My Child Has Hearing Loss, Now What?

Blaise Delfino: You're tuned in to the Hearing Matters Podcast, the show that discusses hearing technology, best practices, and a growing national epidemic, hearing loss. Before we kick this episode off, a special thank you to our partners, Weave, the all-in-one patient communication and engagement platform. Redux, faster, drier, smarter, verified. Fader Plugs, the world's first custom adjustable earplug. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another Hearing Matters Podcast episode. Today we have Dr. Michelle Hu. She is a pediatric audiologist. She is a Cochlear implant user, and she is a trained chef. We're going to talk all about this during this episode. Michelle, it is such an honor to have you on the Hearing Matters Podcast. Welcome to the show. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much, Blaise. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to share my story, get to know you, get to know your audience, and contribute anything that I can to help them. 

Blaise Delfino: Michelle, we absolutely love what you are doing. We love your social media presence. The Instagram reels that you release are very fun. They're funny, but most importantly, they're educational. Michelle, you were diagnosed with hearing loss as a toddler and then fit with a bilateral set of hearing instruments. Now you weren't exposed to loud noise. What was the onset of your hearing loss? 

Dr. Michelle Hu: I mean, it could have been when I was born, but back in 1983, they didn't do newborn hearing screenings in the hospitals yet. I was born in a hospital and went home. Everything seemed to be fine. It was my preschool teacher, so when I was three or four years old that told my mom and said, "Maybe your daughter should get a hearing evaluation. She's sneaking off on her own during story time, she's either singing a song to herself or she gets a book by herself. Let's take a look at her hearing." And my mom was just floored. She was like, "Michelle responds to me in both English and Chinese at home. How is this possible? Do they mean my son who doesn't really talk that much because Michelle is like a chatterbox?" I don't know if I had hearing loss when I was born, but when I was three to four, I was identified with mild hearing loss in both ears. Now mild I can fly under the radar and at four years old, how often am I really that far away from my parents? I'm still within a pretty good range of being able to hear their voices, especially if they're raising their voices or yelling at me from across the room. 

Blaise Delfino: Michelle, you say a mild hearing loss. Of course, growing up with a mild hearing loss can have effects on speech and language development. Tell us about your experience growing up with hearing loss. What were some of your struggles and challenges? 

Dr. Michelle Hu: My dad tells a story that I did it for them. They introduced hearing aids to me, and I was so excited to be able to hear the birds chirping outside or my dad taking a shower or the garage door opening when he was coming home from work. I don't remember that much of them being upset. There was one incidence where my mom was crying and I went up to her and I asked her what was wrong and she said, "I wish I could take your hearing loss for you. I don't want you to have to suffer." And I don't know how much wisdom a three- to four-year-old has, but I told her, "Mama, maybe this is the way I'm supposed to be." And with that, they kind of stopped taking me to second to third, fourth, fifth opinions. We went to New York, Chicago, we went to ... I did acupuncture, I did herbal medicine, all of these kinds of treatments to see if they could fix me. Like a three-legged dog doesn't know that his life is horrible. He's still going to run after that ball at a park. And that's how I kind of was. I was like, "Do you hear that? Oh my gosh, do you see that? Oh my gosh, you're giving me a new box of crayons." All of these simple things that a three- or four-year-old loves to have. I didn't have that mindset yet developed of, "Oh, woe is me. I'm a victim." I definitely touched on it with my hearing loss of being progressive. Every time I hit my head; my hearing would worsen. We would need to go in to get reprogramming or bigger hearing aids, but I think it was my attitude of, well, this is how life is supposed to be. I didn't know anything otherwise, so this is why I tell parents all the time in the clinic, I think it's harder to acquire a hearing loss when you're older than it is to grow up with one. 

Blaise Delfino: Do you believe, Michelle, that that is why some patients have such a difficult time acclimating to their hearing technology? 

Dr. Michelle Hu: Absolutely. They're looking back in the past and wanting to find something exactly how it was before as a quick fix or a cure. And what it is is okay, you've developed some hearing loss or some of your hearing cells have deteriorated in their strength or their performance, and here's a solution that will help alleviate it. But it's not perfect. These are mechanical devices. It's a supplement or a tool, and they're often yearning to be able to have that quick listening skills, that ability to listen in noise or hear in noise. I grew up with having to struggle in noisy situations, having to figure out what it is that I wanted to focus on and listen to versus someone who's acquiring it later, they remember how quick, how strong they were, how good they were at communicating in all kinds of situations, and it seems like suddenly I can't hear. It's a problem to fix. It's something that's wrong. 

