Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Struggles of hearing aids

     





Being hearing impaired isn’t easy. Wearing hearing aids is even harder. Listening through it and trying to manage back ground sounds along with unclear spoken language due to various reasons is extremely challenging. People have different ways of speaking, accents, tones and of course distance from the listener are a few of the challenges. Many times people turn around and speak under the breath which can extremely be frustrating. Today I asked my daughter to list down all the challenges she faces at school in grade 11. She is on trial with new hearing aids which require further programming. The list she gave me just broke my heart. She works really hard and it feels extremely frustrating to see how difficult it is for her. We try and we will keep on trying to help her. At times we are tired and exhausted from this daily fight. Every day is a challenge where we are trying to accept every difficulty. Nobody will be able to even imagine except the deaf of course, how tough it is to have a hearing loss in a world which is extremely noisy and extremely loud. She is tired after an hour of exhaustive class and then it’s a whole day of school and then it’s the homework. By 9:30 PM we are asking her to go to sleep so that she has enough rest and her brain has calm down and is ready for the next day. I hope seeing this list, people will be more empathetic and understand the challenges faced by the deaf community. It’s just not the person but the entire family that suffers together. We are all waiting for the big day when she’s able to graduate from her education and stand on her feet. The climb now is much higher and we need to support her even more. The struggle is real, support is precious, understanding is required and compassion and empathy are the most essentials! It’s a tough fight and we always motivate ourselves by thinking of how difficult it was when she was just a baby we just get her to get a few words. Today she stands and gives presentations of even 30 minutes all by herself. I’m sure we will do this well and she will be a winner in times to come. We never gave up, we never give ourselves a choice, and we will never give up in future as well. For the moment we shared try to work around these challenges and make it as easy as possible for her. After all it’s the resilience and persistence that will make it happen. In the process I’m sure we will find hands that will support us and comfort us when we need it.