Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 2:00 p.m.
For the last 5 months, the right hearing aid has been unreliable. That is, I never know when it might stopping syncing with my cell phone. But, most of the time, re-booting my cell phone fixed it. And, if that didn’t, then charging the hearing aids overnight (and re-booting the phone) fixed it.
But on November 3, the right hearing aid stopped working entirely. When I put it into the charger, there was no light, not even a yellow light like the left one had, indicating that charging has begun. The next morning, the left one was fully charged, with a green light, and there was still nothing on the right one. I emailed Dr. Ahuja. One of the receptionists called me for an appointment on Wednesday, November 27–that’s 3 weeks without my hearing aids!–and left a voicemail since, of course, without my hearing aids, I couldn’t hear my cell phone ring! I called back the next day and starting asking for cancellations, and the receptionist found one for 2 p.m. on Wednesday, November 13. (It’s making me wonder if Wednesdays are the only days they are making appointments!)
So, 10 days later, on November 13, I was on my way to the Hearing City in Union City Kaiser. There was no road construction today and the traffic was not excessively heavy, so I got to my appointment on time and checked in.
But it was a different doctor who called me. Instead of the tiny Indian Dr. Ahuja, here was a tall blonde white woman, Dr. Sarah Groff. She was pleasant and professional as she ushered me into an office. I had brought my hearing aids in their charger case, complete with cable and adapter, inside the little “shopping bag” that I had received them in. I put the charger on the desk and Dr. Groff looked at them.
“Well, let’s see if we can figure out what’s wrong,” she said, standing with the hearing aids in her hands. “Maybe we can fix it here today.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then we’d have to send it out.” She left the room. While she was gone, I got out my phone and checked to make sure the Bluetooth was on. You know, just in case they can fix it today.
Dr. Groff came back sooner than I expected. “I think we did it,” she announced.
I put in both hearing aids and instantly I could tell that they were both on and operational. “Now,” I said, “I need to have them synced to my phone.” I held up my phone with the screen toward her so she could see. I remembered how, when I had first picked up my hearing aids, Dr. Ahuja did the initial syncing to my phone, but she had to call technical support somewhere as she did it. Apparently she was only familiar with iPhones. Now Dr. Groff gently took the phone from my hand so she could work with the configuration. And it was done!
She gave me a half-sheet printout of what to do at home in case my phone and the hearing aids need to be re-synced. Yes, Linda could help me figure it out! I put the printout in my bag with the hearing aid charger and thanked her as she ushered me back to the waiting room.
Update (11/24/19): The hearing aids stayed synced with the phone for the rest of that day (November 13), but came un-synced, and I have not yet bothered to look at that printout.
