This morning we discussed lip reading and we practiced various sentences such as "I went to London to visit Buckingham Palace to see the Crown Jewels". We lipread where each of us lives i.e. Leatherhead, Staines, Ashtead, Farnham, Guildford and Shepperton. We used words that sound similar to each other ie pad, bad, mad. We also talked about certain numbers i.e. 13 & 30, 14 & 40, 15 & 50, 16 & 60, 17 & 70, 18 & 80, 19 & 90 - stand in front of a mirror and notice how similar the lips look like for each pair of numbers. The hearing people were told that using their fingers to indicate the number. The lady came over to me and suggested I learn sign language as she thought it would be more beneficial to me than the older students, so she kindly said she'll look into it for me. We also talked about assertiveness and asking people to stand in good lighting, ask them to repeat what they have said, ask them to speak up and for us to keep asking until we achieve what we set out to get. When you ask a hearing person to repeat something, they will say it exactly the same way as before. We were told to ask people to speak slower (not necessary louder because the person will shout and this alters their lip movements, making it even harder to lipread), ask them to face me, ask them to use different words, ask them to keep their hands away from their mouth and if necessary ask them to write it down (I haven't had to use it yet but I now always carry a small notebook with me). I have found that with significant hearing loss you have to be more assertive as well as confident, which I am struggling with. When you can't hear someone behind a counter for example, it is too easy to look at the person you are with to get them to repeat it to you. The thing I find the hardest is going into a noisy restaurant, cafe, bar etc and asking them to turn the music down. I have never had the confidence to ask yet as I have always asked someone to do it for me.
The hearing people were given headphones to wear which were attached to a MP3 player playing white music and then huge builders headphones on top. Those who managed to keep them on for the duration of the break, the rest of the session and lunch, reported how tired, confused and isolated they felt. Whilst I would never wish for anyone to feel like that, it was a good exercise to allow hearing people to experience a taster of being hard of hearing. The big difference of course is that they were able to remove the headphones, either when they couldn't hear what somebody was saying to them or when they had simply had enough. We (the hard of hearing) were told that we should always make time for regular non-concentration breaks to stop us getting so tired. A snooze every afternoon does sound appealing don't yo think?!
A lady from an audiology unit of a nearby hospital talked about hearing aids, what they do, whether private hearing aids are better than NHS hearing aids and so on.
She said that all hearing aids do is make things louder and whilst she's the expert, I disagree. It is true that hearing aids amplify sounds, but it is not a case of making peoples voices louder. Background noise become louder, music becomes louder, building work becomes louder. Do individual voices become louder? For me the answer is no. Even with my fancy hearing aids which are meant to minimise background noise, these other noises can overpower the sounds I want to hear making them hurt my ears and making me tired. My reason for disagreeing with the lady is because the hearing aids don't just amplify noises but make them sound different to the way I used to hear them when my hearing was good. A lot of noises sound 'tinny', some people sound as though they don't have any teeth(!) etc. I will write more about this topic in a future post.
I noticed yesterday that there were two people at the course along with a dog which had a coat on it saying it was a hearing dog. The couple, Steve and Chris, were in fact volunteers. Chris has good hearing whilst her husband Steve can hardly hear a thing. This is where Yogi comes in. Yogi, a soft gentle and placid dog, hadn't had the best start to his life, but things changed when the charity 'hearing dogs' found him. After a very long period of training he was found to be a suitable match for Steve. Steve said that Yogi had changed his life for the better. I've got a few questions lined up for Steve and Yogi tomorrow as I want to know more!
We had a social event in the evening. Our "classroom" had been transformed by the staff; all the tables had been moved around and were beautifully set. We had been told that there would be evening entertainment....a magician. I automatically had visions of a clown prancing around, not my idea of fun (sorry if there are any clowns reading this!). Therefore I was relieved to see a man in a suit with no face paint in sight. The evening turned out to be great fun with the magician going from table to table. With a lot of persistence I succeeded in getting the magician to reveal some of his tricks to me! He even told me his biggest secret which is.....I suppose I shouldn't reveal all to you in my post though! The evening made me realise that I must never have a career as a magician. I was worse than awful!
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