Hearing Loss

Hearing loss is a Family Affair

Communication is difficult

Living with a disability requires a lot of help. My ability to hear has been steadily declining for almost 20 years. It was probably caused by the loud rock music of my youth and the years I worked as a union stagehand for rock concerts in the 1970s before hearing protection was required. 

I started wearing basic analog hearing aids in 2005. I graduated to more powerful digital hearing aids in 2010. My hearing loss eventually made work as a trial lawyer impossible by late 2012. Trial work requires being able to hear everything that goes on in the courtroom. I retired from my law practice in 2013. 

My wife and kids have suffered from my hearing loss almost as much as I have. It makes every day conversation much more difficult. We now often have to rely upon a small microphone my wife can wear that connects directly to my hearing aids for me to hear and understand what she has to say, especially in the car or other noisy environments.

My ability to make out spoken words has decreased to the point where ordinary speech is all but unintelligible without my hearing aids.  Even with their assistance, I still need to see a speaker’s mouth and have context to fully understand a conversation. 

 I cannot use a regular telephone handset, but I can listen to my cell phone thanks to a Bluetooth connection between my iPhone and hearing aids. The same goes for television. We use both closed captioning and a Bluetooth audio connection to my aids. Even with the enhancements, I miss about 20 percent of the dialog. Because my loss is more profound in the higher frequencies, music has lost much value for me. I still listen to music from my younger years, filling in the high notes and lyrics from memory rather than hearing them anew.

It is almost impossible for me to carry on a conversation in noisy environments like restaurants, in the car while driving or in a group where more than one person is talking at the same time. Speech in large rooms, like courtrooms and meeting rooms is very difficult to understand.

Over the years, we have developed several rules for communicating that will be helpful for anyone with moderate to severe hearing impairment. 

Stop speaking from another room or across a large space. If I want to speak to my wife, I need to go where she is and the same is true for her.

Don’t speak with your back toward me. I need to see your mouth and body language to enhance understanding. Otherwise, all I hear is sound. When starting a new conversation, give me context like, “I want to talk to you about …….” Please do not start a conversation and continue it while walking away. Speak slowly and distinctly rather than louder. Preface a change of topic with an introduction. It takes me longer to catch on to a new topic without context.

If you want me to understand you, please don’t try to compete with other sounds in the room like the TV or radio, other people talking or while the water, fan or dishwasher are running. Steady sounds from these sources taking up most of my hearing and comprehension capacity. Those with normal hearing can usually sort out conversation from background noise. Hearing aids just amplify all the available sound and it becomes jumbled together and incomprehensible. 

If you want to speak to me, get my attention first. Say my name, tap me on the arm or do something to get me to look at you short of using a water balloon. I tend to concentrate more when reading or watching TV and I won’t understand that you want to talk to me if you don’t get my attention. 

It will help a lot if you remove obstructions to your speech. Take your hand away from your mouth, put the cigarette down, lose the gum. I don’t read lips, but do understand familiar words better by seeing your lips. Accents make comprehension much more complicated. 

Last, but not least, be patient. I will often ask you to repeat a word or phrase if I did not understand it the first or even the second time, especially if you use an unfamiliar word. 

As you might imagine, living with hearing loss can be very isolating. I cannot move about in my world as I once did. Movies and concerts are out. Lectures and speeches are gone too. Restaurants and parties are very difficult. Large groups are just noise. I can handle six people or so, but not too many more. 

Luckily, I now work as a guardian for the elderly and disabled and that allows me to use email and voicemail for much of my communication. Most of my conversations are one on one with others and most care givers understand how to communicate with those with hearing loss so speaking with them is usually easier. These environments and my aids allow me to remain productive and do work that matters. 

Living with hearing loss is not impossible, it just requires adjustments for all in order compensate for the loss.

