It has been a year since I took the plunge and invested in a brand new, ultra-whizzy pair of hearing aids. My diagnosis is ‘profound, sensorineural hearing loss’, meaning that it is the cochlea (the organ of hearing) in the inner ear that is affected. The most common causes of hearing loss are age and exposure to loud noise, which are also types of sensorineural hearing loss. I then showed him I was wearing hearing aids, that I wasn’t being rude or racist. Anyone who is shying away from hearing aids due to vanity, let me give you this important message: they make you younger.