Blaise Delfino: It is very important to go beyond the audiogram and not just clinically, but aural rehabilitation is really important and counseling. How important is empathy when you are working with not only the kiddos that you work with but their parents? We were just talking about this with Dr. Angela Alexander on our most recent episode. Mental illness could potentially and could be a result of hearing loss, and we know that there is a comorbidity linked to anxiety and depression, so I welcome your thoughts on that, especially working with not only pediatrics but their parents as well. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: Absolutely. I one thousand percent agree, and when you have a disability or you're going through an experience that is difficult, your entire village is affected. For an extreme example, somebody who potentially may be a drug or alcohol addict, that whole village is affected by that person who is going through this experience or has the disability. Of course, your family's going to be affected. There's so many layers. This onion is huge, and to get to the roots of it is where you can shift the mindset of that person, of that family, of that supportive village, of the schools, the community, everybody that's involved, and counseling or rehabilitation does not get enough credit.  And when I mentor students, yes, they need to get the textbook information down, but we really, really need to be able to teach students and future clinicians or future professionals, how do we get into that patient's shoes? They're coming to you with a problem, with an experience that they're having difficulty with. You can put a Band-Aid on it, you can throw a device at them, you can give them a label and that could help, but there's so much more beyond that because of everything that they lived through before, and it could have been their childhood or how they lost their hearing or what somebody said to them maybe when they were eight years old about hearing aids. 

Blaise Delfino: You're absolutely correct in saying that it affects the whole village. Parents that have children who were diagnosed with hearing loss start to maybe blame themselves of what maybe what's wrong with me? Being a pediatric audiologist, you are able to implement empathy because you really do know what these patients and parents are going through. How do you approach working with a parent and their child was just told that they have hearing loss? 

Dr. Michelle Hu: When I am the messenger, you might be surprised, some parents are actually relieved. They say, "Oh, I knew I was right. I knew my gut instinct was telling me something." When I'm talking with parents, and it might be bad news, sometimes they feel relief. "I knew something was going on, I knew I wanted it checked. So and so told me my child was just being lazy. Thank you for giving me this identification so that I can still trust my gut. I don't like that feeling of doubting my gut or my gut instinct." And I've had over a decade of parents asking me these questions, coming to me with maybe a list of questions, but then I'm able to see you know what it is? Deep down inside they're wondering, is this their fault? Did they do something wrong during pregnancy or when the child was an infant? I interviewed my mom in my online program and we both cried. As an adult now I got to ask her these questions and I've heard her story over and over, but I came at it at almost a third person, kind of like intermediate, and I asked her these questions and she said, "I felt like I was being punished. I had a great son, because I went back to work because they kind of coincided at the same time." A human mind makes up so many stories and I'm totally guilty of that too, but that's why counseling needs to be taken very seriously. It needs to be loose; it needs to be flexible. It really does need to revolve around whatever that individual is going through at that time, especially parents, because most parents of deaf or hard of hearing children happen to be hearing. 

