Nashlea Brogan AuD

05/28/2026

Some seasons ask you to grow into something bigger.

The hardest part isn’t the leap. It’s quieting everything around you long enough to hear what you actually want.

Are you still listening to yourself? 🤍

05/27/2026

“I’m leaving them at home.”

That’s what my patient told me before her salon appointment.

Her hearing aids. Left at home. Because she didn’t know what else to do.

And I thought — nobody tells you this stuff.

Every 4 to 6 weeks I sit in that same chair — getting my roots coloured. Same stylist. Same ritual. And I wear hearing technology too.

A salon is loud. Hair dryers running. Music playing. Multiple conversations happening at once. Your stylist talking while standing behind you.

For someone with hearing loss, it can feel like navigating a foreign country without a map.

So here’s what I actually do:

✔️ I found a stylist who gets it. That’s the first step — find someone you can actually talk to.

✔️ I book quieter times when I can — fewer dryers, fewer people.

✔️ I bring my case. Not a Kleenex. A case.

✔️ I ask to stay facing the mirror so I can see her face. Mirrors are tricky though — they spin you away to work, which cuts your lip-reading. Ask to stay facing forward as much as possible.

✔️ I sit somewhere quieter when the colour is processing.

✔️ I don’t always wait until my hair is fully dry — but the hair around my ears needs to be dry enough before devices go back on.

You don’t have to leave your hearing at home.
You just need a plan.

Save this. Share it with someone who needs it. 💚

05/22/2026

I spent 30 years avoiding rides at amusement parks. 🎢

I thought my body just couldn’t handle them.

This week at Disney, I realized something I had never understood before.

Now with cochlear implants, I can hear so much more in the dark that my brain finally knows where I am in space.

For the first time in my life, I rode all the fast dark rides I normally would have avoided at Disney World without getting sick. I could hear the tracks, the screams, the laughter… all the things my brain had been missing before.

I didn’t just get sound back.

I got the rides back.

Grateful to the people and technology who made this possible 💗

05/15/2026

You are not as alone as you think. 💙

05/14/2026

05/14/2026

Hearing loss is about so much more than the TV being too loud.

It affects independence, safety, confidence, relationships, quality of life, and brain health.

When we talk about hearing through that lens, people start to take it seriously.

And it deserves that level of attention.

If you or someone you love is struggling to hear, call Us to schedule an appointment. 519-344-8887 or visit online to easily book www.bluewaterhearing.ca

05/14/2026

I said the word intimacy in a room full of strangers today and watched everyone shift in their seats.

I let them sit with it for a second.

Then I said …I’m not talking about s*x.

I’m talking about your daughter coming through the door after school. Backpack hitting the floor. She’s sobbing before she even reaches you. Teenage girl. Big feelings. Needs her mom.

And all you can say is honey, can you repeat that? Mommy can’t hear you.

I’m talking about your best friend,
lit up, excited, finally ready to share the thing she’s been working on. And you have to stop her. Again. Sorry, can you say that one more time?

Something shifts. You both feel it. And neither of you says anything.

Those are intimate moments. And hearing loss takes them. One quiet missed connection at a time.

Sound carries the words. But connection carries the meaning.

And when we start seeing it that way, everything changes.

I talk about it because the more we say it out loud — the less alone everyone feels. Save and share if this resonated. 💙

05/12/2026

She stopped mid sentence and said “never mind.”

You know that never mind.
We all do.

This is what nobody talks about when we talk about listening.

Follow for more. 💙

05/10/2026

Two photos. Same heart. Many years between them.

On the left, I was a young mom with severe hearing loss, trying so hard to hear the tiny voices that depended on me.

On the right, many years after my cochlear implantation, I am standing beside the boy and girl who grew up on the other side of my silence, now 19 and 17, and more amazing than I have words for.

And still, one of my greatest memories of hearing again was coming home after activation and hearing their little voices.

Mother’s Day makes me grateful for the years, for them, and for every ordinary sound that became part of my story as their mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone, and to all the memories and joys that come with it. 💗

05/05/2026

It’s my birthday week 🍾🪩👠💃

I’m turning 50 , and after 23 years in audiology practice, I understand my patients in their 50s differently now.

Because now it is all around me.

And maybe the difference is that I am not just listening as the audiologist anymore. I am listening as a woman turning 50.

My friends and the women I meet every day in public, at events, in normal life. As soon as they find out I’m an audiologist, they tell me they don’t hear the same anymore. Noisy places are harder.

And they are not 75.

They are 50 💁‍♀️

I don’t think I fully grasped the sheer number of women in their 50s who had hearing issues until recently. So many are willing to wear hearing aids for subclinical, slight, or mild losses, but no one had the training to ask the right question’s or the courage to offer help to them.

Their stories are always the same, regardless of where they live.

I wish I could go back 20 years in my practice and make stronger recommendations instead of waiting for it to be “bad enough.” There are so many more people I could have helped.

At 50, I feel like I am stepping into a new level of patient care awareness. I can see the gaps more clearly now, and I cannot unsee them.

So this next chapter, I hope I’m still here posting and sharing at 75, is about helping clinicians recognize these women sooner, ask better questions, and have the confidence to offer help before someone has to prove they are struggling enough to deserve it.

Cheers to 50 🎉

04/30/2026

Thursday morning. Coffee still hot. Sunlight just starting to come through the window.
And across the room, my Goldendoodle has a rubber ball clamped between his teeth and he is going to town on it.

Squish. Squish. Squish.

I say his name out loud and he freezes. Slowly lifts his eyes. That look, the one that says I heard you and I am choosing to ignore you,
and then right back to the ball.

I just sit there with my coffee and I smile.
Because I can hear that. The squish. That ridiculous, specific, perfect little sound.

And I am not taking a single squish for granted.
Hearing loss teaches you something most people learn too late. The small stuff was always the whole thing. The laugh from the other room. The rain on the window. The sounds hiding in an ordinary Thursday morning.
You don’t need to lose something to start paying attention to it.

Notice your squish. Whatever it is.

This is why we do what we do. 💙 ♻️ Repost and share if this reminded you to notice your squish today.