Karl Farkas was awarded hearing aids by the National Campaign for Better Hearing’s Give-Back Program after being nominated by his hearing professional, Katie Grimaldi. For every hearing test taken, the sponsors of this life changing campaign donate $4.00 towards the purchase of new hearing aids for those who really need them. Here’s Karl’s story:

“I can already hear so much more than I did before. You can really hear the difference as soon as you put the hearing aids in your ear. For most of my life I’ve been living with deafness in my left ear and when my right ear started to have hearing loss too it was that much harder. It is so embarrassing when you are trying to have a conversation with someone and you can’t follow what they are talking about. You can laugh at the wrong time or just look like you’re stupid. As someone who loves to socialize as much as I do, and who loves music as much as I do, this will be an amazing thing.

Without hearing aids, I feel very limited because being deaf in one ear means I always had to have people on my right side. When the hearing in my right ear started to go down too it felt like I was losing all of my communication and that was very emotional for me. I remember walking in Toronto and wondering if I should take sign language classes in case my right ear lost its hearing as well; it was really scary. You don’t always want to tell people you have hearing loss, so it’s very hard to talk to people as if everything is normal, especially at work.

People don’t get their ears tested like they get their eyes tested, but they should. There are so many psychological, social, and emotional components to hearing loss that you don’t always realize until you get your hearing tested. You don’t have anything to lose except finding out where you are at and if you need to do something about it. If people who know they have hearing loss got hearing aids like people with vision problems got glasses, there wouldn’t be as many people being shut off from communication and parts of life they enjoy.”