activities because he couldn’t hear as good as he should. He avoided certain social situations out of embarrassment.

“You find yourself learning to read lips,” Catalano said. “You find ways to ad-lib in situations so people won’t know you didn’t hear everything they said.”

Genell Weeks, 76, can’t hear the phone ring. She has tried phones with different ringers. She even got a phone from the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind but returned it when she couldn’t hear it ring. She has gone so long without hearing aids, she actually lost some comprehension of sounds and words.

Weeks has about 24-percent understanding of sounds in her right ear and 32 percent in her left ear. Even the custom-fit devices ordered for Weeks may only give her 50- to 60-percent understanding of sounds.

She’ll take it.

When traditional hearing aids wore out and Weeks couldn’t afford new ones, she turned to mail-order devices that amplify sounds.

“Those things help for a little while, then if you have them for a little while, it goes and comes,” Weeks said. “It eats the batteries up, too.”

Weeks has had her share of embarrassment in public asking people to repeat things, especially at stores when she’s ready to pay. One cashier even suggested Weeks take out her ear plugs so she could hear. Weeks had to explain the device hanging around her neck and the plugs in her ears were not for music but to help her hear.

Once active, Weeks’ hearing loss kept her from getting out of her house. The hearing aids, she said, will change that. She plans to get the most out of them.

“I used to get out everyday and go to the neighbors,” Weeks said.