 chapter, and we're very happy and pleased to be able to have Sherry Eberts and Gail Hannon here to talk about their new book, Here and Beyond, How to Live Skillfully with Hearing Laws. Anyway, what I was about to say, we are a year late. We were supposed to be presenting on almost the exact same day in 2022, but life happened. But we're here now, and we're delighted to be speaking to all of you from around the US. That's wonderful. And we're delighted to be able to talk about how we can live more skillfully with hearing laws. We don't use the term skillfully lightly. As two women with hearing laws, we have learned the hard way that there's an easier way. We can become better at living well with hearing laws. We can become more skilled at getting the most out of any of this thing situation. And we can take charge and be in control of our own hearing law journey. Not just as the participants that we are, but full active, even more fully engaged as people who deserve to hear and be heard. And the other reason that we like the word skills is because a skill is something that you can learn. It's something you can practice. It's something you can get better at. And we really think that a skills-based approach can help any person with hearing laws regardless of how long they've had it. And that's really what we're going to focus on today in our discussion. It's based not only on our personal experiences, but also on those of thousands of other people like us. And it's backed up also by hearing science. And it incorporates modern hearing care principles like person-centered care. And Gail and I have individually been dedicated to this philosophy for many years because we really experienced the life-changing difference that it makes. And we've put everything we know into our book here and beyond. And it's really the book we wish we had at the start of our journeys. So we're very excited to share some of the highlights with you. But first we're going to start off by sharing our stories because our stories are always such a good way to build that personal connection. So I'm going to go first because I'm older. I first became aware of my hearing loss when my mommy told me way back in the dark ages there. My mom was a nurse who realized that her two-year-old daughter was either very stubborn or there was something else going on. And the doctor confirmed that it was congenital hearing loss of cause unknown, still unknown today, but lots of potential culprits such as a low-birthway, difficult birth experience, all sorts of things. And I went every year to the pediatric ear, nose, and throat doctor and the verdict was always the same. It's a little worse, come back next year, sorry, a hearing aid won't help. And that was the wisdom of the time that my hearing loss was mild as a child, moderate as a teenager, and then progressively worse after that. They felt that the aids of the time were those body aids that would be more harmful to my residual hearing than helpful. But my parents emphasized the importance of good communication and self-advocacy. But they spoke on my behalf for many, for those younger years, and my teachers were always advised, but the only educational strategy that they could offer was for me to sit at the front of the class. You know, I mean, I was a good student and doing well was important to me. The teachers had annoying habits such as turning their backs to right on the blackboard and walking around the classroom. And I was an experienced rubber-necker and I learned to follow the basic hearing loss rule, though sit where you can see the lips. And at 20, in a life-changing moment for me, I switched doctors and I had a hearing aid within a month. Life changed. It was very loud, but it was better. And over the next two years, excuse me, two decades, as my hearing got worse, I depended on a succession of better hearing aids. The worse my hearing got, the better the technology got. And I became a very good speech reader. I also became very adept at bluffing my way through difficult listening situations. Now, from where I'm sitting now, I look back and I realize that I felt inferior in some way. I was constantly embarrassed by my mishears, by saying the wrong things, cutting people off, speaking too loudly. At 40 for the first time, I reached out to other people with hearing loss. Another transformational decision. I was pregnant and I needed help to make sure I wouldn't harm my baby. I mean, what if I didn't hear him crying in the night? I learned that husband jabs you in the ribs and up you get. What if I didn't hear him burp? Would he blow up? Who tells you these things? Other people with hearing loss tell you these things. I went to a hearing loss conference and I walked in one person and I walked out another. I was stunned to learn that I wasn't alone. I felt my negative attitude fading away. And I became passionate about hearing loss advocacy. I started creating content, presentations, drama, comedy, performance pieces that showed the impact of living with hearing loss. I became involved with many organizations and I became a writer. I wanted to write a book. I just never knew that it was going to be about hearing loss. I wrote my first book, The Way I Hear It, in 2015. I've been writing for Hearing Health Matters for a million years. And then in 2015 I reached out to my now very dear friend, Sherry Ebert, to write Here and Beyond. So my hearing loss journey continues. I got a cochlear implant a few years ago. I developed tinnitus a few years ago. So my journey continues. And even now I learn. And the more I learn, the better I communicate. Okay. So I first noticed my hearing loss in my mid-20s. But my journey began well before that, watching my father struggle with his own hearing issues. And he was very stigmatized by it. He would do almost anything to keep it a secret. He even had his hair grown long over his ears, well after that was fashionable. At family parties, he would be found off by himself, sitting with his back to the festivities. And as a child, I didn't really understand why. But when I developed my own hearing loss, I certainly