Blaise Delfino: Learning about your story, you were not fit with Cochlear implants right away because your parents wanted to wait until the technology improved, which I think is really interesting. Talk to us about the process of getting a Cochlear implant and what the technology has done for your life. It has to be incredible. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: It's great. My hearing was mild when I was very first identified, probably around age 10. Audiologically speaking, I was a Cochlear implant blank candidate. I didn't know this. They didn't tell me until I was in grad school. When I started learning about it in school, I brought the topic up at home and my dad looked at me and he goes, "Yeah, we've known about this. Do you want to go get an evaluation again? Do you want to see if you're still a candidate?" Because he didn't know if it could change or not. During school, I went through the evaluation process again, found to be a pretty textbook candidate and got my first CI during school and my classmate activated my device at the time. I got my second one three years later, but I was thinking it was a last resort and now I don't see it as a last resort. I grew up thinking hearing loss was something that needed to be fixed. It meant that that person or individual was broken or not good enough. And what a CI gave to me was confidence. Confidence to live in a hearing world. And at that time, that's what I wanted to choose. Now as an adult, I'm learning ASL with my family. I love being able to take my device off. I love having the option of putting it on to be able to hear certain sounds or certain voices, but it gave me confidence since with my hearing loss, I would feel a firetruck before hearing it if it was going off next to me. In terms of safety, would I be able to hear somebody walking from behind me in a dark parking garage after work? Can I talk on the phone? I was only able to hear my mom's voice on the phone with one specific phone that I would use and only with my mom or one friend's voice, and I pretty much would expect what the conversation was. "Will you pick me up at where, and you know what time?" Sometimes she would say six o'clock, and I say, "What?" And she goes, one, two, three, four, five, six o'clock. And those were all extra cues that I needed without a CI. Now I'm able to talk to manufacturers and I'm able to talk to you. I'm able to talk to strangers on the telephone and becoming a mom, it's definitely making me come out of my comfort zone even more because I have to advocate for them. I need to make mom friends for them because if they want to have a play date, I would need to be comfortable with that parent. Giving me confidence, it's opened up my world, however, it's also given me a connection to other people who have CIs or don't have CIs and maybe choose to use visual languages only. 

Blaise Delfino: You did not let your hearing loss define you. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: For a long time. I did. I absolutely did. 

Blaise Delfino: Let's dive a little bit deeper. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: My parents didn't treat me any differently than they did my older hearing brother, get good grades, be respectful of your elders and be a good human. That being said, I grew up thinking, "Wait, I am different from him, but wait, am I not different from him?" My brain kind of created a story. I'm broken, I have to wear these and I can't hear like he can or I can't do some things like he can or they can. Most of the time I just ignored it. Hearing loss is invisible, so I don't see the words floating in mid-air like a ghost writer, and if I miss it, I can't reread it or I would just ignore it if I didn't hear it as a kid, why would I go back to it? Later like in school, I would notice I'm the only one not enjoying conversation in the lunchroom cafeteria. I didn't go to movie theaters for 15 years because I would go in there, it would be dark, I wouldn't be able to hear anything, and I would just want to talk and have a conversation with a person who's trying to watch a movie. It wasn't until later, probably when I moved to San Diego on my own that I really started diving deep into what have I made this mean about my life? I defined myself as my hearing aids, my hearing loss or my remote microphone. And I had a good friend holding up my remote microphone saying, "Michelle, you are not this." I'm like, "Oh, who are you? I'm fun. I'm authentic. I'm me. I want to live life to the fullest" and I want for all children or children's hearts because I still believe that we have children's hearts inside our adult bodies, to really be seen, felt and heard for who they are and who they're meant to be in the world. That journey, nd it's especially been evolving since I started my Instagram because as an audiologist, I kind of kept my patients at an arm's length. I'm like, well, HIPAA or, "I can't be friends with you." But in starting this social media presence and sharing, I've realized so much how much I need that deaf and hard of hearing community. I am one of them, and that's who I am first. On my deathbed, it doesn't matter how good of an audiologist I was, what matters more to me is the relationships that I've cultivated with my family, with my community and how I felt and how I've made other people feel. 

Blaise Delfino: Michelle, thank you so much for your vulnerability there because your story is going to empower and continue to empower so many parents and patience. And thank you so much for sharing that with us because you cannot see the picture when you're in the frame. Speaking of letting the hearing loss define you up until a certain point in your life when your friend said, "You are not this," that statement resonated with you and it was almost maybe like the hearing renaissance, if you will, that rebirth. You're a pediatric audiologist, but also a classically trained chef. I've been waiting to ask this question for many days now. Autumn was able to schedule this interview. Autumn is an exceptional cook. We are foodies. We love to talk about food. We love to eat food. Becoming a classically trained chef. Number one, it's very hard work and that's an understatement. Number two, in a kitchen, sound is bouncing everywhere. You hear the sizzle of the steak, the sous chef may be shouting across the kitchen. Then you have the chef shouting orders. We live in a noisy world. How were you able to ensure that you had the correct ingredients? Maybe if the chef shared those with you, what were some of the compensatory strategies that you had to implement while becoming a classically trained chef? 

