Sweet sound of sauce simmering
It was the sweet sound of a simmering pot of pasta sauce that told Cresta Culver her hearing was back.
The 41-year-old Penticton woman was at home making dinner not long after receiving a new set of hearing aids in June when she noticed what, to her, was an unusual sound.
“All of a sudden I hear these noises, and it’s this bubbling. But what I didn’t realize is it was the pasta boiling, because I’d never actually heard that sound,” she recalled.
Culver, who works as a prep cook, received the $6,000 hearing aids at no cost through The National Campaign for Better Hearing.
The program is accessible through 200-plus hearing clinics across Canada. Those interested simply visit a participating clinic for a free hearing test, and the office donates $4 to a national pool of money that funds hearing aids for those in need.
Last year, the program raised $290,000. The target for 2017 is $300,000.
To get new hearing aids, one must be recommended by an audiologist, who submits the client’s name to a national panel for consideration.
“The whole idea is to gain and provide awareness to people about hearing loss and to educate them about the implications of hearing loss – isolation, depression, that sort of thing – and what can be done to help,” explained Dr. Cheryl Galloway, who recommended Culver for the free equipment.
Galloway, the only doctor of audiology in the South Okanagan, works at Canadian Hearing Centre, one of two participating clinics in Penticton.
The other is NexGen Hearing, which also has a location in Summerland.
The campaign is aimed at people 60 and older because most hearing loss is attributed to aging, according to Galloway, although any adult is eligible for a free hearing test that, at the very least, can establish a baseline for comparison years down the road.
People are most often sent for a test, she continued, by their children or spouse, who notice their loved ones listening to TV at high volumes or having trouble carrying on a conversation.
Culver, who was born with a hearing impairment and has had a series of hearing aids throughout her life, said it’s easy to withdraw from others when hearing loss creeps in.
“If you don’t have the hearing aids, you just kind of shut things off, because you get sick and tired of saying, ‘Please repeat yourself,’” she explained.
“It does really isolate you and kind of put you in your own little world.”
And besides restoring her hearing, Culver added, the campaign also lifted a huge financial burden off her shoulders by eliminating the need for her to come up with thousands of dollars for new hearing aids.
It’s one of many such programs, she noted, but accessing them always begins with a hearing test.
“If you have hearing loss, get it looked at, get it checked out, because there are ways to get hearing aids,” she explained.
“So the financial aspect shouldn’t necessarily be the thing that holds you back from finding out.”