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I give up

~ Vera ~ 5 Comments

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Most of the time I look for ways to continue doing what I’ve always done.  As I say in About this Blog – “determinedly carrying on, doggedly trying not to let my ears stop me doing stuff”.  On the other hand, sometimes I decide that it’s better for my sanity to give up on something.

That can be a tough decision.  I used to like going to the theatre occasionally but as my deafness progressed it became harder and harder to understand what the actors were saying.  I coped to begin with.  I would buy tickets for seats near the front that maximised the chances of hearing and lip reading.  I would go to plays where I knew what was going to happen.  (Romeo and Juliet anyone?  I might miss some of the dialogue but I knew the plot).  I would book for things where great visual content was the main draw – the puppetry in War Horse, for example, was so astonishing that the fact I couldn’t follow the dialogue didn’t bother me so much.  But eventually I found it too depressing to sit there for three hours not hearing stuff.

I explored captioned performances and was optimistic that this would be the solution, given how much I enjoy subtitled TV.  But they didn’t work for me.  The problem I found was that I couldn’t read the captions and watch the performance at the same time, which I can with subtitled television.  Either I was following the script or watching the actors but I couldn’t do both.

Actually, I’ve puzzled over why my reaction to captioned theatre was so negative when other people with hearing loss love it.

Perhaps the answer partly lies in the degree of hearing loss.  In a recent post on her blog Living with Hearing Loss Shari Eberts talks about loving captioned performances because she can flick her eyes to the captions (at the side of the stage) whenever she misses some dialogue.  The captions lag slightly behind the performance so she can get a quick bit of help and then go back to the play.  But nowadays I can’t make sense of ANY of the stage dialogue so I find that I have my eyes glued constantly to the captions.  I might as well sit at home and read the script.

Perhaps the problem lies in where the captions are.  On the television, or a DVD, the captions are at the bottom of the screen.  The same thing applies at the cinema, or it did at the one film I have been to in years (Star Wars in 3D, at Christmas – even in 3D the subtitles were perfectly clear and I comfortably watched the whole thing, just as if it was a TV programme).  But at the theatre the captions are off to the side, at least they have been at every performance I’ve tried.  Perhaps THAT’s the problem.

Anyway, whatever the cause of the problem, I tried, and tried again, but it was miserable.  There are few things as depressing as sitting in a theatre trying to have a good time and failing, and feeling very deaf.  So I gave up.  Let it go.

On a more trivial level, I made a similar decision about a very popular local archaeology day (archaeology is a hobby of mine) where people give short talks on a variety of topics.  The community archaeology group I belong to has a winter programme of talks in a different venue, and we set things up so that people with hearing loss can cope.  I make sure that I get a seat in the front row, near the speaker.  We leave the lights on (you can’t lip read in the dark).  The room is fairly small and carpeted (no echo effect).  There is a good loop system and we know how it works – it’s amazing how many venues don’t realise you have to switch them on.  I manage fine.

But other venues can be much more difficult, even with sympathetic organisers who do what they can to help.  The event I’m referring to is held in a massive echo-y hall.  Even in the front row, on loop setting, with the lights on, I struggle.  People with hearing loss will know what I mean when I say that sometimes it is such hard work understanding speech that all meaning is lost.  It is as if the brain is working so hard to make the noises into words that there is no brain left to make the words make sense.  It was like that.  Give up.  It’s only one event a year.

It’s a dilemma though, because life would be pretty awful if it was just about stopping doing things you enjoy. Sometimes it’s right to refuse to give up – to find a way to make things continue to be possible.

If that fails (like it did with me in the examples above) it can help to find new things to act as replacements.  A recent enthusiasm of mine is for contemporary dance (watching it, I hasten to add, not doing it).  The BBC had an excellent series last year, a competition for young dancers in various styles – ballet, contemporary, hip hop and south Asian.  It was fantastic.  I’d also loved, a couple of years ago, seeing Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, with the male swans.  (It was so extraordinary I went twice).  So I’ve set myself the task of seeing some more productions, the most recent of which was BalletBoyz at Sadler’s Wells.  Not everyone’s cup of tea, I know, but I’m loving it.  I can’t hear the music properly but that doesn’t seem to matter, the visual impact is so extraordinary.

