My deafness became a major issue in 2021. Up to that time, there had been the odd rumbling of discontent, mainly from my long-suffering wife.  I had up to then been able to successfully argue that I wasn’t really deaf and that I was just a bit heedless. My beloved wife could not understand that if she said something in the bedroom, how it was that I couldn’t hear what she said while I was watching television in the sitting room. My wife is a wonderful woman, and I love her dearly, but her big failing is expecting me to make sense of her muffled mumblings from another room. Anyway, she eventually convinced me that I was deaf after all, and so began the search for a remedy.

I believe that there is a world of difference between being deaf and being heedless. I know in my heart that I have the average hearing loss of a normal 73-year-old. Unfortunately, age has also dulled my eyesight and several other bodily organs and functions, which, because of their delicate nature, I won’t elaborate on here. Suffice it to say that there are times when I become engrossed in reading a good book or watching a compilation video highlighting how Limerick won the All-Ireland in 2018, and then again for good measure in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023! Preparing a blog post also takes high levels of concentration and tunnel vision at times.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it cost me €6,100 to solve my problem! Reluctantly, I joined the Hidden Hearing family. I later learnt that the reason it’s called Hidden Hearing is because there are so many hidden costs associated with the purchase of so-called ‘hidden’ hearing aids. My state-of-the-art hearing aids were of the behind-the-ear variety and were anything but hidden.

First off, I went to a Hidden Hearing clinic for a hearing test. I was asked to bring along someone whose voice I recognised easily from another room, so I brought Kate. The audiologist put pods in my ears and played a series of beeps at various sound frequencies, and if I heard one, I was supposed to press a button. This test was carried out overlooking a busy street in Newcastle West, with car and van noise intruding on my hearing test. In further mitigation, because of COVID-19 restrictions in place at the time, all present wore face masks. I’m sure I missed some beeps because the audiologist’s frown grew more sombre by the second, and eventually, he too convinced me that I was in fact profoundly deaf – especially when he put Kate in an adjacent room and had her read some comments out loud which I was asked to repeat. I failed that test, too, and they both helped convince me that I was indeed a hopeless case and the only solution would be for me to purchase the newest, most scientifically proven hearing aids on the market. I headed straight for the Credit Union.

Once my hearing had been tested, I felt under pressure to purchase from Hidden Hearing and was not told of any other competitors in the hearing aid field. I also felt pressured by the sales assistant to pay more than I could comfortably afford.  In hindsight, I often wondered why they didn’t redo the test once the hearing aids had been fitted and adjusted to my particular needs. Surely, I would have passed with flying colours!  I was urged to always wear my new hearing aids, or my hearing – the little that was left – would disappear as well. It had something to do with the brain, they said. In the days and weeks that followed, I wore my hearing aids on long walks and found that the Bluetooth was indeed state-of-the-art, far better than my AirPods. To their credit, they were also brilliant when my phone rang, and I found taking calls much easier and clearer in fairness. In my own mind, of course, I was still convinced that my hearing was just fine. I could still hear the birds in the morning without my hearing aids; I could hear the jets seven miles above me as they flew over my house as I lay in bed; I could still hear the comforting soft patter of rain on the windows and on the roof in the dead of night.

Again, because of my advanced years, I use reading glasses to read, and if I mislay my glasses, there is a mini crisis because I’m actually blind without them. As a precaution, I make sure that I have a backup pair of glasses always at hand, just in case. Now, the same was not true for my hearing aids. I failed to notice any improvements in my hearing when I wore them in public, particularly in crowded settings.

I was under the impression that once I had purchased my hearing aids, they would last a lifetime. Foolish me! The particular hearing aids I had purchased carried a three-year warranty, and as that deadline approached, I began receiving increased communication from Hidden Hearing. They informed me that there had been enormous advances since I had last purchased my now antiquated behind-the-ear hearing aids and that I could avail of various special offers as a valued ‘patient’ of Hidden Hearing. They would even allow me €2,000 for my old, outdated hearing aids, even if they were broken (or, in my case, rarely used) when I would trade them in for their new state-of-the-art in-ear upgrade! To add insult to injury, when the warranty lapsed on my old hearing aids, it would cost me €140 per ear for them to examine the hearing aids each time there was a problem. The vultures were circling, and the concept of built-in obsolescence took on a whole new meaning for this naive, deaf person. I wondered if I would have to make another journey to the Credit Union.

I resolved to battle on, to half-hear Fr Raphael, our new Nigerian curate, giving his Sunday homily; to nod sympathetically at another sob story in the crowded pub; to catch the end of a request from Kate as she mumbled away in another room. I even began to believe that the Nile is not just a river in Egypt!