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Winter Walk. Scary

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We have had snow covering the grass for about a month. I find walking treacherous There’s often ice below the snow.

the other day I was walking slowly all alone on a bare sidewalk with my cane cane on my right side. My left hand lightly struck something. I turned my head. It was a big big black dog being walked by a man. On a leash. I hadn’t heard a thing. I was all alone or so I thought.

I told the man I couldn’t hear anything and he had scared me. He didn’t say a thing. Passed me. He just kept going.

Dave

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@DaveL

I know that if you are not walking and moving with full abilities anymore, plus you have hearing disabilities, that it is difficult and scary. And add to that, the snow with ice underneath it!

I hope that you had your in? Inadequate though they might seem.

Have you tried getting PT help recently? That could help on one front. I know that I am way overdue for that myself. It is shocking to lose varying degrees of capabilities at once.

Also, you may need to get help to optimize your HAs. As I am learning, that can be a long process.

It’s also scary, as you experienced, to have younger, and more entitled people around you, who disregard that it’s difficult for us older folks to deal with all of the moving people and dogs, ice, etc. all around us.

Getting as much help as possible is key to confronting these difficulties. And, I know, I know, how overwhelming it all seems sometimes. Getting older is not for the faint of heart!

Might be an idea to create a program to boost soft sounds. I find this helps for these types of situations with the Phonaks anyway. Actualyl didn’t realise how much I was missing until I did this. can be a bit overloaded in certai situations to be sure, but I’d ratehr have it on than not know what was going on around me.

I’ve done that. It’s a mask program the owner of this forum published.

My hearing aids are provided by workman’s compensation. I’ve applied for early replacement.

Setup is so important

In reply to @Blue_Pearl1

@Blue_Pearl1

your message is very kind

My mobility is improving. Yet it’s. Traacherous outside. Slippery. I move at the pace of a toddler.

I’m handling stairs inside much better.

Yes. I wear hearing aids all my waking hours. Both of them.

DaveL

I totally understand that! We live next to a very popular 34 mile bike trail in rural southwest Virginia. I walk there and ride our recumbent e-trikes there several times a week. I do change my and to a setting that picks up sound all around rather than keeping it on the main “auto sense” setting. This helps a little, but it is very common for bikes to go racing past me - close - and I never heard them coming - especially in winter when wearing a hat. I have honestly thought of wearing a sign on my back that says “deaf - warn me loudly when passing”. (My friend claims that would make me a target for crime - lol - she worries a lot.)

If steadiness while walking is part of the concern - perhaps a good rollator walker would be helpful to assure you won’t fall if you startle. Might help you feel more confident and walk even more!

I have the same problem as you Joan. I’m 77 and I still walk for miles. My routes often take me onto a river tow path, which doubles as a cycle path. It’s a level, tarmacked surface and most cyclists tend to speed along it. It’s quite frightening when they scream past your shoulder giving you no warning. Some of them have bells or buzzers on their bikes but I tend not to be able to hear them until they are too close. Cyclists seem not to be able to understand the trouble they are causing people, especially us oldies.

Edited

OK, coupla thoughts come to mind from my own experience living a mile high in the boondocks with WAY too much winter (until I moved to a place with nearly all SUMMER!) …

Wear yak trax16 whenever you step outside in winter. Ice AND snow can be treacherously slippery due to inclines, declines, uneven pavement, etc. These were life savers for me when I lived a mile high. It took a nice big FALL on ice year one - walking home from store with carton of eggs I kid you not. Someone mentioned yak trax to me, and I wore them faithfully all winter long and kept on walking - LOTS of it, cuz we lived in a winter wonderland.

I also learned all SUMMER long a mile high to wear these rear-view mirrors whenever we hiked or biked on the trails. I clipped them to my sunglasses and was able to see what-all was coming up WAY too fast on us: caroming cars, madcap bicyclists, kids on bikes, folks pushing strollers, joggers, just all manner of folks who could’ve been exactly in my path had I stepped to one side or the other and not been able to hear or see them. I’d just keep an eye cocked in that rear-vew mirror and avoid any collisions. This model at Amazon is already attached to eyewear if you don’t wear sunglasses or vision glasses.

@DaveL I walk the forest trails and love the fresh air. I don’t get out of the house if there is ice are snow, which are rare here but does happen most every winter at least once. Normal last only a few days. I have lived here 8 years and the longest that I didn’t leave the house was 10 days. I live on top of a ridge and everything is down hill from my home. And being that I am out in the woods the roads don’t get cleared. This winter has been crazy. We have had some really cold and dry time and really warm and damp time. It has caused everyone to have issues with colds and or sinuses. They are predicting possible snow the last of January, but last night we had severe thunderstorms.

In reply to @Weirb

Many cyclists do call out “on your left” as is requested by signs on the trail, however I don’t always hear them either. The speedy ones are actually not what worry me - they know what they are doing for the most part and do judge the distance well. It’s the many tourists who haven’t ridden a bike in years and swerve unexpectedly who I have to watch out for!

In reply to @DaveL

@DaveL

“I’ve done that. It’s a mask program the owner of this forum published.

My hearing aids are provided by workman’s compensation. I’ve applied for early replacement.

Setup is so important”

Yes, setup really is so important, and also time consuming.

Could you please post the program that you were referring to, that the owner of the forum published?

And why do you call it “a mask program”? Because speech is so hard to hear with masks on?

Great that you have applied for early replacement of your aids!

I have something similar I slip over my shoes when it is icey. I’ve probably fallen on my butt due to ice three or four times in the last few weeks. I “know” I’m not going onto anything icey when I go out, so I don’t wear them. Then I see something that needs attention, and….

They are rubber things that stretch around the shoe on the bottom, with metal points in the rubber to help grab the ice.

WH

In reply to @cvkemp

Get a pair of yak trax. I swear by ‘em. O’course, sometimes when roads weren’t cleared, we’d trek to the store, take off the yak trax, do our shopping, put ‘em back ON, and then walk home. But for just getting out and enjoying a nice stroll, these are the best! They fit right over your boots if you get a big enough size.

The snow or ice does not last long enough here to have to get out. My wife and I have two refrigerators and a huge freezer. The last big storm we actually provided food for some of our neighbors.

@cvkemp said:

The snow or ice does not last long enough here to have to get out.

You are LUCKY! When I lived a mile high, I worried about power outages, keeping my rechargeables juiced AND falling on my fanny for 7 mos/yr.

:zany_face:

Here my home is the highest in the Village at 1235 feet. And everything is downhill to the low valley. For the part of the country there are times that we can’t tell if we are in the fog or clouds the temperature is here can range from below zero in the worst of the winter to about 100 degrees in August. This fall and winter has been strange we have had night time temperatures in the teens and daytime temperatures in the upper 70s to almost 80.

@cvkemp said:

This fall and winter has been strange we have had night time temperatures in the teens and daytime temperatures in the upper 70s to almost 80.

!

…and 20 more characters to convey shock and awe at that kind of temp spread! :open_mouth:

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