For me, the first session was one of the most important topics of the course. A man talked to us about different sorts of equipment available for those hard of hearing. After talking to us he showed us some of them and we were allowed to touch them, feel the weight of them and generally have a fiddle around with them and to get the general feel to see whether they could help us or not. There were different types of amplified telephones, alarm clocks, door bells, pagers, fire alarms etc. I asked the man if he could let me hear how loud the fire alarm is to see if I could hear it (I can no longer hear our two fire alarms at home which were fitted by the fire brigade...that's another story!). The man pressed the button on the alarm. Can you remember me telling you in my last post about Yogi the hearing dog? Yogi is trained to react to particular sounds ie a particular doorbell, fire alarm etc. As soon as the man pressed the alarm button, Yogi bounded over to Steve (his master) and firmly put his paw on Steves leg to get his attention and then lay completely flat on the floor. This is Yogis way of alerting Steve that a fire alarm is ringing. That wasn't even the fire alarm which Yogi had been trained to respond to....a highly intelligent and amazing animal.
To see how Yogi has helped change Steve's life, please watch this short video (he is on at the start of the clip) Click here.
During the morning, I learnt that there really are things available to help me lead as normal a life as possible. The only problem is that sadly the majority of all these things are very expensive.
We discussed 'tinnitus' this afternoon. I already know a bit about tinnitus as I have it. Most tinnitus sufferers have a very high pitched ringing in their ears. I find the louder the background noise and also being very tired being makes the ringing sound worse. I have had it several years. Since wearing hearing aids I have found that they have stopped the ringing in my ears, however the moment I take my hearing aids out, it comes back with a vengeance. I have a love hate relationship with tinnitus because whilst I hate the tiring, annoying, monotonous ringing, it makes me grateful that I am able to hear something.
As soon as the session had finished, I drove to a nearby shop to buy a present for Yogi after all, he deserved it.
We finished the evening by watching The World Cup...Maybe I should avoid that subject!
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