On Wednesday morning, sitting in a small room at HearingLife in White Rock, Joseph Pellerin was – for the first time in years – able to fully hear the world around him.
Just moments earlier, the 57-year-old Semiahmoo Peninsula resident had been fitted with hearing aids in each ear as the first local recipient through HearingLife’s countrywide Campaign for Better Hearing.
“It’s like night and day. It’s amazing,” Pellerin said of the sudden change. “It’s great – my friends won’t have to yell at me anymore.”
Pellerin suffered hearing loss in both ears as a result of a 25-year career as a heavy-equipment and crane operator.
The on-the-job noise – which he described as “like working every day under the hood of a car” – is something you eventually get used to, he said, but it progressively took his toll.
“You’d just have earplugs in working in the crane, that’s it, but they’d always fall out, and you couldn’t exactly lean over and search around in your feet while you’re hoisting something up that weighs 10 tons, so you just keep going,” he explained.
Pellerin worked for most of his career in Ontario – and is, in fact, moving back to his home province next month – but his application for hearing aids through the province’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board was rejected.
Since then, Pellerin has lived with his hearing disability. And though he is younger than many who require hearing aids, his story was what prompted HearingLife’s Brandy Breault, a hearing-instrument practitioner, to nominate him through the company’s Campaign for Better Hearing.
The campaign donates $4 for every hearing test administered by the company – which is headquartered in Ontario – and the proceeds are used to provide hearing aids for those who cannot afford them.
Last year, the Betting Hearing initiative raised $100,000 and this year is aiming to reach the $250,000 mark.
The campaign also aims to raise awareness of hearing loss and encourage Canadians to receive proper assessments. As part of the campaign, anyone over the age of 60 can receive a free baseline-hearing test at any participating HearingLife clinic.
“Our goal is to test everyone over 60 years old,” Breault said.