Dr. Michelle Hu: It's terrifying in the kitchen. There's water running, there's fans going, everything's stainless steel, the hardwood floor, there's no acoustic panels in that room at all. And I was terrified. My professor, he had a heavy French accent and I'm like, "Okay, here's my" ... I think it was a SmartLink at the time. You got to put this loop around your neck. It's going to dangle, but I need it near your mouth and I'm going to be listening to this. And also, I had my medical ID bracelet, which is a hazard in the kitchen. This could get caught on something. It can conduct heat or electricity. What are you doing? I needed to take this off or tape it underneath my coat. I asked my professor to wear that loop. He goes, absolutely not. This could catch on fire. This could catch on something." And I'm like, "What can we do? Can I like tape this on your shoulder, so you don't feel like it's going to swing into the food?" I wish I was more fluent in ASL at that time. I went through culinary school five years ago, and there are absolutely times where you get shouted at and you don't get the direction. But I actually feel like kitchens are well run if they're strict with, "Did you get my order? Did you get that information?" And you respond, "Yes, chef." And I would do more like, "Five entrees, blah, blah, blah. Yes, chef." And I wanted to make sure that he heard what I heard. It would take a little bit longer, but there are plenty of deaf chefs in the kitchens as well, and they just need to be visual. Kitchens are where everything needs to be labeled. The more tight you are on organization, the better communication for the entire community.  And you've got morning staff, you've got prep staff, you've got wait staff coming in, shouting orders, "I need this, what number?" And it's usually numbers or letters that it's going to be so hard. They don't say, "I need this order for that table by the window, table 26." I'm like, "Did he say 26? Did he say 23? What was it? I don't know." Going home exhausted, listening fatigue every day, having a headache, needing to go to sleep so that I could be fresh the next morning. Getting rid of that FOMO of, "Oh man, I want to hang out with my friends. They're going to be staying up talking." No, I became really good at, "I'm going to go to sleep because do you want a good version of me tomorrow?" And as a pediatric audiologist, you need to be happy at work. You get to be happy at work. That's the way you're going to get results. That's the way you're going to create those relationships. I found out that I was unconsciously implementing self-care and as a mom, we don't get that enough, but it's like, oh, reminder, my husband might want to stay up late to watch a TV show. And I was like, "You want a good version of me tomorrow? I'm going to go to bed." 

Blaise Delfino: We're talking hearing healthcare, culinary school and self-care, we're helping a ton of people. We really are. Even in some of the houses that are built today, we talk about these open concept kitchens at home. It's tough to even hear in your home kitchen if there's like high ceilings. It's really difficult. It really is. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: But take into account what makes a deaf and hard of hearing friendly home? When we were looking for houses, my husband and I sat down. We said, "What one thing, if you absolutely had it one way, if you could only have one thing, what would that be?" And for me, it was an open room from the kitchen to the living room because for me, family is gathering. It could be about food, it could be with a movie or a board game, whatever it is, and I don't want to have to be able to hear through doorways or walls to be able to communicate, especially if we're going to have children. But my request was a large open space. Now you might think, "Oh, that's not going to be good for communication. It's high ceilings, all of that," but it allows for visual cues. What's the sunlight coming in that room in that room? What's the lighting look like? Is it dark? Is it cramped? Is there a breakfast bar where my kids are going to be facing, their backs are going to be facing to me? I don't want that. I want to be able to see your face. I want to be able to make eye contact and what does that flooring look like? At one point we had four dogs. My husband and I had two each when we met and their clicking on the floor was so difficult for me because with Cochlear implants, I'm hearing much more high frequency sounds. But my husband had to learn like, "Oh, she's washing dishes, there's noise. She's not going to hear me." I advocate all the time, get my attention before you start talking to me. Make sure that I'm focused on you because if I'm in the zone on something, I'm not going to pay attention to you and nobody's perfect. My family might be the hardest ones to convince or advocate not against, but advocate with because they're used to me doing well in certain situations, but they might not understand I'm fresh and ready in the morning when you talk about food versus talking about statistics. My dad's a statistic, professor, you're going to lose me in two seconds with statistics, but food, I can talk to you about this for hours. They don't know that gray area in all of these different scenarios and variables that come with just being a person. It's not just being deaf or hard of hearing. 

