Jeanne Macaskill has been working as an artist for over sixty years. After seventeen years living in London and France, she returned to New Zealand, painting, exhibiting and teaching from 1972 through to 2000.

But as she neared the end of her teaching career, Jeanne realised making jokes about not being able to hear wasn’t serving her students well and got her first pair of hearing aids. Those were so good that it wasn’t until an aid was lost mid way through 2010 that she had her hearing re-tested. “I was shocked at how bad my hearing had got. “You get used to planning ahead to be in situations where you will cope, or relying on your partner to do the talking for you. I suddenly realised I wasn’t in control any more,” she says. Having had a good experience with an Oticon aid previously, Jeanne stuck with the brand and purchased Oticon Agil hearing aids. Almost immediately her life changed. “I’m nearly 80 and I’ve had the hips done and cataracts in both eyes but it is the new hearing aids that have boosted me most,” she says. “Hearing gives you the ability to communicate. It helps you with your friends and family – we do things like fund-raising dinners and I can participate in those properly again. “And it’s just so important for your relationship".

A hearing impairment is not a visible disability so it does not arouse public sympathy. But it can have a devastating effect on everyday life. Life Unlimited is a charitable, non-profit organisation offering hearing therapy sessions to advise and support anybody who experiences difficulty in communicating effectively because of a hearing problem. At Courtenay Hearing we can offer referrals to this service. Common uses are for counselling for those struggling to come to terms with hearing loss, or after aids are fitted, for those who need additional support to adjust and manage. For more information about this service visit www.life.nzl.org.

Hearing therapy helps alleviate the stress of living with a hearing Impairment “I used to sit up close to the TV so I could hear it while my husband had to sit at the back of the room. That’s not watching TV together. And all those little asides that make you a couple – I can hear them again. “I can’t tell you how much joy being able to hear properly again has given me.”