Sponsored by Hearing Australia
Katie Cunningham
Chris Pappas remembers the moment he knew it was time to address his hearing loss. The 55-year-old IT executive was in the kitchen one morning when his teenage son, Michael, walked in and announced something that Chris couldn’t quite make out.
“I said, ‘I didn’t hear you. What was that?’ Michael lost his temper and marched off,” Chris recalls. “I mean, the stress it puts on friends, family and work colleagues— you don’t realise.”
Chris had first noticed his hearing declining in his late 40s, which he believed might have been related to an early career in the army where he was regularly around loud gun blasts. That, and his past life enjoying the nightclubs of Melbourne. “I’m Gen X—we used to stand in front of the speakers!”
But as a “typical middle-aged male” well-versed in brushing medical matters aside, it took years—and a lot of pestering from his loved ones—for him to do anything about it.
“My wife had been begging me to get my hearing checked for a few years before I did,” Chris says. “When I look back now, I should have done it six or seven years ago when I noticed there were some things I wasn’t hearing any more, and situations I was struggling in.”
Those situations happened at work as well as at home. Chris remembers another moment two years ago at a conference where a woman approached him to introduce herself and he “simply couldn’t hear a word she said, apart from ‘hello’ and ‘nice to meet you’.” “I went and got my hearing tested about a week later, and just haven’t looked back,” he says.
Finding the courage to ask for help
Wanting to go with the country’s most trusted hearing services provider as voted by Reader’s Digest readers, Chris booked in with Hearing Australia for a free 15-minute hearing check. He concedes that as a former military man and footy captain, it took some guts to ask for help. But the team at Hearing Australia nurtured him through the process and even loaned him a pair of hearing aids to take home for a free two-week trial. That sealed the deal: “You’re like, as if I’m handing these back.”
Chris was pleasantly surprised to learn how different today’s hearing aid technology is to that of decades’ past.
“We think back to the big, ugly, cream-coloured things hanging off the backs of your school friends’ ears in the 80s and 90s. Today, they’re anything but,” he says. Not only can they be very discreet, but modern hearing aids can also come with enviable tech features.
“The ones I got have AI built into them. There’s an app on your phone so you can easily make changes to your volume if you want. If you’re in the bush, and you want to hear the birds, there’s a setting for that. If you go to a concert, there’s a setting for music. If you just want them to be noise-cancelling, there’s a setting for that. It’s amazing”.
A life-changing impact
The change his hearing aids offered was immediate and obvious.
“I’ll never forget the day I got them. I got into my car to go home and heard a squeak. When I got home, I said to my wife, ‘How long’s that bloody squeak been there?’ She said, ‘It’s been there since you bought it!’ It’s the old story of you don’t know what you’ve lost until you get it back.”
But the most impactful changes came in his relationships with friends, family and himself.
Chris feels more confident entering noisy rooms, knowing he won’t have to lean in uncomfortably close to hear people speak. And there is no question that hearing aids have strengthened his connection with his loved ones, including the most important relationship of all: that with his son, Michael.
Investing in your hearing, Chris feels, is a way of “investing in everyone around you as well”. He can see now how frustrating it must have been for his family to have to constantly repeat themselves to him.
For Chris, taking charge of his hearing has been “absolutely life-changing”. That’s why he encourages anyone who is struggling with their hearing to take the first step and get their hearing checked. The initial appointment with Hearing Australia is obligation-free, so “if that means you go home and ponder it for a month or two, then so be it,” he says. “But your hearing’s not going to get better”.
“I’ve got so many of my male friends in trouble at dinner parties because I tell my story, and their wives glare at them and tell them to get their hearing checked,” he laughs. “They say, ‘Chris has done it. If Chris can do it, you can do it!’”
Concerned about your hearing? Book a free 15-minute adult hearing check with Hearing Australia—Australia’s most trusted hearing services provider since 2021, as voted by Reader’s Digest readers. Call 134 432 or book online at hearing.com.au/bookings.
Only 15-minute adult hearing checks are free. Other services may attract charges/fees or may be subsidised for those eligible under the Australian Government Hearing Services Program, to which conditions apply. A hearing check is a screening that helps identify people that may have hearing loss.
