Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt

By: Dr. Dawn MacMillan, Audiologist


"Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt"

Mark Twain 


"I watch PBS and most of the people have British accents..."


"My wife mumbles when she talks to me..."


"The checkers at <insert grocery store here> don’t speak clearly."


"Our new pastor--his voice trails off..." 


What do the above statements have in common? They’re all excuses we’ve heard when people try to explain to us that they don’t have hearing loss, they hear what they want to hear, and their difficulty understanding has everything to do with everyone else and not them. Sound familiar? 


There’s no denying (see what we did there?) that accents, background noise, and distance can make conversations hard to hear. But adding hearing loss on top of factors we have little control over makes it that much more difficult to understand .


The 5 stages of grief and loss are: 

1. Denial and isolation; 

2. Anger;

3. Bargaining

4. Depression; 

5. Acceptance. 


People who are grieving do not necessarily go through the stages in the same order or experience all of them. 


For many people, admitting their have hearing loss does bring about significant grief. After discussing the test results, we’ve seen a full scope of emotions. Some are tired of struggling and armed for battle--ready to do whatever it takes to address the hearing loss and seek help. Others are arms-crossed-jaw-set angry, certain our results are wrong, our equipment faulty. Many are in denial. "I hear what I want to hear." "It’s not that bad." "I get by ok." 


It’s hard to "convince" someone they need help. We can present their results to them and make a plan of care recommendation but ultimately, we can’t force people to actually do something about their hearing loss. An orthopedic surgeon can’t force someone to get a hip replacement. Only when someone is in tremendous pain, their mobility limited to the point that it disrupts their quality of life, will someone decide to finally schedule the surgery and go to physical therapy to rehab the joint. 


Hearing loss is much the same. You can deny it all day long, but it’s only when you can no longer perform your job, you miss an important phone call, your grandkids stop speaking to you, you get embarrassed when you misunderstand-- only then will you decide to do something about your hearing loss. 


Bad news doesn’t get better with time. The wait and see approach doesn’t work with hearing loss. If you suspect you have hearing loss, schedule an appointment to be checked out. If a hearing loss is identified, don’t wait to do something. You may need to take a day or two to decide a few details, but waiting years to take action doesn’t make the problem go away. In fact, it may only exacerbate the problem. 


Call us today to schedule your evaluation, (912) 748-9494. You may also schedule an appointment from the home page of our website. If you have Flexible Spending Accounts or Health Savings accounts that have to be spent down before the end of the year, time is running out to use them or lose them in many cases. 


"Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt"

Mark Twain 

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