understood. He was probably having trouble hearing in that loud party space. And he just couldn't bring himself to keep trying. So when I first discovered my hearing loss, I hid it. I was following in his footsteps. I was embarrassed and ashamed and I'm not sure why, but this lasted for many years. But once I had children of my own, everything changed for me. Because I saw them watching me do the same things I had watched my father do. And I was hiding my hearing loss. I was laughing at jokes I hadn't heard. I was isolating myself. And I realized I was passing on this same stigma to another generation. That was not something that I really wanted to do. I definitely did not want to do that. So I finally decided to accept my hearing loss. And I did. I started wearing my hearing aids all the time and teaching my family and my friends how they could help me to communicate better. I refuse to let my hearing loss isolate me. And it's not always easy, as we all know, but it is certainly worth it. And now I am an advocate for people like me. I write a weekly blog at livingwithhearingloss.com. And during the pandemic, co-produced a hearing loss documentary with some other advocates called We Hear You. And then, of course, writing Here and Beyond with the fabulous Gail Hannon. And I hope that by sharing my story that I will help others live more comfortably with their own hearing issues. So as you can see from our stories, there are similarities and differences and ups and downs, right? Because just because you've been living with hearing loss for a long time, it doesn't mean that you're necessarily good at it. But the amazing thing to me about our stories is that over the years and through trial and error and by meeting and learning from other people with hearing loss, we each found our way to a similar set of skills and strategies that help us live well with it. And when we talked about this with one another, what became clear was that when we shifted our goal from hearing better to communicating better, that made all the difference. And getting this straight, finally, this is one. You're doing great, Gail. Oh, thank you, Sherry. So let's talk about how you can live more skillfully with your hearing loss, too. And I say that and you probably all of you are living skillfully to some degree. So I don't want to be patronized. We're just saying we're just sharing what we have learned. And we just want to share that with you. So most of us, and I'm sure you've experienced this, most of us don't start our journey with the big picture. While hearing care providers are crucial to setting the stage and laying the groundwork for our success, most of them do not provide the information that we need beyond what to expect from hearing aids. We need to see that hearing loss is, for most of us, permanent. And it was only when we were looking back that Sherry and I realized the complicated journey that we had been on for years. And our journey could have been so much easier with some foreknowledge that we weren't provided with, for example, for most of us, hearing aids and cochlear implants are not a standalone cure. And our experience is that most of us still rely to some degree on visual cues and other methods. The big picture can help us with the emotions of hearing loss. People communicate with emotions which are normal. And we need to know that we're not alone and that it's OK to feel sad and angry and maybe even embarrassed when communication has become more difficult. The big picture shows us what to expect and that there is help and support available and that asking for this help is not helplessness, it's strategic. So we have spent thousands of hours talking with other people with hearing loss. And I'm sure many of you have as well. And while every hearing loss journey is unique, most of them pass through a series of typical stages. And the first is debating with yourself. And this is where you wonder if you're having trouble hearing or maybe everyone else is mumbling. And this could be subconscious as you struggle with denial. I know for myself, I was looking for anything else to blame but my own hearing at that point. And this stage can last, you know, up to seven, 10 years for some. Stage two is validating. And this is where you decide to get the facts. And so you go for that hearing test and the diagnosis of hearing loss. It might not be what you want, but now it's a reality. Stage three is taking charge. And I think this is the most exciting part of the journey. But it's also the hardest. This is when you decide to do something about your hearing loss. And for most people, this means getting hearing aids. But like Gail said, you soon discover that they are not a stand alone solution for hearing loss. So you start to learn as much as you can about your own hearing loss and start to figure out what you need. An integrated set of mental, technical and practical strategies that help you communicate better. And that's really what hearing and beyond is focused on. Stage four is living skillfully. And this is really the ultimate goal. So you're open-minded about adopting a variety of strategies and technologies that help you communicate better every day. But that doesn't mean that every day is smooth sailing. You're still going to have bumps in the road, but you can handle them. You adapt, you try a new strategy and you just keep on going. And then there's stage five, which we call refreshing and restarting. And this is what makes the hearing loss experience a journey rather than a puzzle that has one solution where we can solve it. Just when you think you have it all figured out, right? Something's going to change. Maybe your hearing aids need to be replaced or your hearing levels change or a pandemic comes along and the rules change. So you may need to revisit a previous point in the journey. And that's OK. It's actually a natural part of the process and an opportunity to learn something new and become even more skillful. Now, these stages don't happen overnight. They can happen quickly. But for most of us, they're more likely to stretch over a period of years. And