Recovering

Recovering

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Lessons from partially losing my hearing
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Hip Sobriety

Lessons from partially losing my hearing

Holly Whitaker's avatar
Holly Whitaker
Feb 13, 2019
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Recovering
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Lessons from partially losing my hearing
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So here's what happened.

A week ago last Thursday night, I ended a Q&A call (for Hip Sobriety School) and immediately noticed a ringing in my right ear. I ignored it, watched Black-ish, and during the show credits twenty minutes later, realized that I couldn't hear very well out of it. I am not a WebMD kind of woman, but it was an odd thing to happen; the internet confirmed it was indeed an odd thing, but also common. Apparently, people all over the world lose half their hearing in the blink of an eye on the regular.

By Friday morning it was worse (but not terrible!), and an audio test and check up revealed something called SSHL, which is basically spontaneous hearing loss. I could still loosely make out words in my right ear, my left was not compromised at all, and I thought I was adjusted to this new life by Saturday. It was annoying and tragic but also, it could have been worse. I was impressed by my equanimity and quick adjustment and patted myself on the back for being level and re…

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