HOW SWEET THE SOUND
Donated devices help woman regain hearing after 20 years
WOONSOCKET – Certified hearing aid specialist Ann Foss placed two new hearing aids in Christine LaVerdiere’s ears, R2-D2-like noises emanating from the devices.
LaVerdiere beamed. It is the first time in 20 years she has properly fitting hearing aids that reach the levels she needs.
Now she can hear her grandchildren playing in the next room. Now she can turn the TV down from a volume of 49 to the 20s, and her husband won’t have to leave the room because it’s too loud for him. Now she can hear what people are saying at weddings and funerals.
“Just think of all the conversations I missed where I just smiled and nodded, and maybe I smiled when I shouldn’t have,” said LaVerdiere, 60.
On Wednesday, the 30-year resident of Woonsocket became the recipient of two hearing aids – valued at roughly $9,000 – donated through The Beltone Hearing Care Foundation.
When she came into the Beltone Hearing Aid Center on Diamond Hill Road for the fitting and instructions, she had a hearing aid in her right ear, but the one in her left broke six months ago. The one in her right ear is a Beltone but an older model.
She had been visiting Charles Grady at the Woonsocket Hearing Aide Center, but he died in December of 2014.
LaVerdiere speaks highly of Grady. He had her on a plan that allowed her to pay about $20 a month for her hearing aids, which Foss said most insurance doesn’t cover.
The hearing aids Grady gave her were basic ones that cost about $600-700, just enough to get by. They could be adjusted on a scale of 1-3 for loudness, while the new ones have higher levels.
With LaVerdiere and her husband unable to work fulltime due to an improbably unlucky series of health issues, they couldn’t afford a better kind.
LaVerdiere estimates that without hearing aids, she has lost about 70 percent of her hearing in one ear and 50 percent in the other.
She lost her hearing in February of 1996 from an accident at the Levy Rink in Burrillville, where she was watching her son, then 13, play hockey.
As LaVerdiere was returning from the snack bar with change for her husband, David LaVerdiere, she observed a 2year-old girl pulling a wire. As Christine LaVerdiere approached her husband, the girl realized she didn’t know
the people around her and backed away.
An18-pound, 3-foot speaker fell from the ceiling and hit LaVerdiere in the head, causing her to lose a tooth and a substantial amount of hearing.
She was offered a surgical procedure that involved cutting her face from the top of her ear to her nose and taking cartilage, but there was no guarantee it would work. She opted for hearing aids instead.
“You know when leaves swirl in the wind?” she said. “I’ve had that [sound] for 20 years.” This is called trauma-induced tinnitus, Foss added.
LaVerdiere filed suit against the Town of Burrillville. She wasn’t looking for millions of dollars or anything, she said, just hearing aids for the rest of her life, but she was unsuccessful in her quest.
Her nephew is meteorologist Tony Petrarca, and when Petrarca’s father died, she got his hearing aids. And when a friend’s father died, she got his hearing aids.
On top of hearing troubles, LaVerdiere has limited sensation from her chest down as a result of breast cancer and a double mastectomy. This followed her metastatic thyroid cancer diagnosis.
She did not return to work until 2003, and she had since been working part-time in the medical field. But David LaVerdiere, 59, had a cerebral stroke two years ago, and his appendix ruptured this past January. He also is severely diabetic.
His blood sugar is so volatile that his insulin is five times more potent than normal insulin, David LaVerdiere said. Pharmacists feel uneasy filling his prescription.
He had been working as an executive chef. He worked for Bryant University and even cooked for the pope, in 1995, the couple said.
Christine LaVerdiere stopped working so she could take care of her husband. Now, she works a few hours a week at the Rhode Island Sports Center rink. The kids who come there regularly know to shout so she can hear them.
LaVerdiere’s most recent misfor- tune was breaking her foot, a result of stepping in a hole in a walkway after leaving a store in June. Despite her deafness, she heard her foot crack.
“There’s a black cloud that’s over my house, let me tell you,” LaVerdiere said.
One of the brighter moments of the past two decades was winning a 2003 convertible from the radio station 93.3 FM. But she said receiving these hearing aids, free of charge, is right up there with the convertible.
LaVerdiere first came to the Beltone store in Woonsocket about a year ago, to get her tubes changed. Because the tubes in hearing aids grow hard and brittle, Foss said, they need to be changed every 3-6 months.
Foss encouraged her to fill out the paperwork applying for a hearing aid donation. LaVerdiere did, and she found out about a month ago that she had been selected.
“We are completely ecstatic to be able to help Christine LaVerdiere, obviously a person who needed our assistance in a huge way,” Beltone New England CEO Michael Andreozzi said in a statement. “I’m excited for her to hear better and have a better quality of life because of it. That’s what the Beltone Hearing Care Foundation is all about.”
On Wednesday, Foss explained the hearing aid settings for LaVerdiere and demonstrated the sound the devices would make when the battery is about to die.
“I’m still in shock that I’m getting two hearing aids, still [on] cloud nine,” she said.
Since LaVerdiere downloaded the Beltone app, she can use her phone as a remote control, Foss said. The app can be used to raise or lower the hearing aid’s levels, adjust the treble and bass, and track the hearing aids if they’re misplaced.
The industry standard for a life of a hearing aid is about 3-5 years.
“Emotionally, it’s a tough thing to not hear,” David LaVerdiere said. “At some point, we lost a lot, both of us. Now it should be much better.”