This post contains affiliate links, please see my disclaimer for more information. Lauren is an independent team beachbody coach who co-runs The Girl Squad on the BOD app.

Avoiding your hearing test is not a healthy choice, especially if you’re a 34 year old with a family history of hereditary hearing loss. A story of my first hearing test at 34 years old and why I cried with my results but am glad I finally went to the Audiologist.

skip to the good stuff.

My Family History of Hereditary Hearing Loss
My first appointment with an Audiologist as a 34 year old female
The results of my hearing test
Why I’m glad I went
What’s next
My Audiologist in Milwaukee, WI
5 steps you can utilize to making healthcare appointments that you feel like you’re avoiding out of fear.

*Hi I’m Lauren, a 34 year old with a family history of hearing loss and a strong aversion to making medical appointments.*

There was a time when I avoided making an appointment for a hearing test like the actual plague.

I would laugh and say it wasn’t something that I needed, that my family history of hearing loss didn’t mean anything for me.

But really, I avoided any conversations about my hearing because I was scared to death about what the results would say and then maybe more accurately about what they would mean for me and my way of life.

It took several events for me to even realize how much I was avoiding the appointment.

The biggest was a fight with my husband as we were sitting around a campfire with my bff and her husband on a gorgeous Washington State night next to our rented cabin.

I legitimately freaked out when my husband mentioned that a baseline test for hearing would be a good thing for me to get. I don’t think either of us realized how triggering that statement would be for me.

That there was a huge emotional difference for me when I talked about general hearing loss and when I talked about a potential for me to have hearing loss.

After that fight, about how I didn’t need to go to get my hearing tested, he helped me see that a baseline hearing test would be good for us to have just in case.

I promised him that “after our next move,” I would make an appointment within a year. We are a military family and I convinced him that starting care in Washington State when we only had a year left wasn’t an ideal situation.

So here I sat in September 2021, a full year of ignoring that promise, just wishing that it would go away, when my Mom planned a surprise birthday party for my Dad and invited his brother and sister, my aunt and uncle.

We were all sitting at my parents kitchen table when of course, the conversation switched to hearing loss.

My family has hereditary hearing loss and my entire dad’s side of the family (Aunt, Uncle, Dad, Grandpa) have had hearing aids since their 20’s.

My dad didn’t get hearing aids until his 40’s, but that likely is because he avoided going to the Audiologist, just like me.

A conversation with my aunt who’s had hearing aids since her 20’s made me realize that a hearing test was really emotionally distressing and triggering for me and that was why I had been avoiding calling to get a referral or even mentioning it as a concern to my doctor.

She told me her story of realizing her hearing loss was impacting her safety when her boss brought her into his office and mentioned co-workers were concerned about her.

She explained that when she got hearing aids, she shocked her co-workers with responding to questions that she never had heard before because they were said from one side of the room to the other.

She gently encouraged me to figure out a way to make making the appointment easier.

It was then that I realized I couldn’t rely on my husband, because I was too terrified about what potential hearing loss would mean for us. I’ve lived what it means for my parents and my expanded family.

Let me be clear, when I was avoiding making any appointments, convincing myself that everything was fine, I really didn’t think my hearing was pathological or to the point where I needed significant help to hear.

But I knew it was not perfect and I knew it probably would suck to find out how imperfect it really was.

*one of the only pictures I took of my Dad’s surprise 60th Birthday Weekend. My Aunt Barb in pink and Uncle Steve in Grey.*

My family has a significant history of hearing loss and it affects a lot.

My aunt and uncle both have hearing aids and while they work and function — it does take a lot of effort at times on everyone’s part to make sure that closeness of human interaction that we all take for granted with verbal communication isn’t lost.

One way this is palpable for my family is when someone tells a joke. The laughter of a joke is often missing from my family’s faces because with background noise and hearing loss they aren’t able to catch the punchline or the set up in time.

In those moments it’s heartbreaking for all of us because it would be impossible to feel not left out — you literally are a part of everything in the physical sense but you’re on the outside looking in on spontaneous moments.

It’s often those spontaneous moments that build upon each other and help us as humans feel connected.

Without them, it isn’t a neutral feeling. It is often a negative feeling that is left in its place. Do you remember what it was like when you felt like an outsider in a group when someone told an inside joke and you didn’t get the punchline?

When hearing loss is your journey, it takes really compassionate hearing normal friends and family to fill the gaps so the person with hearing loss doesn’t have that same feeling.

It also takes grit on the part of the hearing impaired person’s experience because often it happens so fast that their hearing normal people in their lives just aren’t able to fill those gaps or don’t realize there is a need because they heard everything and might not notice the flat affect of their friend or family member.

There’s a specific picture that I have from the week after my Physical Therapy graduation that explains this perfectly.

It’s a heartbreaking and hilarious photo all in one. My mom, Dad, best friend Kacie, and myself were all at the Santa Monica Pier in one of those expensive themed photo booths.

