Only hearing one side is difficult enough day to day but add in some 3 year olds in tap shoes, loud music, fatigue, a 40+ hour week and a confined space and you end up with sensory overload! I had read that having SSD can result in tiredness but shrugged it off with the excuse of having such a busy job. Over the last 6 months I've felt things slowly creeping up on top of me and was finding it harder and harder to get out of bed. I was exhausted every day and sleeping every spare minute, including lunch breaks and all through my only day off a week and so decided to seek some advice from the doctor. When he wanted to sign me off there and then I cried.....I felt weak... isolated and that this thing had finally beaten me. I'm not the sort of person who gives in easily, everyone gets tired right? But this was different, the stress, the anxiety of familiar day to day chores was too much. There comes a point when warning signs start to show and a lifestyle change is needed.
I started to research the links between SSD and fatigue and my findings were shocking, how did I not know that this was an actual thing? And more importantly I definitely wasn't alone. Maybe if I hadn't have been so stubborn...
Hearing-loss exhaustion occurs because of the extra mental work that hard-of-hearing people must exercise to get through their day. From keeping up with conversations at work to processing the sounds on the street, the body expends much of its energy to struggle to hear. If you are hard of hearing, chances are you have likely experienced exhaustion because of the physical and emotional side effects of the sound deficit.
I have 17 days left before starting my new job at a letting agents. A quiet office and regular hours along with evenings and weekends off to spend more time with loved ones. I've been extremely lucky to work my dream job for 10+ years and I'm truly grateful to each and every student/teacher/parent/friend who has made that happen. Will I still tap dance my way around the supermarket? probably... Will I still want to choreograph to every song I hear on the radio? of course!
Until next time...
