EVERETT – Dorothy Hanson smiles as she tells of hearing the gentle slap-slap of windshield wiper blades.
“I’m hearing the car sounds, the wind, the wipers, all these things I never heard, for a long time,” she said.
“I was shocked,” said Hanson, who is 86. “Totally shocked.”
For at least 10 years, she heard nothing as she rode in a car, robbed of this and many other sounds of everyday life by severe hearing loss.
Her daughter, Vicki Stokes, used to know her mother was home by the blaring TV, which she could hear through a closed door as she stood on the front porch.
Her mother’s hearing began to decline in her 60s. She estimates her mother lost at least 90 percent of her hearing in her left ear. Stokes would have to pound and pound on the front door to let her mother know she had arrived.
All this changed when Hanson was fitted with digital hearing aids through a Lion’s Club program. The club provides the state-of-the art hearing aids for low-income residents. To qualify for the program, single adults must make no more than $23,500 a year.
Sophisticated hearing aids can cost $1,600 or more apiece, said Mike Langhout, vice president for hearing services for the Northwest Lions Foundation.
The foundation works with local chapters such as the Everett Central Lions Club to provide the hearing aids for a maximum fee of $500 for one ear.
Without the program, “she couldn’t have afforded new hearing aids,” Stokes said.
Now Hanson can walk out of the kitchen and into another room of the house and hear the ding of the microwave.
“When she watches TV, she can hear the doorbell,” Stokes said.
“We can’t talk about her anymore,” she joked. “She can hear us.”
It gives back a degree of independence to a woman who deeply cherishes it. Hanson still lives in her own home and cuts her own grass with a push mower.
Hanson can now hear the songs of birds that flock to the feeder on her deck.
“It’s wonderful,” Hanson said. “It’s like a whole new life.”
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
Dorothy Hanson’s thank you
Thank you Lions everywhere
For showing that you really care
Because of you, now I can hear
The voices of others I hold dear.
The song of birds out in the wild
The piping voice of a little child
So thank you Lions with all my heart.
Your compassion for others sets you apart.
By Dorothy Hanson
To learn more
For general information on the Lion’s low-cost hearing aid program, call the Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight &Hearing at 800- 847-5786.
To recycle a hearing aid, call Art Ruben of the Everett Central Lions club at 425-252-4400.
The Northwest Lions Foundation for Sight &Hearing operates the leading eye bank in the nation. It also partners with Lions clubs in Washington and northern Idaho to help them assist people who are losing their sight or hearing.
The major focus of Lions fund-raising activities is to keep people from losing their sight, although the group pursues other projects such as drug awareness programs in high schools and diabetes awareness programs. For more information, go to the Northwest Lions Foundation Web site at www.nlfoundation.org.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
