Lipreading Mom

The birth of Show Me Your Ears took place in my minivan.

While sitting in the car outside my hearing aid provider’s office last year, I reeled with painful emotions. A hearing test revealed my deepest fear: I had lost more hearing. Worse yet, the hearing aids I wore were no longer powerful enough to accommodate the progression of loss. I loved those hearing aids because they were comfortable and, let’s face it, small enough to be unnoticeable. I could hide them from the world. Before acquiring them, I wore a chunky, uncomfortable pair. They were also quite powerful, but I didn’t like them because they were visible to everyone.

After the hearing test, I remembered I had the older, chunkier hearing aids tucked inside my purse. My hearing aid provider was able to reprogram these aids to work with my progressive loss. In the car rearview mirror, I glanced at the hearing aids. They were hard and cold against my ears and painfully obvious. I stifled tears.

At that moment, I had a choice: wallow in self-pity or accept my new set of ‘ears.’
I chose the latter. With a cell phone camera in hand, I took a selfie of my ears. I wanted to remember the day that I finally accepted my hearing aids.

I went home and texted every friend I could think of to send me photos of their ears. One by one, the pictures came. With each new ear photo, I felt a sense that not only had I accepted my hearing loss, but my friends had, too.

And that was how Show Me Your Ears began—right there in my minivan with a cell phone camera in hand, chunky hearing aids behind my ears … and a resolve to embrace my ears.

Will you join me?
Share your ear photo today. Find out how here.