Shortly after Sutton’s diagnosis we went to her audiologist to get earmolds made for her hearing aids. We got to pick out the colors, the style, and we could even pick whether it was sparkly or not. In these moments, you try to make the best of a hard situation. I imagine it’s probably like picking out a wheel chair, or prosthetic, or another type of device created to give access to a person with a disability. I didn’t really enjoy picking out Sutton’s hearing aid options because it made it all the more real to us she had hearing loss.
Once we picked her “stuff” out, then we had to wait for everything to come in. This part was excruciating. It’s like, you know there is a problem, you know the solution to help “fix” the problem, and then you have to wait to get the solution delivered to do anything. Here’s where the timing got really crazy. We went with Phonak devices for Sutton’s hearing aids (side note- we really liked them- no complaints for the 6-ish months of wearing them). We ordered her hearing aids in early February, just after her ABR diagnosis, expecting it to take a two-ish weeks for them to arrive.
At the time, we were hearing some about a virus in China that was shutting entire cities down, and in our case, factories that make parts for hearing aids. I knew a little bit about the c-word because I had been teaching English virtually to students in China. A few were proficient enough to share with me about their experience staying at home, and how the virus was affecting their life.
I didn’t really think the virus would be affecting my life, but I should have known when Sutton’s hearing aids were delayed, we were in for a whole lot more than we expected. We finally got her sparkly aids in March 2020, literally a week before America went into lock down.
Was there something early on in life “pre-covid” that tipped you off to what would be coming our way?
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