About 36 million adults in the United States have some hearing loss, according to the National Institutes of Health. This month, Mary Louise Kelly sat down with The Post for a conversation, fielding questions through her Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids.
. This month, Kelly sat down with The Washington Post for a conversation, fielding questions through her Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids. Questions and answers below have been edited for clarity.For many years I felt like everyone mumbled all the time. I couldn’t hear the words to songs. But I routinely passed the hearing checks. … Then one day I was doing a book tour for my first book and I couldn’t hear the questions from the audience. Shortly afterwards, I scheduled a full audiologist work-up.
I’m grateful for them, and particularly for the Bluetooth technology that can pipe a phone call directly into my ear. But it’s not like putting on glasses. They’re uncomfortable, and I still struggle to make out every word. It’s kind of like a foreign language you speak very well but not completely, so you’re always a little behind. That’s what English is like for me now, and my hearing loss is continuing.
I have not yet explored the whole world of apps on the phone, where you can aim your phone at the person you’re talking to and words come up on the screen. If my hearing continues to worsen, I may well explore that. When I see people doing that in a restaurant, I think, “Good for you! You’re doing what you need to do.”
It’s harder when I do interviews from home or when I’m out in the field because we have to route the calls through the main office. This has taken more work from everyone else, and I obviously feel bad about that. So far, there has always been a workaround. Still I’ve thought more than once about how long can I do this? I’m good at my job, but I don’t want to be a burden. The only thing I know how to do is keep being honest and asking if there are other ways we can try.
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