About Me

Welcome to BAHA in Real Life. The primary goal of this blog is to document my BAHA experience and be the "real person" that many people are looking for when they try to make the decision in regard to taking the leap - aka, selecting the BAHA (bone anchored hearing aid).

When I write, I will do my best to stay as non-opinionated as possible, but I will not lie, I LOVE my BAHA. It was a great choice for my particular situation. However, I understand there are many questions when it comes to choosing to have the BAHA - it's life changing. I want to make sure that I stay as unbiased as possible when I write about the things I deal with, though I will probably end up stating how minuscule some nuances are, etc. Please forgive me if I offend you, I will certainly try not to as it is not the intention of my blog. I simply want parents, adults, teens, guardians, care-givers, etc, to have the full experience as I'm experiencing it when it comes to my BAHA. Hopefully I can take the burden of the unknown off your shoulders as you try to navigate the BAHA scene.

A bit about me:

I was born with unilateral microtia and atresia on the right side. I am not a technical person when it comes to audiology, so I can't tell you how bad it is, but I can't hear anything on that side besides loud (VERY LOUD) noises and consider myself deaf on the right side. Not until I started researching 6 months ago would I have known that people who are in the hearing field consider me SSD, or single-sided deaf. So, apparently I'm SSD (right). I do not have an outer or middle ear, but my inner ear is intact.

My Mom recently admitted that 90% of the time she forgot I was deaf in one ear, which is, in my humble opinion, an advantage that I had growing up as I was treated as a "normal" and still think of myself as normal. In fact, when people would say they were going deaf I would think to myself (and still do!), "Oh wow, I couldn't imagine what that would be like." LOL!

I recently had the BAHA surgery and even more recently received my BAHA hearing aid. I chose the Ponto Pro by Oticon Medical but there is also the Cochlear BAHA. If there are others I am unfamiliar with them. There are other types of devices on the market but I felt that the BAHA was my "best bet". So, if you are looking for a comparison I will not have that here. It is only going to be documenting my life with the Ponto Pro BAHA system. 

I am a teacher, have my MA in Educational Technology, and recently found myself in a position I love at work. I am married with no children (yet) and am 27 years old.

I hope this blog helps you in some way - I look forward to getting to know you as I write about my experiences with my BAHA. Please feel free to comment and/or message me if you have more personal questions. I will do my best to help you! I wish someone would've been able to help me and answer all the questions I had!