I am hard of hearing....

YUP! you read that correctly! I'm heard of hearing.

Yes, JUST like your grandparent's hard of hearing condition. The kind that might require an "aid to hear." I have what the medical community calls Single-Sided Deafness (SSD). I have a fully functioning (in fact, an exceptionally hearing) right ear but a left ear that became deaf due to nerve damage in my 1st 2 years of living from illness and high temperatures.

You might wonder why I put the bit of "aid to hear" in quotes, it's because my insurance considers "hearing aids" as an excluded service.

Yes, my insurance company believes that, and I quote:

"Hearing care that is routine, except as provided under Child Wellness services, including but not limited to exams and tests, any artificial hearing device, cochlear implant, auditory prostheses or other electrical, digital, mechanical or surgical means of enhancing, creating, or restoring auditory comprehension"

Really? Really Humana?!? You're going to deny me the right to hear! The right to know if sounds are coming from the left side? The right to know if an ambulance is racing to save a life while passing me on the left? You're going to deny me the right to hear the sound my hair makes when placed behind my left ear? The right to hear my daughter or son tell me they love me when they're sitting on my left side while watching a family movie?

I can say it's not fair but I understand, with a population of almost 60,000 people, in just the U.S., who live with single-sided deafness there would be a significant savings for them!!! They can save so much money not having to pay for that need! But Humana, I'm telling you that I'm not just a need but a person that's hurting. I'm hurting when I've had friends visiting over 500 miles away to have dinner with me in a restaurant and I can't understand what they're saying over the dinner table.
Humana, you're telling me, that when I'm hurting to hear my stand partner tell me critical things to write in our music during a symphony rehearsal, that I am denied to hear and to properly participate in rehearsals?!

So Humana, I'm writing this to you, for you, and this is entry ONE of my journey to getting a Cochlear Baha 5 processor (that ain't no hearing aid but an Osseointegrated Implant System) and dammit, I deserve it!