I encourage families to pay attention not only to whether a loved one can “hear,” but whether they are fully participating in life.

When the doctor confirmed I had a hearing loss, I felt like a failure. Years later, my older sister pointed out our mother felt the same way. “How did I miss that?” my mother had wailed.

Music is my passion, and honestly, losing the ability to listen to it would feel like losing my whole heart. Protecting my hearing is such a small habit for something that pays off for the rest of your life.

When Lucile was little a lot of parents would say to us, “Oh, she has such good manners. She looks you right in the eye.” They didn’t realize she was just very much focused on their faces and lips as they were talking!

Veterans, when compared to the general public, have had more occupational exposure to loud noises, such as gunfire and explosions.

Gene therapy for hearing loss has transitioned from a theoretical concept into a transformative clinical reality, albeit limited to specific cases of genetic hearing loss—for now. 

Over the years, I had a lot of conversations with patients sitting across from me—sometimes at a desk, sometimes just chatting while they waited. And no matter who they were, many of them were feeling the same things: frustrated, unsure, and sometimes a little overwhelmed.

For this mom, late in life diagnoses turned years of confusion into a clearer sense of self and deeper connections.

This path in parenting the hard of hearing—let’s face it—can be exhausting. If you walked alone, and because this disability is so often invisible, your village might not be on your front porch. You have to go hunting for it.

Our daughters, whose ears do not hear, opened my eyes more widely than ever before.

“We offer two versions for your brand of hearing aids. One is simply a microphone. The other includes a built‑in telecoil so people whose hearing aids don’t have telecoils can still connect to a hearing loop. Either one sends sound to the user’s hearing aids via Bluetooth.” 

Gaming can be one of those rare things where a parent and child actually connect on equal ground. But that bonding only works if both people can be part of the conversation. Hearing loss can make that moment impossible because one of them can’t hear the other.