Listen up!
Tracy White, 43, from Greenwich, had no idea what she was missing out on until she went for a hearing test...
Bending down to the pool side, I crept ever closer to the water. ‘Say that again?’ I asked one of the children, who was splashing about in the pool.
But no matter how hard I tried, I struggled to hear what he was saying.
And this certainly wasn’t a rarity for me.
Working as a swimming teacher, I would often find myself crouching down to the pool edge just to hear what the kids were saying.
And it had been going on for some time now.
For the last couple of years, I seemed to be struggling with my hearing more and more.
After an incident where a child screamed in my ear back in 2019 and burst my eardrum, I started to notice myself having trouble tuning in to certain sounds and conversations.
But doctors seemed to have trouble finding out exactly what was wrong. Instead, I’d have to sit and struggle to hear the conversations my husband Mark, 43, was having with our three children aged 16, 19 and 23.
‘Did you hear that?’ Mark would ask, as the children shared stories from their day.
‘I must have tuned out,’ I’d reply, brushing it off.
Deep down, I knew I needed to get my hearing properly checked out.
But it wasn’t until a fire alarm went off in the middle of the night that I realised just how bad my hearing had become.
‘Tracy,’ Mark shouted, ‘can you not hear that?’
Coming to, I could faintly hear a sound in the distance.
‘Isn’t that coming from outside?’ I asked, confused.
But the screeching noise was actually coming from inside our house.
For everyone else, it was enough to wake the whole street up, but to me, I could only just about make it out.
Realising that my hearing wasn’t getting any better, I booked myself in for a test at my local Hidden Hearing branch.
Only then did I finally get a proper diagnosis.
‘I’m afraid you’re deaf in your left ear,’ the audiologist explained to me.
It had turned out that I’d actually had trouble with my hearing all my life.
The burst ear drum was only making matters worse.
‘Hearing aids should be able to help though,’ the audiologist went on.
With that, I was eventually fitted with an Oticon rechargeable hearing aid at my local Bexleyheath Hidden Hearing branch.
Straight away, the difference was remarkable.
I’d gone from struggling to make out what people were saying, to being able to hear the sounds of the river where I live.
All my life, I hadn’t even realised that you could hear waves crashing or that leaves made a rustling sound when you stood on them.
But as soon as the aid was fitted, the world seemed to open up to me.
I had been missing out on so much, but with the help of my hearing aid I was finally getting to enjoy these small moments.
And while there are still some things I miss, I’m now able to join in on precious conversations with my family.
The difference really has been incredible and I’m just so glad I went for a test before my hearing got any worse.
It’s so easy to ignore signs of hearing loss, but I would encourage anyone to go for a simple hearing test.
It’s so easy and can really have a huge impact on your life.
With my hearing better than ever, I feel like I can finally enjoy all of life’s magical little moments!
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I missed the fire alarm