The Gift of Hearing

brigitte cutshall
3 min readMar 10, 2021

Thank you for listening

My custom hearing aid

What?!!?

Can you repeat that please? This question gets a better response by the way.

Hearing is something we all tend to take for granted. And the longer you live, the more likely you will develop hearing loss. It’s a fact of nature.

Many people don’t seek treatment for several reasons. They don’t realize they have hearing loss, they don’t want to wear hearing aids, or they don’t have the money to buy a hearing device.

If left untreated, hearing loss is linked to health issues such as depression, dementia, and chronic stress. You are also at higher risk for falling. The World Health Organization (WHO) had identified hearing loss as one of the world’s major health problems.

My hearing loss only affects the left side and it’s because of a primary brain tumor … an acoustic neuroma (also known as a vestibular schwanomma). This is a thankfully benign, yet rare, slow-growing tumor that is between the acoustic (hearing) nerve, facial nerve, and balance (vestibular) nerve.

Without going into all the details, the tumor was found because we (me and the doctors) were looking for something else in 2009. Discovering the brain tumor was a shocker.

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brigitte cutshall
brigitte cutshall

Written by brigitte cutshall

Book Producer and Health Advocate. Dog lover and obsessed with sunsets. She’s probably outside running. www.brigittecutshall.com

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