I think that’s the answer.  Sometimes you have to decide to abandon things, for your sanity’s sake, but you also need to make sure to have some new enthusiasms bubbling away to fill the gap.

Any other suggestions anyone?

PS Please don’t let me put you off trying captioned theatre performances.  Lots of people really love them.

Image Copyright: nikolae / 123RF Stock Photo

What’s in a name?

~ Vera ~ 5 Comments

I called this blog more than a bit deaf with some trepidation, because the terms people use to describe their hearing loss can be a bit of a minefield.  What am I – someone with a hearing loss? hearing impaired? hard of hearing? deaf? deafened?. I would say yes to any of those descriptions.  There is no standard way to describe hearing loss.  Indeed, how I refer to myself has changed a lot over time, because so has my hearing.

Right now, I almost always describe myself as deaf, because I have learnt that is the best way to get people to realise just how poor my hearing is.

In the beginning, my hearing loss was a diagnosis rather than anything that had much practical impact.  I might have said “I’ve been told my hearing has been affected by a bad dose of the flu I had last year – it might get worse as I get older” but mainly I just ignored it.  I was able to.

When I first wore hearing aids I probably would have said I was hard of hearing, or had hearing problems.  At this stage my understanding of speech was certainly being affected.  Things weren’t too bad though.  I would have been starting to ask people to repeat themselves but I could still confidently use the telephone.

As things worsened I moved on to digital hearing aids.  By this time I was definitely having problems understanding speech.  Perhaps I would have said “I have very poor hearing”.  And then I distinctly remember starting to say “I’m deaf”.  Why?  Because I learnt that was the best way to get across to people that my hearing was actually pretty lousy.  The follow up information is crucial – for example, “I need to lip read to understand you so please could you face me when you are speaking” – but first you have to get the person’s attention.  I found that saying “I’m hard of hearing” led to people assuming I could understand much more than I can.

Some people with hearing loss strongly dislike some terminology.  They may feel, for example, that the term “hearing impaired” implies that they are impaired as a person.  I can see what they mean but I don’t feel it that way.  My hearing IS impaired.  Saying that doesn’t make me feel that I am.  (But I try to avoid the term, because of how much other people hate it).

Some people associate the word deaf exclusively with people who sign.  People who sign certainly describe themselves as deaf and sometimes as Deaf (with a capital D).  So I felt nervous at first about using the term deaf about myself.  I haven’t learnt to sign, because I have lived for 60 years in a world of hearing people – hearing pretty well myself for most of that time.  My friends, family and acquaintances almost all hear and I want to stay in that world with them.  For me, describing myself as deaf was a move I made entirely for practical purposes and the name of this blog sums up what I am.

Reasons to be cheerful

~ Vera ~ 2 Comments

Last week I was delayed for a while at Kings Cross railway station, because of an incident on the line at Stevenage.  I’d just said goodbye to my friend Jane, after a great couple of days in London, with her wishing me a problem-free journey home. Then – oops – the 14.05 to Leeds is cancelled (along with several other trains).  I can see the cancellation on the digital display but what I can’t decipher is the station announcements, which are coming thick and fast.  To me they are just a loud, crackly racket.  Luckily, there are two railway staff on the concourse so I ask one of them what is happening and they explain.  I can either wait here for the line to re-open – they don’t know when that will be – or head north via Sheffield (if you know northern English rail connections a dubious alternative if ever I heard one).  So I stay put.  But the announcements keep coming.  I ask the helpful railway man again – nothing different.  More announcements.  I start worrying that I might miss something important, but I can’t ask the railway man what’s happening every two minutes – he has a long queue of people needing help.  Then I ask the perfect stranger I’m standing next to if she can tell me what’s going on.  I’m deaf, I explain, heading for Leeds.  She immediately agrees and listens out for me, explaining that she is waiting for a Newcastle train.  A man has overheard our conversation and says that he is going to Leeds; he’s just been told that the delay shouldn’t be too long.  The two of them mainly just get on with their own waiting but when something relevant is announced they tell me.  I just love the matter-of-fact helpfulness of it.  They make me feel normal. THANK YOU anonymous people at Kings Cross.

