Several years ago, I got a very serious ear infection from a hot tub in an upscale motel. It took six weeks and four different courses of increasingly stronger antibiotics to resolve. It was horribly painful. It blew out my eardrums, and I had to have them surgically replaced with grafts. I lost 75-80% of my hearing in my right ear and about 50% in my left ear.
I've had three different sets of hearing aids since then. The ones I use now, Phonak, are user-adjustable and closest to what I remember as normal hearing, but still I have much difficulty distinguishing conversation in crowds and with triangulation (for instance, when I'm driving and hear sirens, I can't tell where they are coming from) and other associated challenges. It also aggravates my PTSD, because I can't hear people coming up behind me and startle easily, and also the triangulation issue. On the up side, I can stream music (very loudly, so I can hear it) with my current hearing aids.
The toughest part for me is that I was a performing musician/recording artist, and I can't hear well enough to do that any more. My other job was medical transcription, and I can't hear well enough to do that any more, either.
C'est la vie.
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