The first photo was a nice, cute one. Then a person came on the intercom and said, “Look like a shark is going to eat you all!” My Mom, Myself, and Kacie all look terrified and my cute, sweet, hearing impaired father is still smiling, unsuspecting that an after-effect shark graphic is going to appear on our picture.

It’s just a small example of the itsy bitsy pieces of connection that can be missing with someone with hearing impairments.

As a family we laugh about them because what else are we supposed to do? Cry? Yeah, we sometimes do that too.

I remember growing up and feeling like I wish there was more ways I could interact with my grandpa.

We couldn’t talk on the phone because his hearing loss was so severe that it couldn’t be more than a minute or to of hi, how are you, love you grandpa.

They lived in PA and we lived in IL so besides yearly family trips there wasn’t a way in the 1990s to have a connected relationship besides writing letters, which for whatever reason we didn’t get into as a family.

We just lived with the genetic hand we were dealt with and made the best of it.

But there was always a wonder in my heart of what would have been if Grandpa could hear what we were all saying, would the experience as a family be different — would he be more outgoing? What would have changed?

It’s not something that behooves us to think about daily but those questions sink deep into your bones and become who you are and what you fear.

In 2016, when I was living in NC and my family was back in IL my Dad got really sick. So sick that stomach pains turned into an abscess leaking into his gut, a hospital stay, and IV antibiotics and emergency surgery.

It was terrifying. He fought hard and had great doctors which were thankful for. He physically recovered but somethings started changing. I started realizing that our phone calls weren’t as in depth as they used to be.

I started hearing “uh huh” or laughter or silence or “what’s that?” Tell tale signs that he wasn’t hearing what I was saying even though he was trying and focusing and paying attention.

He started saying, “oh you’re in the car? Call me when you get home”

And then he went to his yearly hearing test and it was really bad. He had lost 90% of his hearing in his right ear. This was a huge decline from his previous year.

It was likely a side effect from IV antibiotics, a necessary evil that we would’ve picked again because alive is still the top priority for us and if hearing loss was a necessary draw back we’ll take it, tears of what that means and all.

When the Audiologist told my dad he was now a candidate for a cochlear implant, all I thought was how much worse his hearing could get. It was so hard to see how this device could make anything better.

I saw my relationship with my dad becoming harder because my husband and I are a military family and the phone is all we have a lot of the time.

If I lost that, I knew I’d lose so many opportunities to share life with my dad. Communication isn’t everything but it does effect so much. It is the glue that holds humanity together and it’s scary to think about losing it in the traditional sense.

I was terrified of the cochlear implants my dad was going to get but it turned out to improve his hearing more so than the hearing aids did. He ended up with two as his left ear qualified as well.

*my Dad and I at my wedding in Juneau, Ak in 2019*

There are downsides of course. He has to think ahead of extra batteries. We can’t talk to him if he is listening to a video or the tv because they connect directly to his Bluetooth cochlear implants so it’s like trying to get the attention of someone wearing noise cancelling headphones.

I can talk with him in the car again, although depending on the wind or extra noise it can still get tough.

My family still misses out on things — we can’t talk that much in noisy restaurants or bars. We pick quieter options. If you want to talk to Dad you pick sitting next to him so the proximity can decrease the background noise.

All of these things are integral to our family they cannot help but get rooted in our bones.

They are our shared life experience as Frauenheim’s. They’re our shared fears and tenacity to avoid losing out on the closeness others share just a little easier.

And so after talking with my aunt and uncle in September at my dads 60th birthday party, I made it my mission to get my butt to the audiologist.

I realized that I couldn’t have my husband be the one to help me because I was too scared about what hearing loss would do to our relationship.

So I ask my friend Katlin, the gentlest soul I know, to help me. To ask if I’ve done it in November to help me make jokes about going and find a treat so I can concentrate on the reward instead.

It works, I call my primary care physician and get an appointment to get a referral to the Audiologist. I luck out and am able to have the care coordinator help me schedule the appointment so I don’t chicken out.

And so I find myself in an Audiologists’ waiting room on a Wednesday morning at 8:30 am. It’s an October day, one year and two months after we moved to Milwaukee, WI.

When making the appointment I asked the nurse to schedule me with the nicest Audiologist they had on staff and it turns out she did.

When the Audiologist comes to call my name, I walk with her. I already have tears in my eyes because I’m sure I don’t want to know the results or go through the testing. I’m scared of what it’ll all mean. I’m just plain scared.

She asks me how I am, and I look at her and just shake my head. I try to speak but I know if I do I will start crying right there in front of all the elderly people in the waiting room.

She gets it and leads me to the room. She hands me some tissues and I’m grateful.

We talk about my family history and why I’m here. I tell her I don’t think my hearing is pathological (meaning I don’t think I’ll need hearing aids but I’m also equally scared it’ll turn out I’m wrong and I will).

She asks a bunch of questions and then talks me through how the hearing test will go.

