In January I attended a funeral for a Deaf man.
He's the brother of a good friend. I didn't know the man himself very well but did go bowling with him and his wife once as part of a church activity. He was not well known in the deaf community as he pretty much kept to himself and his hearing wife. He did not have strong ASL skills so it was hard for him to communicate with other deaf. At his funeral, there were only a few deaf present and all but one were from the church community. The rest were family. The whole service was interpreted and my friend did a song in ASL. It was lovely.
In February I got my hearing aid again.
With the help of MRS, I was able to afford to purchase a new hearing aid. They had actually fit me for two of them. I had never had two aids at the same time but was willing to try it. I made arrangements with the office to be allowed to test wearing two aids for a few hours to see what I thought. That was weird. It was awful. The aid on my right ear was just fine as that is the side I'm used to wearing my aid. But the left side was so powerful it hurt to wear it. Everything was greatly amplified and I actually cringed with discomfort. I had the volume all the way down and it still "hurt". My husband and I had gone out for lunch at a quiet restaurant and realized we should have gone to a place with more noise to test this so after we ate, we went to Sam's Club and my left side hurt so bad from the loud sounds that I took it off. I was fine with the right side and I had the volume all the way up on that aid. When we returned to the office, I told them I could not tolerate having two aids at the same time and would only be purchasing one of them. I found out at that point the technician could have been able to adjust the volume on the left side aid to make it more "realistic" but I decided not to further the experiment and just go with one aid. Having one aid was enough for me to function and hear what I needed to hear. No matter how loud things got, I would never have perfect hearing or be able to understand without lipreading. I had since returned to the office and had the volume adjusted on the right side aid so I had a little "room" to increase volume if I wanted. Its cool to see how the computer is able to make these changes in just a few clicks.
So... I've had my aid over a month now and its as if I never lost it for 6 months. Things are normal as they are going to be. I only wear it when I go out in public and not at home. I'm happy that the battery lasts a month or me. YEAH.
Deaf Cafe, Fint continues
Other things happening is my continued involvement with Deaf Cafe, Flint. Next Saturday is our April program. Our theme will be Freedom is not Free. We will remember all the soldiers who gave up their lives for us. Last night I watched the movie GLORY... wow.. all those men are heroes to me! To everyone who gave of their time, energy and yes, their lives for this country and our freedom, I say THANK YOU.
Big Big news.... there is a new Deaf Church in Michigan. I will write about that in my next blog!
