Some interesting things have been happening in hearing technology lately and I’ve been inspired to keep improving my coping methods so I can feel more connected to what’s around me.

I found out that starting this coming summer, some theaters in New York and a few other cities will be captioned on demand for every performance. (Note:  Some are already doing it.) There’s a new phone app called GalaPro that will discreetly let us read the captions privately at any performance at participating theaters.  I had the opportunity to see a demonstration and it’s just awesome.  Also, many of the theaters will be looped so all we have to do is switch to telecoil and we’ll be connected.  No extra devices needed.

I’ve also been enjoying television and music more since getting my Oticon hearing aids. The TV device that comes with them is the best I’ve ever had.  I still don’t have and never will have speech understanding, but I actually realized some people had accents that I never knew before.  Even without understanding the words, the sounds of voices add so much to reading the captions. I’m also picking up music in the car radio more than I have in a long time. That’s good news for DHH because now I usually sing the along with the same song that’s playing!

In the meantime, I had the opportunity to see Bette Midler in Hello Dolly right before her run ended.  That wasn’t captioned, so I found the script for Hello Dolly online the night before and read it.  It wasn’t the same as actually hearing it, of course, but when I did catch a few words here and there, I knew what they referred to so I was able to keep up. What we do to cope!! Homework! But I have to say it was worth it. Bette, David Hyde Pierce, and the rest of the cast were extraordinary and it was a magical experience to see them.

On another note, I’ve decided that the world is out of control and since there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m going to just try to make my own immediate world a little better.  I’m on a quest to make every person I interact with smile at least once. If they laugh, even better.  I just don’t want to live with the negativity that’s so prevalent these days. (If only my hearing aids had a bad news filter!) And I try to end every day by watching a comedy. Then I take my hearing aids out, disconnect from the world, and go to sleep – hopefully with a smile.  I wish you many smiles today.

Back in May 2017  I mentioned (Blog End of the Line) that I got new hearing aids.  WA thought some snazzy new Phonaks with all the bells and whistles would be very helpful to me, so I got them and all the cool accessories.  And thus started my decline.

Please note I am not in any way knocking Phonaks.  I’ve benefited from them in my early years of hearing loss and many people I know are doing wonderfully with them.  The problem is, I just don’t have enough hearing to make use of their terrific technology.  It’s brilliant, I have no doubt, but unfortunately, due to many different circumstances, including months of trying to adjust them, we just couldn’t make them work for me.   Phonak was great about it and did their best, but they just weren’t right for me.

At times, I thought they sounded pretty good.  But then I realized those times were in a quiet room, one on one.  In any other situation, I was becoming helpless.  And at that point, I was starting to feel it was about to become hopeless.  I thought I finally did reach the end of the line and I felt so desperate, I started practicing ASL again –   right up until I broke my wrist and could no longer move my right hand.  But getting back to the point – I was unable to communicate with anyone in normal life situations.  I couldn’t communicate with friends across a table in a restaurant.  I couldn’t even understand DHH when he tried to help me.  I couldn’t understand the cashier telling me how much my groceries were.  I couldn’t understand anyone.  I wasn’t getting enough sound to make sense of what I was trying to comprehend in lip (speech) reading.

I figured I had nothing to lose so back to WA I went.  I hoped she’d come up with a miracle and somehow make the Phonaks work for me.  Unfortunately, she could not, but she still came up with a miracle.  “We’re going to try other brands until we find one that works,” she said.  “We’re not done yet!”

And then she ordered a brand I hadn’t really heard much about in all my years of hearing loss. I don’t know why I never heard much about them so I was a little leery about it.  But she ordered Oticon Hearing Aids and the minute she put them in my ears, my life snapped back to how it was before.  Voices were coming out of people’s mouths again, not sounding like they were coming from a tunnel far away.  I was able to put the sounds together with the lips and start reading again.  They work very differently from the Phonaks, and lo and behold, they work for me!  Don’t get me wrong – I still can’t hear and I don’t mean to give the impression that I can.  But they bring enough sound into my ears for me to function and cope the way I did before I tried the Phonaks.  And again, I’m not knocking Phonak.  They’re great.  They just didn’t work well for me.

I’m sharing this so you’ll all know that even when it starts to feel hopeless, don’t give up hope.  There are always people working to help us, to give us products that can enrich our lives, to find more ways to give us a sense of comfort and normalcy.  In this case, Oticon is working for me.  And may we have many successful years together. Thank you from my heart Oticon!

I have been MIA and I owe you all an apology and an explanation.  So here goes:

I’m very sorry for disappearing for so long. It was a dark and stormy night… no seriously, it wasn’t.  It was a nice September evening in Toronto at around 6:00 PM when I decided I needed to know what was in that very high up cabinet above the refrigerator.  DHH was doing something else so I pulled out the stepladder myself and got up there to look in the cabinet. And then it happened – coming down, I missed the last step and went flying.

Smack into the dishwasher went my head.  Thankfully the dishwasher door has some give to it, so I bounced off and didn’t have a serious head injury.  But my right wrist was not so lucky – and yes, I am right handed. I managed to break both the Radius and the Ulna clear through.

I immediately entered a world of pain like I’ve never felt.  DHH quickly put an ice pack on it, he grabbed my bag, and took me crying and moaning to the hospital ER.  But we hate the hospital closest to our house, so we went to one further away that we trust.

I’m going to spare you all the details of the ER and the next six weeks, which were a nightmare.   When it was time to take off the hard cast, I thought ok, it’s over.  Now I’ll get back to normal.  I saw other people in the waiting room get their casts off and they seemed fine.  Imagine my surprise when the cast came off and I couldn’t move my hand or wrist and I was in so much pain, I actually wanted the cast back on.  It seems that I’m one of the few with complications – nerve, tendon, and soft tissue damage.

In mid-November it was time for DHH and me to go to New York again, so they told us to follow up with a hand surgeon here.  I’m still wearing a removable cast to sleep and when I go outside – to protect my wrist in case some idiot woman in Nordstroms knocks me down – yup – or some other clueless idiot swings her packages right into my wrist – check – or any other mishaps that might heaven forbid occur. I’m going for Physical Therapy and I’m still in constant pain, but I’m starting to be able to use and move it more.  It’s slow, but I’m making progress.  I’m determined to have full use and mobility and I’ll do whatever therapy and exercises it takes!

Four things I want to say:

1. I stopped taking prescription painkillers in the third week.  I only take Advil and/or Tylenol.  In spite of the pain, I didn’t want to keep taking the serious stuff.  Ice is my new best friend.
3. I’m starting to be able to type now, and though it hurts a lot, I’m counting it as part of my physical therapy exercise.
5. The hospital staff both in the ER and the Fracture Clinic, were very kind and considerate in relation to my being deaf.  They made sure I understood everything, even when I needed DHH to help.
7. I do not recommend breaking bones so please, learn from my mistakes and be very careful.

So that’s where I’ve been, but now I hope I’m back.  I’ll be back with another post soon, but in the meantime,  I hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Hanukkah and I wish everyone Happy Holidays and the best for the New Year!