When Gucci make hearing aids, I’ll be deaf: sensory impairment in later life and a need to define it according to identity

This chapter examines my experience of late deafness – becoming impaired, being diagnosed as such and then living with this new identity. The analysis considers this experience of impairment from the point of view of subjective and objective disability. I argue that I am currently less impaired now that I have been diagnosed as being hearing impaired than I was when I was not. The chapter concludes that impairment is subjective and should be considered so. It also concludes that context and form of impairment should be considered when understanding disability.