Anji, how the heck is that audist? I think it's audist to grieve over a loss in ONE ear. You can adapt to and live a rich full life without perfect hearing, is all I mean to say. Yes, I know that generally unilateral HOH kids get even less accomondations and Dhh intervention, then do bilateral HOH kids, but maybe if people were agrressive and gave unilateral HOH kids things like hearing aids, dhh intervention, like speechreading instruction and even ASL instruction (for crowded/noisy/diffult listening sitions) being unilateral HOH wouldn't be that big of a deal........and yes, I know what it's like to be unilateral HOH......I've been that way for a few months, since my hearing aid is in the shop.
Being temporarily SSD isn't the same as actually being SSD. Not even close.
Also keep in mine that MOST people with SSD aren't able to actually use/benefit from HAs, because of the way SSD is - those who were hearing and became SSD do tend to benefit (slightly/moderately) from things such as CROS or BAHA aids, but those who are born SSD, or have pre-lingually /paralignually acquired SSD do not - due to the way the brain is wired to access sound and a number of other reasons.
Also keep in mind that SSD means that you have no "front sound", "back sound" and huge "head shadow" issues ... the range of hearing is a very small angle - and only from the side. This means each conversation you have to pick between focusing on speechreading or hearing, since you have to angle yourself towards the person to hear.
For those who are bilaterally hoh/deaf and use a HA, you have a forward facing mic (and often a rear) this allows you to actually hear sounds in front of you. with SSD, you actaully don't hear what's in front of you - only to the side (from the "hearing side"). This is one of the reasons that if someone with SSD also has even slight HL on their "hearing side" they often find aiding the "hearing side" (slight/mild Hoh) works significantly better than using CROS.
Also there is a high prevalence of APD/CAPD with SSD - making it all additionally complicated.
For those of us who were born SSD, especially those of us who've also acquired additional hearing loss on our "hearing side" making us SSD+Hoh, statistically we hear and understand significantly LESS than those with unilaterally implanted CIs. We are (often) far more deaf than hearing ... in fact we have a few people on the board who went from being SSD, to bilat deaf, then got CI and they all state that they hear much better now with the CI (uni) than they ever did when they were SSD (naturally).
It's insulting for someone who's "got their HA in the shop for a few months" to go around explaining what it's like to be SSD.
It's almost as bad and offensive as someone trying to explain that they "know what it's like to be deaf, because they had a really bad ear infection for a week once", or "I know what it's like to be gay, because I saw a person of the same gender and thought they were 'cute'". Short term exposure is not at all the same as years, decades or a lifetime of experience.
Please, stick to offering advise about what you actaully know about, and leave discussing SSD, APD, etc to those of us on here who actually have lived with it.