Blaise Delfino:  Michelle, speaking of food and being able to talk about food for hours, what is your signature dish? We've got to know. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: My husband loves either my season bass or I make a really good lamb where it, and keep it simple. My sea bass is just sea salt and butter and olive oil or avocado oil. That's it. The thing is you have to trust and leave it, leave it so you get a good sear. Make sure that you're not over-analyzing the ingredients. I think it was my graduation or my last evaluation in culinary school was a lamb chop and it was smear that whole grain mustard on, salt and then cover it in rosemary and garlic or something like that. And I was like, "Okay, I got to do it this way. I got to do all these ingredients." Well, one day I didn't have half the ingredients, but I just did salt, seared and then put it in the oven and then put some minced garlic over on top of it while it was in the oven down to three ingredients. So simple. That's how we like it now. Not necessarily a signature dish, but I would rather say trust that your refrigerator or the universe is going to give you what you want to make something great. And that's the confidence that I got in culinary school. I was a good cook. I was a baker before, but I didn't have that confidence. Does it taste good? It kind of depended on did I follow the recipe well or did somebody else say it tasted good? But everybody's palate is different. When I went to culinary school, I really learned am I going to sear this? Am I going to steam this? The effects of how you're treating your food is what's going to make it and trust your palate. Because what I learned was you can get salty from soy sauce, from salt, you can get salty or sweet from tomatoes. If it's missing something, maybe like a umami flavor or something like that, don't be afraid to throw in some ketchup. Don't be afraid to throw in some smoked salt or something like that because you have all the flavors in the kitchen, you really do, in your pantry. It's almost fun for me when we have no groceries, what can I make? I need something salty. I need something creamy. I need some protein and some kind of starch or something like that. 

Blaise Delfino: You get creative, and you can never have enough garlic. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: Garlic, yeah. What I do for Christmas presents now is I just make a compound butter. I'll make, I don't know, 20, 25 sticks of compound butter, put in whatever herbs I grew that summer, saute some garlic in there, jar it up and they're just like, "I would just eat this sun bread all the time." Or you can put on roasted potatoes or put it on a steak and just keep it simple. 

Blaise Delfino: Keeping it simple. Not only in the kitchen but in the clinic and in life. Michelle, you are a pediatric audiologist. Tell us about your schooling and mentorship experiences. Really exciting stuff. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: When I was a senior in college, I was filling out law school applications. I was waffling between pre-med, pre-law, like what do I do? And I wasn't feeling like I was fitting somewhere. Your senior semester, you're like, " should know what I'm doing now." When you think about it, that person is what, 21, maybe 22 years old? Have you really lived at all? I had another sudden drop in hearing. I think I blew a fistula in my ear and or somewhere and it dropped. And this time I got intratympanic steroids again. Usually they didn't work for me, but this time it did. But in between that, my mom said, "You might make a good audiologist." We were sitting in the waiting room and I said, "Yeah, I wanted to do some kind of healthcare, but I didn't know what. This way I could use my experience to hopefully help others." And don't get me wrong, it was still hard for me. But yes, I have an added layer to be able to relate to some of the patients. Not exactly because everybody's journey is different, but I can relate to the experiences in the booth. I can relate to sudden hearing loss. I can relate to the anxiety and the identification of things that I can control and not control. It was winter of senior year. I emailed my pediatric audiologist who happened to be part of the school that I was applying to. Applied, and somehow a lot of my prerequisites were fulfilled. I absolutely did not understand phonetics or acoustics, but I understood counseling, I understood anatomy, I understood the processes that are going inside the body and went from there. I mean, I was very, very nervous with my voice, with my speech when I was working with patients or a preceptor said to me, "You know more than they do in this moment regarding audiogram, regarding what you're doing behind the booth, behind that audiometer or tympanometer. Take a breath." And what I had to do was write down my scripts because I wasn't confident in my speech. I had a list, I couldn't hear, I was nasally and I pulled my voice back. This happens with a lot of deaf and hard of hearing people. They pull their voice back into their throat and almost mumble. I had to do more speech therapy or I wanted to do more speech therapy so I could be a little bit more clear. And it's been a journey. 

Blaise Delfino: Your ability to share your story, inspire others, walk with parents throughout their new hearing journey because when we talk about patients having a new hearing journey, yes, that is absolutely correct, but parents also have a new hearing journey when their child is diagnosed with hearing loss. And we love your website. We love the resources that you provide. Share with us the resources that are available on MamaHuHears.com. We're going to put this website in our show notes so our listeners can visit your website. Tell us about the resources that are available and what your mission and goals are with the website. 

