We with hearing loss have no real community

Thanks everyone. I’m grateful to be able to read your posts.

I think one reason there’s less in the way of help for the hearing impaired is because it is difficult for the able bodied to understand the problem. Blindness is something people can relate to. We’ve all had the experience of bumping into furniture or stepping on toys in the dark. But deafness is something else. I read somewhere that when a passenger explained to the flight attendant that she was hard of hearing and might not respond when spoken to, the flight attendant later brought her safety instructions in braille.

Great analogy … and the tale of the BRAILLE instructions being handed to the hearing-impaired passenger is worthy of a New Yorker cartoon.

I was once told I had to be pushed on board the plane in a wheelchair because i ask for personal notifications of the boarding due to my hearing loss.
People need to be trained, and that training needs to start in kindergarten and all the way up throughout their lives.

Scooter relaxing after our hike, he is my ears on the trail.

Scooter looks very happy, made me smile

Being offered a wheelchair when announcing one is hearing-impaired is fairly benign. When people notice my HAs I often get the impression they believe I must also be mentally impaired.

OMG! I’d DOG-nap him in a NY minute. Is he like a Shiba Inu? Give a HUG from me.

Yes he is a Shiba Inu, very independent and head strong, but also very loving when he is ready. He is curled up on my lap and sleeping at this time. It is a rainy spring day today.

So right! The forum, all you folks, have helped me a lot!

No . Loss of hearing has many causes. This strange eosinophilic asthma with severe sinus and ear problems happens to be the cause of my hearing loss.

No more,I have a RING Doorbell now!Ken:69

I agree it is difficult. If someone was to stuff cotton or something else to muffle sound in their ears for a day, they might get a feeling for what it is like. There was a study like that with some normal hearing people muffling sound for a few days. Most of them got terrible depressed.

I recall several courses of training, when I worked with Deaf Services @montieth I was being trained up as a Communicator Guide for a couple of Deaf/Blind clients we had, whom were Profoundly Deaf & Blind, part of that training entailed being blindfolded, my hearing aids removed, and replaced with ear defenders, so I could hear virtually nothing, and see absolutely nothing! You would then be walked around outside in various scenarios, the Deaf/Blind person holds the arm of the Communicator Guide, usually the left arm, around the elbow, concentration levels for the Client & CG need to be at a premium, it is exhaustingly tiring, and amazingly it is very frightening! For instance, approaching a step or stairway, every time the CG stops in their tracks you know there is some kind of obstacle, but you have no idea what it is, they will lean across and place your other hand on the handrail, you then are aware it’s a stair, they take the first step, you feel their arm rise, so you know to take the step and so forth all the way up…Uneven ground, or a path with gravel in a park are an absolute nightmare and extremely frightening for the D/B Client, it takes a long time to build that trust, and if you start daydreaming as a CG, say like at a kerb to cross the road, and you don’t stop to alert them, they just hit the deck, because they just stepped off the kerb, without knowing an obstacle was there! Communication was by a form of sign language called “Deaf Blind Manual” but that wasn’t very effective on the fly, you had to be stopped, to sign on their hand! Anyway, this training really opened your mind to how a Deaf/Blind person feels with them on your arm, a very stressful experience until they gain your trust… Another of my many jobs, was Deaf Awareness Tutor, I would use the spongy ear defenders in class, and get pairs of students to tell each other a story, one reciting and one recording on paper, no repeats or mime allowed, that was fun, if they missed any of the key words, the story took on a whole new meaning in some instances, absolutely no correlation to the actual story Cheers Kev