I was diagnosed with mild-moderate Sensorineural Hearing Loss when I was five. I didn’t wear hearing aids at first. I didn't think I needed them. Neither did my parents.

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As I got older, it was clear I was missing important pieces of information, especially in school, so my mother recommended that I get hearing aids  to wear in the classroom. I'd already been using an FM device, so it was a natural transition, one that kept the physical evidence of my disability within the confines of school walls. 

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Over time I realized I didn’t want to miss anything outside of class either, whether that was my friends, my coaches, or whatever else was going on around me, so I started wearing hearing aids all the time.

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Wearing hearing aids hasn’t always been easy, and being open about my hearing loss and advocating for myself has taken work too. I’ve also seen how hard hearing loss can be for other kids, and how many of them choose to hide it.

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I started Sixty Decibels to give teens with hearing loss and the people around them a place to learn from experts, hear from others who have had similar experiences, and share their own stories.

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The more openly we talk about hearing loss, the more normal it becomes.