I am what you would call hearing impaired and wear hearing aids from losing my hearing overnight from SSHL. This page is dedicated to my struggles, my experiences , my wins, my adventures in quietness and my everyday life of adapting from the hearing universe to the quiet one. Some things will be funny, some will be sad but they will all be real!
January 2023
My left ear has gotten a new hearing aid, I love the new aid. Everything is clearer, it is water proof so I don’t have to panic when I enter the shower or be afraid to walk in the rain anymore. Or even take them off at the beach or pool and not be able to communicate with others while at the beach.
My last couple of vacations were not as easy ever since I lost my hearing. At the beach or the pool, I took the hearing aids off and was disconnected from the world around me. When we went on a boat ride I was so worried they would get wet that I didn’t wear them at all and made sure to put them in a waterproof bag.
I am glad technology finally caught up and people with hearing loss can function better now in more situations, but the cost of this catching up is a lot. These hearing aids are expensive and insurance companies cover a fraction if they cover anything at all.
Unfortunately those with moderate to severe hearing loss can not use the over the counter cheaper aids so that is not a solution. Costco has a nice selection of hearing aids but not from all the companies and not for all the devices available.
I believe that just like pre existing conditions were outlawed from being denied insurance coverage, there needs to be a movement to add hearing aid coverage to regular insurance.
November 2022
Being hearing impaired is not a choice, being a kind courteous person is!
I am a member of many hearing loss groups on facebook, when I lost my hearing they helped a lot with not feeling alone and finding someone who understood my struggle of dealing with losing my hearing overnight.
Most days I am good and I believe I have adapted mostly to my current situation, but we all have our bad days. Days when the ringing in the ear is so loud that it does not matter what setting your hearing aid is on , you can hear absolutely nothing. Days where you can not figure out what people are saying no matter what. These are very frustrating and depressing days and can throw you into a loop.
During the pandemic and even today in some places, there was masking all around & plastic barriers made it hard to hear for most humans but for those with hearing loss made it absolutely impossible, add to that the ability to read lips was gone as well and sometimes even the ability to read the facial expression was gone.
These days medical facilities still require a mask. I always make a point to tell the reception that I am hard of hearing and if they can make sure to let the people who will call me to either say my name louder or to approach me when it’s my appointment time. A lot of people are nice and say yes, sure. But when it comes to actuality, they all forget.
The weirdest place I had that issue was at the ENT/Audiologist office. You would think that in these surroundings they will be more accommodating or understanding. But no! Music was loud on the TV in the waiting room, no closed captions and receptionists with shields who talk to the computer instead of lifting their heads when they speak to you.
Who needs to adapt? The customer service industry or the hearing impaired person? For the hearing impaired there is not much adaptation, it’s not like you can wake up one morning and decide today I shall hear. Even with my very expensive aids, there are times that I have no clue what someone is saying and I am not going to hide under a rock just because I can’t hear anything.
Customer service industry needs to adapt and workplaces need more training on how to intercat and integrate people who have disabilities as they are part of society. Talking to people while facing them and not staring at your phone or computer should be taught early, this is a social skill that is important in any situation. If anyone asks you to repeat a sentence, repeat it and do not say “ oh, it doesn’t matter”.
Being hearing impaired is not a choice, being a kind courteous person is!
October 2022
I saw my audiologist today, we did a hearing test and I have lost more of my hearing. This is news that no one wants to hear, pun intended. I noticed my ears are not functioning as well as they did and that one side was getting even worse. This is new that no one ever wants to hear.
I got in my car and cried, arrived home and continued crying.
To those who have never had a hearing test, you are in a tiny sound proof room with a buzzer in your hand. You are supposed to press a button every time you hear something. But when you have hearing loss you sit in that room and try and try again and still can’t hear anything. And the longer it takes between the sounds you hear the more you understand that you are in trouble, and then when that time is even longer in that tiny sound proof room you go oh shit! I am in big trouble.This is where the tears started for me.
We don’t always appreciate what we have or understand how our senses are important to our everyday life especially when we are young and think we are invincible, but losing a sense affects us hard. It affects our daily lives, our interactions with other human beings, our jobs and even how we perceive ourselves when we realize we have a disability and we now have to learn how to deal with our new reality.
After two and a half years from losing my hearing overnight I am still dealing, some days are better, some days are worse. You go through all the stages of grief and hope acceptance does not mean admitting defeat.
Today I feel defeated, hopefully tomorrow will be better and I will wake up ready to fight!
September 24th, 2022
My life changed overnight a couple of years ago, i went to bed hearing and woke up the following day to quiet. This was relative quiet as my tinnitus was terrible for several days before and was still there that morning. But for some reason i didn’t realize that i couldn’t hear anything and i just thought that the house was empty, which technically would be ridiculous as it was during the stay at home for covid and everyone was working from home. Not only that, it would have been ridicules that the house was quiet as i couldn’t even hear my dog bark and trust me, she barks at anything and everything. It took a couple of days for everything to sink in and figure out that something needs to be done and this is not temporary. Dr’s appointments, MRI, other test just to be told that nothing could be done, i have SSHL (sudden sensorineural hearing loss) and i have to learn how to live with it. Living with it is not a blog post, most likely an encyclopedia edition from the old days. Very big heavy book with many pages.
The sound of silence 10/1/22
This morning i got in the car to go to the gym,i turned on the ignition and the radio started playing and the song that played was the Sound of Silence. Those who know me are aware that I lost my hearing overnight somewhere in the beginning of the pandemic, I went to bed hearing and woke up to silence, well almost silence, the tinuutis that was bothering me for several days was still there. In the beginning of my hearing loss journey this song would make me cry, cry for the silence, cry from understanding I will not be able to hear again , cry from the need to adapt to a new reality that I did not choose for myself.
Silence has a sound, even quietness has a sound. When I wake up every morning before I put my hearing aids in, the world is silent, kinda, since as the song goes silence does have a sound.
Somedays the silence is difficult, it reminds me of what i can’t anymore and what will never be my normal again, what i have lost and what i will miss in the future. Other times the silence is welcomed. The world is a very noisy place. All this noise causes listening fatigue as hearing with hearing aids is not easy on the brain, it requires extra work and some days my head hurts like no tomorrow. These days the hearing aids are removed the instant I enter the car and the silence in the car is just what I need.
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