Eventually the trains start running again and I am only an hour late getting home.

That was one small example of the many acts of helpfulness that I experience all the time.  My lovely husband repeats himself a gazillion times a day, patiently and with good humour.  My friends look out for me in dozens of ways – making sure I don’t miss the joke (“did you catch that Vera? – we were just remembering how funny it was when……”), playing musical chairs in cafes so I’m in the best lip reading position, keeping a seat for me in the front row of meetings. Complete strangers…….well, Kings Cross is a great example.  I say “sorry, I’m deaf, could you please…….?” and people do it, by and large.  Sometimes people forget but – hey – so would I in their shoes.  I try to just shrug it off and remember all the times when things go well.

Sometimes strange things happen.  Some time ago, I became convinced that everyone in the medical profession had been sent on some really bad deaf awareness course where they had been told that they MUST use dramatic hand gestures to accompany whatever they said to people with hearing loss.  It was really disconcerting.  For example, one day I was sitting in the waiting room of the local hospital after a routine breast screening appointment, waiting to be told that the X-ray was clear enough to be sent for scrutiny.  Another woman and I were sat there in our pink NHS dressing gowns, chatting to pass the time.  The nurse came out of her office.  “Mrs Brearey” (waving madly in my direction), “the X-ray is fine” (two prominent thumbs up signs and a big grin), “you can get changed now” (she points firmly at the changing rooms), ”then go home” (she points equally firmly at the exit).  The look on the face of the woman I had been talking to was priceless.

But it’s good to laugh.  I find it helps a lot.

PS  If you would like to read another blogger’s take on the travel problems of people with hearing loss click here.  Shari Eberts reports on excellent developments in the service offered by Delta Airlines.  Now, if Kings Cross had a real time visual display of the station announcements that would definitely be progress.

PPS A HUGE thank you to Hearing Link, who have included More Than A Bit Deaf on the blogs page of their website (click here to see the other featured blogs) and on their Facebook and Twitter pages.  Wow.

Bad hearing days

~ Vera ~ 3 Comments

 

Everyone has good days and bad days; we probably all have strategies for coping with that.  I’ve found it useful to have specific strategies for bad hearing days – those times when there has been an embarrassing misunderstanding or some other depressing hearing loss-related event.  Mainly I feel (about my hearing) “I can cope with this”, but sometimes I wobble (I’m sure everyone does).  Over time I’ve learnt that the best way to recover my equilibrium is to do things I love that don’t involve my ears.

I lose myself in a good book.  I cook.  I watch a favourite TV programme or a DVD (with subtitles).  Curled up on the settee with my husband, watching a subtitled film, is a great way to remember that life is good.  I write – this blog for example – or do some more research into the history of our house (nobody talks online, or in the library).

Or – a favourite – I take our dog for a long walk.  Our dog, Izzy, is not a specially trained hearing dog for deaf people.  She’s just a normal dog.  But she is great company, as a hugely enthusiastic walking companion.  And she never says anything!  So a walk with her is just what I need on a bad hearing day.

For one of my favourite walks you leave the house and head down the hill to the bottom of the little valley we live in.  There is then a steep climb, through fields, up the other side.  It is steep enough, and long enough, to get your heart pounding and lungs working (if you are me anyway, Izzy trots along easily, breathing normally).  Nearly at the top, when you think you MUST have a rest, there is a bench to sit on.  The views from there are tremendous and you get your breath back.

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Izzy at the bench on the hillside

A little further on, you reach a track across a wide expanse of rough moorland pasture.  This leads eventually to a quiet lane, heading back down hill to another village.  I love this lane.  You’ve done all the hard work of the walk now and can just stride along, admiring the view.  On a clear day you can see Ingleborough (one of Yorkshire’s Three Peaks), some 20 miles away.

Back at the valley bottom a disused railway track leads back to our village.  Izzy has been on the lead all the time so far, because of the sheep in the fields and the (very few) vehicles on the lane, but now she can be off the lead and have a good run.  We usually divert into her favourite field (no livestock) so she can charge about, chase balls and have a drink in the stream.

Then back home, feeling massively better.  I find it impossible to feel fed up after a good long walk in beautiful countryside.  My “I can cope with this” programme is thoroughly re-booted.

