Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 6

Kunming to Chuxiong, China

Today was travel day. We started out the day easy with a relatively late checkout and then took a bus to the Kunming Ethnic Village for a brief tour. 

This local tourist attraction features 25 different ethnicities from the Kunming area (there are actually over 50 of them). It was a dreary day but the rain held off and we had a great morning touring the ethnic village and shopping for souvenirs. I bought a bracelet for Rhiannon and managed to haggle down to almost half the original asking price. It was likely still over-priced, but I felt good about the transaction.

After the tour we got back onto the bus for the 2 hour journey from Kunming to Chuxiong. The countryside was phenomenal. The terrain is very mountainous and we saw many, many locals out in the fields. I was surprised to see that the main crop by far is corn. I tried to snap some pictures through the bus window but they do not do justice to the sheer magnitude of the landscape. It was quite a sight to behold. The farms for the most part are worked by hand. I saw the occasional roto-tiller and the odd donkey or ox pulling a plow and many people laboring in the fields stacking wheat sheaves and tilling the earth.

We arrived in Chuxiong around 4:30 pm to a line of traditionally dressed people welcoming us to the hotel. The hotel is once again quite nice, though much smaller and less opulent than the last one. Everyone commented on the round bed and throne-like toilet. I'm just glad it was a sit down model and not the "crouching tiger hidden feces" version that was in the lobby washrooms (which made for a funny story - right, Britta? ;)

Chuxiong is a completely different city from Kunming. After we got settled we went out for dinner at a local restaurant and had fried pork (which was amazing), noodles, crispy duck, and lots of wine. Rosaline helped to order the food and Dennis paid for everyone (again). I hope he is claiming all of this as a business expense...

After dinner we went for a walk in the streets of Chuxiong to see the sights and do some shopping. What a night life this place has! There is basically a small carnival set up in the streets and there are tons of small vendors selling jewelry, clothing, and lots of different types of food, including goat meat. In fact we saw more than one vendor with a goat strung up and being butchered on the spot.

After walking around for about 90 minutes, I bought a scarf for one of the ladies in my life (OK, my mom or grandmother) and headed back to the hotel to pack it in and call it a night. It's off to bed early to be well rested for our first day of fittings in Chuxiong!

Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 5

Kunming, China
Patients fitted: 603

Today was our last day of fittings in Kunming.

The day went smoothly and I felt good, unlike others in our group. Kevin is back after being sidelined with a respiratory infection for a couple of days and now Todd is feeling terrible with a fever and general malaise.

We had a few rough cases today of people with no hearing at all in one ear. Despite our best efforts, it was not possible to do anything for them. We had a break around noon as we ran out of patients, but around 1:00 pm they started flooding in.

After a steady afternoon things seem to peter out around 3:30 and most of the people left early to go
shopping or see the sights of Kunming. I decided I would rather stay behind and help fit the last few stragglers. As it turned out, there was a steady stream of patients until about 5 pm, making for a long day. I stayed until the bitter end with Jessie helping me by translating and Bill ever present helping with the problem cases (and there were quite a few of those).

It felt really good when the last patient was fitted, and I said my farewells to Jessie as I did not think I would see her again, and headed to my room for a shower. It turns out Jessie's family owns a photo shop and she gave me some glossy prints of her, David and I that she had taken over the past few days. It was a wonderful gesture and I am very happy to have met such a wonderful person. We've exchanged email addresses so we can keep in touch in the future.

After having a shower and doing some laundry, I headed down to the bar for a beer before dinner, then headed over to The Market for the evening's group dinner sponsored by Starkey.

As it turns out, Jessie and another translator named Nature were both invited to dinner so I had one last visit with Jessie before finally saying farewell and heading off to bed.

Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 4

Kunming, China
Patients fitted: ~609

Today was the third day of fittings in Kunming and once again David, Jessie and I
teamed up and cranked out the hearing aids. The weather was warmer than the first two
days, so things were a bit sticky. We had a very steady day with no real extraordinary
patients. There were a couple harder to fit patients, one of which had a very large ear
opening due to a botched surgery but thankfully Bill was able to find an ear mold for her
and fit a hearing aid.

Probably the funniest part of the day was our last patient which was an older gentleman
that was very difficult to fit. He was all over the place in terms of the power level he wanted
and just laughed at us when we were trying to do our fittings using the standard "bah bah
bah" noise. I swear he was high or something. It was quite funny.

We finished early around 3:30 pm and decided to rent bicycles and cycle around the lake.
Kunming is quite beautiful, and there were some spectacular views of the Lake and some
houses built literally on the face of the mountain cliffs.

It was also interesting to see the local fisherman fishing in the lake with their ridiculously long fishing poles.

After the bike ride, we had a couple drinks followed by a late buffet dinner and another
early bedtime. My back was quite good today, so either the anti-inflammatory pills are
helping, or I am just getting used to standing slightly bent over for most of the day.