America is Already Great

America is Already Great

You can see for yourself

If you want to truly understand what a wonderful country we live in, you have to travel and see what it looks like. My partner and I have driven through a lot of it, but we have been able to see the diversity and bounty of America best when traveling by train. Over the years, we have taken Amtrak trains to Pittsburgh, Omaha, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Most recently we traveled from Milwaukee to Emeryville, California just outside of San Francisco. Every trip has shown us both the best and the worst of America.

We first picked up the Amtrak Hiawatha at Milwaukee’s airport stop and took it to Chicago’s Union Station. Along the way, we passed small bedroom communities, villages and cities, farms, businesses small and large and the vacant expanse designated for the ever-changing Foxconn debacle. Arriving in Chicago, we passed through rust-belt abandoned factories and buildings adorned with some spectacular graffiti artwork. Not to be outdone, the street artists have also beautified bridges, tunnels and freight cars waiting for the next load on sidings off the main line.

Union Station, built in a time when elegance and style meant prosperity, still serves as one of Amtrak’s main hubs sending passenger trains in every direction carrying all who can afford the fare. We waited for our train, the California Zephyr, in the Metropolitan Lounge where we were served free coffee and soda and browsed a small salad bar. When our train was called, a redcap took us and our bags to our car on a powered cart.

Our days of sitting up in airplane type coach train seats are long over. We opted instead for one of the bedroom units in the sleeper cars. Ours was cozy and slightly tattered, as much of Amtrak has become. We had a couch that converted into a super twin size bed and a smaller bed that folded down from the ceiling, requiring a ladder to enter. When configured as a day room, we could move around. At night, not so much. There was also a single chair that faced the couch, a small sink and a closet that contained a toilet and doubled as the shower. The car attendant handed the changeover and took reservations for meals in the dining car. All our meals were included in the fare.

We left Chicago at 2 pm and wandered west through the suburbs into flat farm fields that stretched to and into Iowa. We crossed the Mississippi around sunset after a nice meal. Meal seating is at tables for 4 so we usually sat across from other couples and all of the ensuing conversations were interesting and lively. We only encountered one grumpy silent pair on our trip.

We slept though Iowa and Nebraska in woke up early the next day slightly east of Denver. After a quick breakfast, we grabbed seats in the observation car. The whole day our train climbed into and passed through the spectacular Rocky Mountains. We soon entered snow capped ranges that lifted into the sky. The steep, rugged terrain made it very clear just how difficult it must have been for those who laid the first tracks across the land. We passed through over 35 tunnels that went through mountains too tall to cross or across slopes prone to avalanches. Even though it was late in April, we saw places where the snow was still over six feet deep along-side the tracks.

By nightfall, we were back in our room sleeping soundly as we traveled through Utah. The next morning, we awoke in the high desert of Nevada just east of Reno. After another quick breakfast, it was back to the observation car so we could watch as we climbed up the Sierra Nevada range and into California. Again, the snow piled up and the tunnels were long. We passed forests of lodgepole pine surrounding clear mountain lakes. 

In stark contrast to the beauty of the mountains, we descended into the central valley of California which is flat and permanently irrigated to feed the country’s insatiable appetite for fruits and vegetables. As we had across the plains, freight trains with oil tankers and coal cars passed in the opposite direction, often interrupting the view. 

As we got lower and warmer, the trackside became increasingly populated with tent camps. We saw all the homeless human hues in these camps that continued sporadically until we reached our city destination. In a country of such bounty and wealth, it is criminal that so many live in such precarious conditions.

Our ultimate destination was a small community north of the bay area, Pt. Reyes Station. It is a sleepy farming village, except on weekends when tourists come to visit the ocean and the National Seashore which protects a unique coastal forest area. Pt. Reyes is located on top of the San Andreas fault that runs off the mainland into the Pacific Ocean though Tomales Bay, just outside of town. We come here to recharge and chill out walking pristine beaches on sea shores filled with birds, seals and whales as they migrate up and down the coast.

We in America are truly blessed to have these places to see and enjoy. Once traveled to, they are impossible to forget and command our ongoing protection for future generations to enjoy.