Dread

I've been dreading today for the past few weeks. Today I got my hearing tested. And I've cried ever since I left the audiologist's office.

It's bad. Shocking. It's so bad that I was told the one thing I didn't want to hear. "Your hearing loss is so profound, you could be a candidate for a cochlear ear implant." Noooooooo! Not yet, really???

But there is one more hearing aid out there that is powerful enough for my loss. Just one. And thus the process begins. Jared, the audiologist, says the Phonak hearing aid will blow me away. He said "it will be the difference between night and day for you." Oh, how I hope he's right!

Driving home, I contemplated what it meant that my hearing is bad enough to qualify for a cochlear implant. Most people don't understand just how bad your hearing loss has to be for such a procedure. Hearing loss is on a spectrum from mild to profound. A mild loss is a 26-40 decibel loss. A profound loss is 91 decibels+ loss. Speech occurs in the 10 to 50 decibel range. My hearing loss is now severe to profound, meaning unaided I can not hear any speech, no one's.

While thinking about all this on the way home I realized something. Aided, I can hear my children. If my hearing is truly that bad, then every single time I hear my children, it's a miracle. My days are full of miracles. Words can't express how grateful I am.