Do you have survival strategies for bad hearing days?

 

 

Excellent lip reading – wrong answer

~ Vera ~ 2 Comments

 

In my last post I talked about a very good lip reading class that I used to go to.  My friend Jill recently reminded me about a funny lip reading mistake that happened one week, before I joined the group.

Part of each class would be devoted to trying understand some speech by relying entirely on lip reading.  The tutor, Susan, would “speak” the words normally, but without making any sound at all.

This time, the exercise was about things that Yorkshire is famous for.  Susan read out a list…….Yorkshire pudding, York Minster, David Hockney, Wensleydale cheese and then………but what was that word????  Half the group thought the word looked like marzipan but why on earth would Yorkshire be famous for marzipan???  Puzzled faces…..

Then Susan remembered her accent, and tried again.  “Brass bands” everyone shouted.  Of course.

What on earth was going on here?  First point – some consonants look exactly the same on the lips.  It is one of the reasons why lip reading is so difficult and so based on context.  (If you tell me what the topic of conversation is I’m much more likely to understand the words you are saying because the options to choose from are reduced). M, B and P all look the same on the lips when you sound them muh, buh and puh.  Try it in front of a mirror.  The word could have begun with any of them.

But the second and most important point was that Susan was (initially, until she remembered she was speaking to a group of northerners) pronouncing “brass” in the southern English way, as “brarse”.  This changes the shape of the vowel sound on the lips.  Again – try it.  Look in a mirror and say a long “ah” then a short “a” – they look quite different.  So “brass” could have begun with M, P or B and then was followed by an “ah” sound.  Then “bands” could have begun with an M, P or B and was followed by a short “a” sound.  Marzipan is completely logical.

M – ah – S – P – a – N.

Sometimes you just can’t tell the difference between one word and another.  Or, as Susan used to say – “excellent lip reading, wrong answer”.

It is also why I will sometimes mutter to my husband if we meet someone for the first time and I am struggling – “tell me what her accent is”-  because it really does help to know.

Quite a lot of lip reading is guesswork.  Sometimes you get it right.  Sometimes you don’t.  “Would you like to come and see?” looks much the same on the lips (and sounds much the same to me) as “would you like a cup of tea?” but it can be bemusing for my friends when they think they’ve invited me to view their vegetable patch and I say “oh, yes please, milk but no sugar”.

People with good hearing sometimes assume that lip reading is possible in situations when it isn’t.  I once had two people tell me at the end of a group holiday that they had been avoiding me ever since I told them I needed to lip read – because they thought I could “read” everything they were saying – even from far away.  They didn’t say what they had been so worried I would understand but they should have been reassured – I can’t do that.

Sometimes the media consult “lip reading experts” if they want to know what some celebrity has whispered to another that has been missed by the microphones.  The best example of this that I can remember was when Prince William married Kate.  What had he said to her on the balcony before “the kiss”?  What had the Queen said?  You can still find all this stuff on the internet, but the funny thing is that all the “experts” came up with something different – which is not at all surprising to us deaf people.  It’s hard.

Actually, at the time of the Royal Wedding I confess I did dabble in a little attempted spying.  There was a point when William was waiting at the altar for the bridal party to arrive and Harry, the best man, turned to him and said something.  It was on YouTube and I watched it several times.  I thought he said “wait ‘til you see the dog”, but, as there were no corgis amongst the bridesmaids, had to write it off as another lip reading failure.

 

Now I hear you, now I don’t

~ Vera ~ 4 Comments

A couple of years ago I went to an excellent lip reading class.  There is nothing quite like spending an hour or two every couple of weeks with a group of people who know EXACTLY what you mean about hearing loss to restore your sanity.  As well as teaching lip reading the tutor, Susan, would lead various other discussions on hearing loss-related topics.  One week we did an exercise that imagined going on a country walk and identifying all the things that affected our ability to understand the people we were walking with.

So imagine.….you are walking side by side along a wide track through a grassy field and chatting easily to someone – having a lovely time.  Then…whoops….the path narrows and you have to walk in single file – lip reading over for a while.  After a while, hurrah, back on the grassy track – no problems.  Conversation resumes.  A few hundred yards further on you have to pick your way carefully through a very muddy and churned up field, watching carefully where you put your feet.  Uh-oh – no lip reading here.

