My grandfather is a soft-spoken former Marine and my father has carried on the tradition of both soft-spoken tendencies as well as military service. The one thing that isn’t soft, however, is the volume at which they watch television. Both will ratchet up the sound until it’s blaring through the entire house. This may seem like an annoying habit or one that’s inconsiderate, at best, but for them, it’s the only way to hear. Both suffer from hearing loss – hereditary as well as linked to their military service.
My father is 80% deaf and wears hearing aids in both ears to compensate. His audiologist has told him that by the time he reaches 50 years old he will be nearly 100% deaf. My grandfather, too, wears hearing aids but often forgets to put them in rendering them useless. The solution the family has found for my grandfather who loves baseball and true crime movies is closed captioning. He can now sit in the living room with the family bustling around him and follow the storyline of Law and Order or Tigers baseball game without missing a beat.
It’s an amazing thing to now work for a company that provides these services for people around the world. Having my family be affected by hearing loss makes me so much more appreciative of people like those on our team who strive to deliver 100% accurate captioning.
Written by Amber Kellogg
