Hearing Aids - Say What?

Somewhere along the way, when the hearing aids became a fixture in the life of a maturing human, they do omit to clean their ears of wax after a shower or bath. They get stuck, not necessarily in their ears, but stuck up with wax. Or a different way to say, ‘plugged’. And they do, they simply stop the hearing aid from working like it should. I started my mom using Q-tips again, somewhere along the way that part of good hygiene had gotten lost for her. Sort of a dumb thing to write about, yet when the TV volume looms larger than the voice of a baseball park announcer when passing by on the sidewalk, and when they don’t hear the telephone ring, it’s a sign to reach for the box of Q-tip’s to control the volume.
Then there is cleaning the wax from the actual hearing aid appliance. I find maturity brings more appliances into our lives, ever notice that. Dental, hearing, other ones also – but back to appliance wax impeding hearing aids.
Today was the appointed day to take this very expensive and required appliance back to the seller for a tune-up. The warranty was still in-force, so this visit was free. The former visits had been tune-ups via adjusting tone qualities and range of pick-up of sounds. This was quite fun to observe the tester and my mother. High end squelch, and lower pitches and the resulting facial expressions of pain or pleasure.
This visit was an exploratory mission for me to learn – why the volume on the TV was back to the loudest possible setting. Viewing the problematic – baseball park announcer situation was quickly solved by this tooth pick like tool, inserting and removing one filter of the hearing aid – of course it was filled with wax. Then replacing the same itty-bitty, teeny-weeny little white round filter with another from the opposite end of the toothpick-like apparatus.
Now she hears. No tuning required. Wax is gone. New filter is in place, and the toothpick tool filter replacer thing, comes in a box set. Who knew? And the baseball park announcer, he’s on hiatus!