The exercise went on, with the group getting excitedly carried away recalling all the things that hinder us chatting on a country walk – a very loud waterfall, getting near a busy road with a lot of traffic noise, walking on a crunchy gravel path, a strong wind gets up….. (you wouldn’t believe the noise that wind makes rushing over hearing aids – putting your hood up helps but then that hinders turning your head round to see someone’s face, and the hood can make your hearing aids whistle….oh well….).  We had a lovely time sympathising with each other and laughing, but also remembering how difficult it must be for someone with good hearing to understand what on earth is going on with us – from chatty to silent to back again in moments for little apparent (to them) reason.

And that’s just on a country walk.  We then got onto kitchens (noisy hard surfaces, kettles, dishwashers, extractor fans…….) as opposed to carpeted living rooms (much better for hearing in) and other scenarios too many to list.

No wonder there’s a catch phrase “she can hear when she wants to”.  That’s what it must look like.  But that’s not really what is going on.

 

Translation

~ Vera ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been asked by an American friend (thank you Greg) to provide a translation of what the plumber from Lancashire said, in my last post (Deafinitely Not Funny).  I’ll give it a go.  He said (roughly) “you will struggle with me then, madam, I’m chewing a piece of candy.”

Translations to other dialects very welcome…….you could leave a comment.

Deafinitely not funny

~ Vera ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been trying to find funny cartoons about deafness, and it has been surprisingly difficult.

If you look on the net you can find cartoons, but a substantial proportion feature someone shouting at a deaf person.  Shouting at someone with hearing loss is not a great thing to do.  Firstly because it feels just as aggressive to the recipient as if you were shouting in anger.  Secondly, and more importantly, because it makes it far harder to lip read what someone is saying, because shouting distorts the natural lip shapes.  In any case, with modern hearing aids volume is rarely the problem.

Thankfully, in real life people don’t shout at me.  In fact, the loveliness of people I meet casually and try to communicate with never ceases to amaze me.  I say something like “I’m deaf.  I can only understand speech if I can see your face, so that I can lip read” and people respond “OK, fine”.  They turn to look at me and they largely remember to keep looking at me.  If they forget (understandably, most people don’t need their eyes to hear) and turn away I might say “Sorry, I didn’t catch that”. They will say “Oh, I forgot, sorry” and turn their head to face me again.  They never start bellowing.

People don’t even start shouting if I still have trouble understanding.  This happens because lip reading is difficult and usually at least partly based on guesswork.  (I feel another post coming on but let’s leave that one for the moment).  The window cleaner looked bemused when it took me four goes to get “have you paid for last time?” but he didn’t raise his voice.  Nor did the supermarket checkout operator when it took me a similar number of attempts to understand “have you had a good day so far?”  (Answer…..not really).  Believe me, I can understand why people would want to have a good shout in these circumstances, which makes it all the more creditable that people keep their cool and persist so cheerfully.

It’s not always plain sailing.  One day I said my little spiel to a plumber come to mend a radiator leak and he replied, in broad Lancashire, “tha’ll have trouble wi’ me then lass, ah’ve got toffee in’t mouth”.  But we managed.

 

 

 

 

 

Decisions Decisions

~ Vera ~ Leave a comment
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Copyright: Cole123RF / 123RF Stock Photo

When I first had hearing aids I grew my very short hair slightly longer to hide them.  It was a vanity thing.  When people said “goodness, I didn’t know you had hearing problems – you could never tell” I was very pleased.  This isn’t an approach everyone with a hearing loss shares.  The letters page of the magazine produced by Action on Hearing Loss (formerly the RNID) sometimes reverberates with people getting very cross about manufacturers who advertise hearing aids as “invisible…..no-one will know you are wearing them”.  They feel that we should be more upfront about our deafness, and stop it being quite so much a hidden disability.  I can see their point, but admit that I was quite happy to hide for as long as I could.

