🔋 Living on Charge: The Untold Truth of Battery Management

 ðŸ”‹ Living on Charge: The Untold Truth of Battery Management

You charge your phone.
I charge my ears.

But my battery isn’t just about convenience.
It’s about whether I can hear my professor, my colleague, or my surroundings when I travel alone.
It’s about connection, confidence and sometimes, survival.

I use a cochlear implant sound processor.
It helps me hear, but it runs on rechargeable batteries.
Each one lasts around 12 hours but managing that battery is nothing like charging a phone.

I have two batteries. When one dies, I switch to the other.
But I can’t recharge it whenever I want, if I charge it at 50%, the battery weakens over time.
So I wait until it’s completely drained.
I plan my hours like a schedule class from 8:30AM to 3:30PM, rehearsal from 5 to 7, travel after that... will the battery last?

Charging takes 3–4 hours.
But here’s the tricky part:
If the battery blinks during charging, I have to reset it and start the 4-hour timer again.
Sometimes it happens at hour 4.
And suddenly, a 4-hour charge becomes 8, 12, even 16 hours.

If that happens at night, I don’t sleep until it’s fully charged.
Because in the morning, I need to hear.

After around 400 full charges, the battery life starts to drop.
12 hours becomes 10… then 7… then 5… then nothing.
That’s when I need to replace it.
Each battery only lasts 1–2 years and they’re expensive.

If it dies at the wrong moment during an exam, on stage, in a crowded bus
I quietly step aside, hide behind a curtain or corner, and switch it.
Not because I’m ashamed but because I don’t want to explain myself every time.

I always carry my spare.
Even for a short walk.
Because when the battery dies, so does sound.

This is what people don’t see.
For others, hearing is automatic.
For me, it’s a responsibility I manage with care, calculation, and quiet strength every single day.

 

💬 I’m sharing this because I believe we need more awareness about the invisible labor behind hearing devices.
Battery management is not a tech issue it’s a lived experience.

#CochlearImplantLife #DeafAwareness #BatteryAnxiety #DisabilityInclusion #UnheardStruggles #LivingWithCI #AssistiveTechnology #InvisibleDisabilities

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