Tomorrow is our last full day of fittings here in Kunming, then Sunday we have a day of
sightseeing and travel to Chuxiong, our next village.

Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 3

Kunming, China
Patients fitted: ~609

Today we had a leisurely start at 9:30 am and got right down to business fitting hearing
aids.

David, Jessie and I were partners again, and we rigged up one of the aprons to hold
the tools higher up so I didn't have to bend down on account of my back issues. It still
was not feeling the greatest and seemed to be on the ragged edge all day. Indeed it "went
out" just after lunch break, but did seem to peak in the afternoon then get slightly better
around 5 pm. We worked a little later today as a few stragglers came in under the wire.

David, Jessie and I work really well together. We had a bit of a problem case where we
were fitting a young boy that could not communicate and clearly had issues other than
hearing. Things got confusing when Tani came over as Jessie, the mother, and Tani
were all trying to communicate with the boy, but with Tani's help we were able to get
some positive reactions and fit him with aids at a much lower power than we had initially
determined. Her experience was invaluable in this particular case.

We had a couple other notable cases today. We had on older man whose one ear
was completely dead, who would not take no for an answer, even returning later and
demanding a hearing aid. Unfortunately there was nothing we could do for him.

I also had a young girl with deformed ears as my last patient of the day and while I could
fit the hearing aids, I could not get them to hook onto her ears as she had no pinna. In the end, she was waiting for Bill to look at her in the hopes of getting a headband or other attachment to help.

We again had a couple of really thankful patients who were rather stoic until both hearing
aids started working, then they became very animated and thankful. The older ladies
are the best. They are definitely the most picky, but once you get it dialed in, they are
quite happy and thankful.

The always entertaining dynamic duo: Britta and Ros.

There was one particular woman who was diagnosed the same in both ears, but one ear had very mild loss and the other one was profound requiring the highest power hearing aid. These cases really make you second guess what you are doing, but again, when you dial it in and it all makes sense the patient's face lights up and they are so happy. I imagine the sound quality they are ultimately hearing is quite bad, but they likely haven't heard anything on the one side of their head for years. It must be quite an experience for them to hear something after being essentially deaf in one ear for so
long. Today's fittings showed us that the hearing tests that were done before the patient
arrives really can't be trusted. You really need to start from scratch assuming nothing.

Also, the translators are key in a situation like this, and we have an awesome translator in
Jessie. I had some great conversations with her today as we both stayed late and I learned
that she is a Kunming native and just finished high school. She thought about studying in
Canada but decided to go to the USA instead as Canada is too cold for her. She wants to
be an industrial designer or in airline management. She actually is very skilled at flying
model airplanes and helicopters and won a state-wide gold medal. She said her father is
even better than she is! Very cool! And she is such a nice young lady, and so patient with
the patients. It is an absolute pleasure working with her.

Tonight we are on our own for dinner, and then I'll likely load up on back pills and head
to bed early again.

Starkey Mission to China, 2014 - Day 2

Kunming, China
Patients fitted: 552

Today was the first day of the mission. We started with an amazing breakfast buffet
provided by the hotel followed by a briefing by Tani Austin about how the fitting
procedure worked, and what to expect. It turns out this mission was the very first one
where the Starkey Hearing Foundation would be using digital hearing aids, and ON 
Semiconductor's (the company Rosaline, David and I work for) chips would actually be
in them!

Following the briefing, there was a ceremony and speeches by various local dignitaries
to kick off the mission.

Once the formalities were over, the fittings began in earnest. The first couple fittings were done by Bill and Tani Austin with many cameras and people crowded around, and were declared a success.

Next, we were paired up with an experienced person who showed us the ropes and after a couple of fittings, we were on our own!

Things went relatively smoothly, and David and I combined with our interpreter Jessie
made a great team.

We fitted a total of just over 40 people, most of which had minor to
major losses. There were a couple more severe cases including one gentleman who had
one ear that we could not quite fit loud enough, even with the highest power behind-the-
ear (BTE) device we had. In the end he was referred to Bill himself for a higher-power,
body worn device.

There were a few very happy moments today with a few older people who were
genuinely thankful shaking both our hands vigorously and saying thank you. It was a
very rewarding experience. After a long day of fittings (not that long, really - we wrapped up by about 4 pm - but that much standing slightly bent over was enough to throw out my back on the very first day, unfortunately) we had a group dinner hosted by the local leaders (which was excellent
but was preceded by many more speeches) and headed off to bed.

The final count showed that we fit over 1000 hearing aids today, giving the gift of
hearing and hopefully improving the quality of life of over 500 people. Here's hoping my
back relaxes back into place enough to get me through day 2, as there are many, many
more days to go and many, many more people to fit!