More than a decade ago Kayla Wiedebusch began enriching lives through better hearing, which inspired her to further pursue audiology at Livingston Hearing Aid Center.

Wiedebusch, 35, who was born and raised in Brownwood and went to Howard Payne, shared what led her down her career path.

“Shortly after graduation during job hunting I came across the company and they talked about how much they love taking care of their patients and it was so intriguing and I applied and sure enough I’ve now been with this company for 11 years,” she said. “I started up front working on hearing aids and just helping the audiologist who is now part-time retired. In the meantime, when she talked about retirement, she asked would I be willing to go back to school and I sure did and so now I’m a licensed fitting dispenser for hearing instruments.”

Wiedebusch spoke about the most rewarding aspects of her job.

“I really love what we do because we’re enriching lives through better hearing,” she said. “When you have a hearing loss it’s going to take you away from people, not things. They get to where they’re not hearing their grandchildren and kids, things like that, to where they want to isolate themselves and they can’t be a part of conversions. When you can’t understand you get embarrassed. Hearing loss can happen to any of us and hearing loss has no age discrimination either.”

Wiedebusch stated that people who are suffering from hearing issues can come in for a free test.

“At Livingston we do free hearing tests,” she said. “We just want people to be able to come in and have a better understanding and try and make it as easy as possible. Our eyes, ears and teeth are all so important but the ears are the last ones we try and fix. No one wakes up and says, ‘hey I want a hearing aid.’ If people start feeling like they’re struggling there’s help out there. We do free complimentary testing and at least that lets you get the knowledge. Without a hearing test we don’t know and we can’t enrich the quality of life.”

Wiedebusch added that her patients start to feel like family extremely quickly.

“We like to see our patients every six months so they become like a part of our family,” she said. “You can learn more from the older generation than we ever will from someone our own age, so that’s nice. They put in a hearing aid and they turn it on and you see their eyes light up. It’s a very joyful experience.”

Wiedebusch has three children –16-year-old Gary, 15-year-old Hayden, and 8-year-old Levi – and will soon be working in Brady along with Brownwood.

“I’m about to be transitioning to where I’ll not only have services in Brown County, but I’ll be traveling on Wednesdays to Brady,” she said. “I’ll be in Brownwood the rest of the week, Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.”