Welcome your hosts, Dr. Dawn Heiman and Lindsay Dougherty.  

The point of this podcast is to enable people to tell their stories. The good, the bad, the happy, the amazing, the transformative, and the triumphant parts of it, because normally people aren't talking about this. This is how we let people know it's okay to go get your hearing tested and start this journey.

Do it sooner than the national average, which is seven- eight years, and so that they can actually realize they could be happier. There are so many positives to this podcast. We have a lot of people, great, wonderful people with unique stories that are lined up to tell us about their journey with their ears.

Sometimes Dr. Dawn Heiman will be hosting it and sometimes Lindsey Doherty will be hosting it. We're going to try to do one a week for an entire year and see if we can just keep going, for years, of bringing these stories to the world because this doesn't exist right now.

And because you need to know that you are not alone. 

We all need a sense of community, a sense of belonging.

You need to hear the stories of hope and so that you can keep going in everything. So whether it's with hearing loss, or just life in general, this is going to be great for so many people: caregivers, family members, those with the hearing loss, educators and physicians.

A good story doesn't always have to have a happy ending. And there'll probably be some people we have on multiple times to find out where they're at in their journey. 

This podcast could potentially help thousands of people simultaneously -- That's the cool part about it! That's the exciting part that we don't close the door and just work with one person at a time. We're so hopeful that this helps because we also are going to be referring people to audiologists around the country. We have a locator practice locator of awesome practices. 

We have resources like the Hearing Wellness Journey, which is an aural rehab course that people can use if they want to do self-guided rehab. 

We have the Hearing Wellness Community on Facebook, which we recommend everyone signs up for and be a part of it. The more you give, the more you will receive. You're going to end up benefiting even more and actually meeting people if you actively ask questions, offer tips, and say hello.