Let’s imagine for a moment that you’ve woken up one day with a ringing in your ears that you can’t quite place. After looking all over the house for the source, you come to realize that the sound is internal noise, and seemingly present in your ear canal alone. Your hearing isn’t that affected, but the background noise is distracting, causing headaches, and making it difficult to concentrate on what others are saying to you. What do you do?
Book a hearing test.
The first option would be to call an audiologist and let them check you out. A buzzing, ringing or rushing sound over your hearing indicates that you are suffering from tinnitus. Physical injury, such as head trauma or standing near to a sudden, loud noise are considered to be causes of this issue of background noise within the ear canal, but there are a multitude of other factors that might be causing it and an audiologist would not try to rule anything out.
It can also be an indication of possible hearing loss to come and so it is best to get it sorted quickly. Whilst there isn’t a cure, one of the prescribed methods of treating tinnitus and off-setting any potential hearing loss that follows is with hearing aid devices. Hearing aids are not just given by audiologists to patients who have severe hearing loss or deafness but can help relieve the symptoms of tinnitus, too, as they distract the brain from the sounds in the ear canal and amplify other noises that would be heard with your normal hearing instead.
Hearing Health USA are specialists in the field of helping those with auditory problems, from minor to severe hearing loss, deafness, and the emotional distress that it can sometimes bring. They also provide hearing aids and cochlear implants for those with more specific cases. If you wake up with a sound in your ears, you should seek out an audiologist with them first.
Unfortunately, there are other issues that tinnitus or hearing problems are only a symptom of. In addition to infections, tinnitus can also be an indicator of heart disease, Ménière’s disease (a condition with which the sufferer constantly feels like they are spinning), or a brain tumor. An audiologist would not be able to help you with any of these, and as such, you would need to speak to a doctor as soon as symptoms develop.
How can you prepare for bad news?
There is no real preparation that can be done to anticipate the emotional distress if the news is at its worst, but there are still ways to mitigate its impact. If you are diagnosed with a terminal illness and there is nothing that can be done to lengthen your life expectancy, then the only control you have will be what to do in your final days. Obviously, this emotional distress will extend to your close friends and family also, but your loved ones will have time to deal with the news in due course.
If you already have life insurance, then you will know that the payout (or death benefit) will only come into play once you have passed away. This is useful if you haven’t already paid for a funeral or a mortgage. But the truth is that you might want to spend your final days in as much comfort as possible, but cannot afford the end-of-life care that you’ll need. Or, maybe you would just prefer to treat yourself and your loved ones to a couple of bucket list exercises before your time comes to an end. But without that payout, your life insurance isn’t going to help.
What do viatical settlements do?
You could opt to “surrender” or sell your life insurance policy to a third-party investor in return for a lump sum. The value of the payout would be less than the death benefit, but high enough to cover the costs of your special final days. This is known as a viatical settlement and is gaining popularity in the United States year on year.
The major difference between life settlements and viatical settlements is that the original life insurance policyholder has access to the cash payment of the policy’s cash surrender value whilst they still have time to use it. There are a few provisos, however; the third party investor, who becomes known as the beneficiary when they buy the life insurance policy will continue to pay the premiums on it from then on, and will receive the net death benefit instead when the former policyholder passes away. There are also tax implications for insurance settlements that they will need to deal with in lieu of the life insurance policy’s original holder.
Plus, the sale of the life insurance policy is based on the understanding that the policyholder has a life expectancy of two years or less. Any longer life expectancy results in a devaluation of the viatical settlement, which, cold as it sounds, lowers the net death benefit. Instead, a viatical settlement company may opt to defer to a life settlement provider instead, who will broker life settlement transactions instead. That said, for the American Life Fund viaticals can be settled smoothly and transitioned easily, allowing you the opportunity to enjoy your final days in whatever way you want, fully funded and with no worries.
