She doesn't want her hearing aids.

My youngest Ellie has been deaf in her right ear almost from when she was born, the hospital couldn't get a clear result until she was almost 3 years old. I blogged about her hearing loss in further detail a few years ago. Years ago the only option for help with her hearing was a cochlear implant which might or might not have worked. It was a 50/50 chance and after having open heart surgery to fix a hole in her heart I didn't want to put her through more surgery on the off chance it might work.

Medical things change and when we moved to Scunthorpe we saw a couple of different doctors and one mentioned Cros hearing aids. No surgery was involved, she could use them as much or as little as we wanted so it was worth a try. Ellie got her hearing aids at the end of 2022 and to start with she got on great with them.

I don't know what happened but she started wearing them less and less. She would conveniently forget them when she was at school or leave the house with them in and come home with them in her blazer pocket. It wasn't anything which was going on at school, she just didn't want to wear them all of the time and over time she has worn them less and less.

All she has known for 16 years is being deaf in one ear so going from being half deaf to hearing everything, I imagine it was a lot to deal with!

When Ellie was at school I had the teachers to back me up and make sure that she had her hearing aids in but since she has started college it is different, I have to accept that she is almost an adult and makes her own choices. Her choice is that she doesn't want to wear her hearing aids, she has said the extra noise is just too much for her brain!

I think teenagers have a lot to deal with in the world and adding something like extra noise, chatter and sounds which come with the hearing aid is something that can be just too much. Sometimes I think I would like to be able to turn off all the extra noise. On Saturday sitting on the bus, the guy who didn't stop for breath behind me chatting all the way to town, the screaming child who wanted to run around the bus or the idiot person who had their phone playing TikToks for everyone to hear. If you can turn the excess noise off why wouldn't you?

I was dreading going to the hospital for her latest hearing check last week! I thought they were going to say I was a bad mother or that Ellie was just being stupid for not wearing something that she knows helps her. The woman that we saw was absolutely brilliant and very understanding. I over explained where we are now and how Ellie doesn't want her hearing aids and she said that's fine and many people her age don't but of course she can come back and get hearing aids if she feels that she wants them in the future. So the hearing aids have been returned to the hospital and the doctor was really grateful as most people don't return them if they are unused which I think is a sad shame as they can be used for other people.

Ellie has grown up being deaf in one ear and she is used to it. She can lip read pretty well, is confident at asking someone to repeat themselves and just gets on with life. I am proud that she has made the decision for herself. Yes, I would have liked her to wear her hearing aids but I am not her and this thing is her choice.