I’ll hear some words at different levels and repeat them. I’ll hear beeps at different levels and pitches and I’ll raise my hand when I hear them. She tells me it’s okay if I don’t hear everything, that is the intention. They have to know the lowest level I can hear so they’ll keep going until I don’t hear anything anymore.

This relieves me. This test is made to make me fail. She reminds me that whatever the tests outcome it doesn’t mean I’m broken.

Typing that statement out still brings on a new wave of tears. I’m not broken, whether I can hear or not. Whether I have hearing loss or not. I’m not broken now and I never will be.

But dang it if that evil feeling doesn’t pop up again and again in situations where I’m faced with something I can’t control.

We start the test and I breathe through it. I try to focus and not think of what it all means. There are a lot of things I think I can hear but can’t know for sure so I wiggle my hand but don’t raise it. I know she’ll know. I know it’s okay to be honest. It’s okay to struggle.

The test lasts 25 minutes total. She prints out the results. She asks how it went.

I’m honest when I say I think maybe my left ear is a little better. When I say; my brain is tired like it’s tired after I go out to a social event — something I don’t think it used to do, she understands and is quiet for just a moment.

She goes over my results with me. They’re not great. They’re not bad, but in a way they’re bad enough.

I say I really was hoping the results would’ve been a little better. I keep thinking I’m only 34. She says she was rooting for them to be a little bit better too. There are tears, like a lot of tears. And kleenexes.

She tells me that I have mild to slightly moderate hearing loss that is focused in the cochlea, which means it’s permanent and likely genetic.

That feels true and I’m not shocked or surprised. I knew if there was any hearing loss, that it was going to be permanent based on my family history.

I can’t hear high pitch tones, which makes sense since one time I sat with a thermometer in my mouth for a while before I looked at my husband and said, “it beeped already right?” And he said, “yeah a while ago.” ….shit.

It explains why I sit with the remote when we watch movies, putting the volume up to 40-50 when people talk and down to 30 when music or non talking moments occur.

It explains why we don’t even attempt to talk from different rooms.

It explains why parties make me more tired than they used to. It’s not because I’m not extroverted. It’s because my hearing takes more energy than it used to.

I ask what this means and what she recommends. She says that she recommends hearing aids. More tears.

I nod. She says I can choose not to get them, that I am functioning okay right now. She looks at me and says, “but I think you’d be surprised at what you’re missing if you got them.”

I know I’ll get them. I don’t want to get them. I am scared to get them.

But I know I don’t want to live as a person who doesn’t do what she knows she needs to do. To do the hard thing, to see what life is like on the other side.

I didn’t want this to be my story but it is none the less. I text my husband as I’m crying in the car — I tell him the results aren’t great, not bad but bad enough. He tells “I’m still proud of you for doing it.”

I start crying harder.

This girl, who is 34 years old, sitting in her car with the truth — crying tears of grief and fear, I want to BE her.

I don’t want to be the 34 year old who avoided going to get her hearing test. I want to be this girl, tears and all, sitting with the truth.

so what’s next?

The Audiologist told me that the next appointment would be a “hearing aid consultation,” and that they’d check my insurance on whether I met the criteria. From my understanding of Tricare’s criteria, I do meet it (in two areas technically).

Tricare’s criteria for hearing aids (when any one of the following is met):

Hearing threshold of at least 40 dB HL in one or both ears when tested at 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000Hz
Hearing threshold of at least 26 dB HL in one or both ears at any three or more of those frequencies
Speech recognition score less than 94%.
Children with: hearing threshold level of at least 26dB HL in one or both ears when tested at 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000Hz.

I have a Speech recognition score of 88% in my right ear and 100% in my left ear as well as Hearing Level of 26 dB HL in 2K, 3K, and 4K in both ears (L ear might be 25, not 100% sure reading my chart), as well as a 40 dB HL at 4K in my right ear.

So at the least, I would qualify for a hearing aid in my right ear, although I would likely get both even if it required out of pocket since my left ear follows a similar pattern as my right, just slightly better.

I will be officially having my hearing consultation in November 2021 and we will see what that brings. I’m expecting inner ear hearing aids (if possible) but honestly this is so new we shall see what they say.

If you’re under 40 and have hearing aids and suggestions, please email me and let me know! I’d love to know your opinions and recommendations.

milwaukee, wi audiologist recommendation

If you’re in Milwaukee, WI and you need a really sweet, gentle, “ok if you cry during your appointment,” Audiologist I have the perfect one for you.

Her name is Dr. Michelle Wadewitz, AUD, CCC-A and she currently works with Aurora Health Care. I went to the clinic at Aurora Neurotology and Audiology at 4448 W Loomis Rd Suite 200 in Greenfield, WI 53320. Their number to call for an appointment is 414-817-3444.

more on the blog

are you looking for a few easy to follow steps to make emotionally hard medical appointments a bit easier? Click here and read: 8 Steps To Making Emotionally Hard Medical Appointments Easier