Dr. Michelle Hu: Thank you. After receiving thousands of questions from parents online that were repeated or similar to those that I received in clinic, I figured I need to make a resource. All of the information is out there, but it's all over the place. It's overwhelming. When your child gets identified with being deaf or hard of hearing, you don't know what to do. I created a online program that comes with a handbook and it gives parents all of the information that they may want to consider because it's your journey, it's your child. What kind of choices and decisions do you want to make for your family that work with your family dynamic? It's an eight module program, videos going through the emotions of getting an identification or a diagnosis. What does audiological testing look like? How to prepare for it, what kind of devices are out there so that you have enough information to ask your audiologist what to do with your specific situation, what to do when they get to school, how to take care of the caretaker, how to teach advocacy to your children, where to look for resources to learn ASL or to have a deaf mentor. All of those things are the ingredients for whatever recipe that you want to make with your family. And it's been really well received. And I actually started, it was initially for parents, but it's been implemented in some school university curriculums so that we can start to teach this counseling or this way that I practice to audiology students, to SLP students if they want to have that education and knowledge and information. And what I realized was parents and communities wanted more community. I started creating more printouts or PDFs so that they could have that, so they could share that with their parents. A lot of it is in the handbook as well. My favorite part are the interviews and the questions that facilitate and help spark conversation between co-parents or extended family members. What do you want our family to look like in five years? Can we all learn ASL? Is that feasible right now? My husband was in the military, he was deployed, up and gone often. No, going to ASL classes as a family wouldn't be an option for us. We do a lot of virtual training on our own or separate, and we're just on that same page. And these questions are really what helps tie the family units together. 

Blaise Delfino: I love the thought process of what does this look like five years from now. Because as humans, we are social beings. Communication is the exchange of ideas. Language is a code in which ideas are shared, and speech is a neuromuscular process. It's all intertwined. And when we talk about overall communication, I love the fact that you are encouraging families to think ahead, play the tape forward. What does this look like? How can we as a family unit continue to communicate effectively? Because all too often, most breakdowns are due to miscommunication, whether it be in families, whether it be at work, communication is essential. I love the coffee mug. I'm a huge coffee fan, so I'm going to have to place an order for one of these coffee mugs that says, "You are on mute. Seriously, I can't hear you." I love the coffee mug. And you have an online store with a bunch of swag. Really cool t-shirts here. Awesome stuff. And you know Michelle, coming from private practice and what I think we both believe in is providing the resources to our patients as a free guide. Because parents, when they find out that their child has a hearing loss, they are leaning into you, they are leaning into your expertise. And if they have the correct tools to make an educated decision, they're well ahead of the curve. We're nearing the end of our interview right now. Thank you so much for coming on the Hearing Matters Podcast. If a parent is tuned in right now and they are in the San Diego area, or even if they're anywhere, how can they connect with you? And what are a few tips and tricks you would recommend to pediatric audiologists today to ensure the patient is able to hear life's story? 

Dr. Michelle Hu: Connect with me at my website, MamaHuHears.com. I am pretty active on Instagram. It's mama, .H-U, .E-A-R-S on Instagram and I'm also on Facebook as well. One of my best pieces of advice for anyone, students, audiologists and just humans in general is meet them or meet yourself where they're at. Honor where you are in this moment because that's what's going on right now. And only when you can acknowledge that can you move forward. You can move backwards, wherever you want to go, but have compassion for that moment or that situation that you're in, because the only way to get out of the cave or get out of jail or get out of this cage is to acknowledge where you are and take a look at your surroundings. 

Blaise Delfino: Michelle, I love that. Reminds me of the book, The Power of Now and how essential it is to be conscious when you are working with your patients, not thinking about the past, not thinking about the next patient you have because all we have is now. Thank you again for tuning into the Hearing Matters Podcast. Today we had Dr. Michelle Hu, who runs the website, Mama Hu Hears. She is a pediatric audiologist and a trained chef. She is also an incredible individual raising awareness of the importance of hearing healthcare. You're tuned in to the Hearing Matters Podcast. And until next time, hear life's story.