‘Audrey’s Charms’ will help children with hearing loss

A 9-year-old girl is turning her struggles with health and bullying into a charitable, and (soon) an entrepreneurial endeavor.

Audrey Brown and her identical twin sister were born eight weeks premature, beginning their first 13 weeks of life in the neonatal intensive care unit of an Indiana hospital. Then, only eight weeks after going home, Audrey was diagnosed with stage 3 liver cancer. 

“That kind of blew me away,” said Ashley Brown, Audrey’s mother. “How did they not notice it all the months she was in the NICU? We knew she would have some after-effects, we just didn’t really expect them to show as late as they did.”

After 13 months of chemotherapy, Audrey rang the symbolic bell, celebrating her cancer being in remission. Two years later, in 2017, the Brown family moved to Zephyrhills, searching for a new start in the Sunshine State. Soon, however, the family noticed changes in Audrey’s hearing.

“We would holler for her to come down for dinner if she was upstairs and we were downstairs, but she wouldn’t always hear us,” said Brown. “I thought maybe her ears were clogged with earwax or fluid because she had tubes in her ear in the past.”

Audrey’s pediatrician referred her to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, where audiologist Dr. Levin confirmed she had permanent hearing loss, a side effect of the chemotherapy. Audrey began wearing hearing aids, a new permanent addition that caused even more heartache for her at school. 

“The kids said things like, ‘Those [hearing aids] are ugly, I don’t like the color of these.’ They also said things like, ‘You should never have worn these. Why are you wearing these?” Audrey said.

Audrey brought it up to Dr. Levin, who had some advice from past patient experiences.

“She really wanted to wear earrings, but because of the hearing aids and her glasses, she felt like there was a lot of weight on and around her ears. I told her maybe you can find something to put on the hearing aids instead,” said Dr. Brittany Levin, a clinical audiologist at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. “I think that may have been what sparked her interest.”

Audrey’s mom created the first pair of hearing aid charms, an accessory that would hang off her daughter’s hearing aids, adding a bit of style and color to the medical device. Brown calls that first pair their prototype, and from there, Audrey was hooked.

“She told me her ideas, so I fed off of those and made her first pair, just to see if it would make a difference for her. You could definitely see her self-confidence boost just from that one pair,” said Brown.

Audrey hopes to start selling her handcrafted hearing aid charms this year, calling the business Audrey’s Charms.

“A lot of people started saying, “Oh, I like those. Are those earrings? I said they’re hearing aid charms, but they’re close enough. It wasn’t really easy until I started wearing the charms,” Audrey added.

Audrey started making different hearing aid charm designs, testing them with the doctor to ensure they wouldn’t interfere with the hearing aids and cause whistling or squealing sounds. All of Audrey’s hearing aid charms are made by hand and most of the materials she uses are donated by friends and family. Audrey created so many hearing aid charms, she started donating them to Levin’s other patients and the Pediatric Cancer Foundation. 

“I started seeing that my confidence was going up, so I thought, maybe if I make other pairs, not just for myself but other people too, then it would boost up their self-confidence,” Audrey explained.

In the past six months, she’s given away 175 pairs of hearing aid charms, helping other children with hearing loss feel more comfortable and confident. This year, Audrey aims to scale her enterprise; she’s currently working with a family member to start selling the charms, hoping to launch her business, “Audrey’s Charms,” by the end of 2024. Audrey plans to donate the proceeds from her sales to help kids who can’t afford hearing aids.

“It makes me really happy, and feel like I’m in my happy place where I can make others happy,” Audrey said.