Things have changed now that my hearing is much worse.  I’ve got very short hair again and everyone can see my hearing aids.  That’s a good thing now, because people I meet casually might get a first prompt that all is not well (that is, before I completely misunderstand what they say and veer off on some strange conversational tangent).  I also like it that other people with hearing loss sometimes come up to me and strike up a conversation, starting it, “I see you have hearing aids……”

So my view is that we all reach individual decisions about what works for us on this, and that might change over time.  We shouldn’t criticise others for their choices.

Writing about those decisions reminded me of the tiny deafness-related decisions I make, many times, every day.  Sometimes, as you all know, people with hearing problems pretend they have heard something when they haven’t.  We shouldn’t do it, because it is all too easy to make a disastrous mistake and nod and smile when the right response would be to say *oh how terrible, I’m so sorry”.  But there are times when my ability to say yet again, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that, could you repeat it for me” just fails me – I’ve said it so many times that day. I decide to zone out for a while.

There’s also the aspect of trying not to completely dominate other peoples’ conversations.  When I am with more than a couple of other people there are inevitably conversations going on between the others that are not particularly directed at me.  A person without hearing loss would be able to hear all of it and know when to chip in, but you would be driven mad if I interrupted every time anyone said something that I didn’t catch. So I decide when to butt in and when not to.

There is also the issue of deciding how much to explain to people you don’t really “meet” but who you exchange some pleasantries with.  An example of that scenario is with an artist who, last summer, was painting a scene on a local canal towpath where I often walk our dog.  As I passed him sat at his easel I was mainly focussing on how to stop a friendly but sometimes shall-we-say-over-exuberant black Labrador causing oil paint mayhem but I would call out “Good Morning” and walk on by.  One day I was fairly certain I could hear the man saying something as the dog and I charged past.  So I turned and said “I’m sorry, did you say something?  I’m deaf and didn’t catch it”.  “Ahhh” he said “that explains it…I’ve been trying to talk to you the past two or three times I’ve seen you but you just ignore me”.  So we had a chat.  Indeed the next time I saw him he had researched how to say “Good morning Vera” in sign language (which was a shame because, living a life surrounded by people who can hear, I’ve never learnt it).  He and I became firm friends, until his painting was finished and he moved on to some other place.  It was an excellent example of how people can assume you are being rude, or standoffish, by ignoring them.  On the other hand, it’s not really feasible to tell your life story to everyone you pass on a walk.

So many decisions.  I was somewhat horrified to read recently the theory that we all have our daily quota of decision making ability, and once that’s gone decisions get far harder.  If it’s true I’m destined for a life of dithering, as all my decision making quota gets used up on variants of the above.

 

Tweet Tweet

~ Vera ~ 3 Comments

As I explain in About This Blog it has been around 40 years since I heard birdsong. I can hear rooks and ducks if they are very close by (with their deep “caw caw” or “quack quack”) but that’s about it. Anything in the upper octaves escapes me completely. It doesn’t upset me. In fact, I really like it when people say “oh listen – the first curlew” (they return to nest around here in March) or “the birds are really loud this morning – spring is definitely coming”. It keeps me in touch.

Actually, I admit, if a bird with a loud high pitched song is REALLY close by, and it is otherwise quiet, I CAN hear something. I can hear the very deep part of their song. So a blackbird or thrush will sound “crack, cruck, crackity” because I can’t hear all the nice melodic bits. Today I was out with the dog, everything was calm and peaceful and rural and suddenly one of those “crack, cruckity” noises came from very close by. I peer about, stand still, annoy the dog (she wants to be off chasing her ball, not stood here staring at trees) and then there it is – a song thrush on a high branch singing away like billy-o. It is so close I can see its bill moving – to sounds lost to me except for bits of the bass line.

Now for the funny part. When I was a child my grandpa, in common with a lot of elderly men in mining areas of the North East, bred canaries. He had an aviary in the garden and I spent hours and hours in there with him looking after Peter and Pam, Dick and Dolly and the rest (I still have the book he recorded their names in). So, when I see a bird like that song thrush singing, in my head the sound I hear, or rather the sound I imagine, is a canary. It must be imprinted in my brain because I heard it so often way back then.

I don’t mind at all if you laugh. I find it hilarious that I see a song thrush or blackbird singing and my brain “hears” a fifty year old canary.

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calm, peaceful, rural