no matter where you are along the journey, we believe that living skillfully is possible for almost everybody. All right. Now, three-legged stool. This is the second part of living skillfully, and which is adopting strategies or skill sets that have a single targeted purpose to improve communication. And this is the three-legged stool and Oh, for heaven's sakes, there we go. You know, I thought it would be easy to have the job of putting the slides forward, but clearly I'm challenged that way. Anyway, I just had to jump. I just flew home from California yesterday, just spending a month and not far from Diablo Valley. But just to tell you why I'm all six and seven, I travel a lot. I go through the screening and my bag was pulled aside and I thought, what, and they pulled out a knife. But one of my kitchen knives had ended up in my purse and she just laughed. And it was anyway, it took me a while to get over that. Anyway, to improve communication, they don't need a knife. What you need are strategies. And this is the three-legged stool that never wobbles, even on uneven ground. I don't know why it doesn't wobble. It has something to do with science, but it is a solid foundation that we can stand on. And the three legs of our stool, first one is mind shifts. The second one is technology. And the third is communication game changers, the non-technical strategy. Now, each of these scales is an important component of good communication. But when the three of them work together, magic happens. I have the potential to change my journey. The person with the most power and my hearing loss success is me. Now, I think this is a moving statement and really a life changing one, because it's the moment you discover that you are in charge of your hearing loss journey. And a lot of that comes down to attitude. As we all know, a hearing loss diagnosis comes with emotional burdens. Gail, next slide, that paint hearing loss as embarrassing or shameful or to very least something never to be discussed, at least for my father, it certainly wasn't. And some of these beliefs come from external sources like advertisements, other media that still use poor hearing to make someone look stupid or out of touch, and we might internalize these feelings. We look down on ourselves, and this may cause us to hide our hearing loss so that we don't appear weak or broken. So we want to do an attitude selfie to reveal some common negative attitudes that people might hold about their hearing loss. And these mindsets are unproductive and they can really lead to negative outcomes. Now, we identified these 10 or 11 mindsets that Sherry was talking about. And so as I go through them, think to yourself, do I hold these? You might surprise yourself. Do I still hold these, even though I think I don't? The first one is, why me? Nobody understands what I'm going through. I want to hear better the way I used to. I want to hear better the way I used to. I don't like advertising my hearing loss. People will think I'm old or slow. My family and friends, my family and friends, they always forget about my hearing loss. Hearing aids are ugly. They're expensive and they don't always work. I don't want to bother anybody with my hearing loss needs. Who would want to hire me or love me or be my friend? I get angry at myself when I and other people make communication mistakes. And everywhere I go, there is no access for my hearing loss. Our attitudes towards hearing loss affect our emotions and our behaviors. And this is really a powerful statement because it means that life with hearing loss can be different. It can be better just by changing our attitudes. And these better attitudes can help us create better conversations because we're more willing to ask for the help that we need. And that can even help our technology work better because we're open to experimentation and change. Now, we're not trying to be overly simplistic here, right? Mind shifts are not cures for hearing loss. But when we actively support our hearing aids with other strategies, including an improved emotional attitude, we can communicate better. And Gail is going to talk about a few examples. The the first one is nobody understands what I'm going through. And I actually I'm going to change a little bit of the stories that I tell here. And what is. At the conference that I went to that I told you about on the final night, my new some of my new hearing loss friends and I went out for a drink. And we went into a pub and it was almost empty except for a small group of people sitting in the corner for people and presumably hearing people they could hear because they weren't from our conference. So I don't know. I mean, you should know this experience. But when you sit down to have some drinks, some beer or some wine with some heart of hearing and deaf people, we are loud, really loud. And first I was a little bit uncomfortable because we were so loud. I mean, all my life people had told me to lower my voice. And I could see these looks that we were getting from the hearing people in the corner and then it happened. All of a sudden I thought, so what? So what? This is what it is like to have hearing loss. And I remember just feeling the weight, that burden of that shame falling off my shoulders. And I the mind shift for that attitude is that many people experience the same challenges as I do. I can learn from them and I'm not alone. The second one I wanted to talk to, but it's not what I listed here. It's about technology, but it's not my core competency to say the least. Back around 1990, I was getting moving from one hearing aid to two hearing aid. And I got the completely in the canal type, which theoretically would not be strong enough for my severe hearing loss. But tell that to my brain, I could hear a lot better. But it was right. They had just come out and things were going wrong with this tiny little thing that in the battery cage broke off. And I remember throwing a complete hissy fat at home. And, you know, junk, the stuff. And my husband said, Gail. He said, they are not doing this just to take you off. You need to have more respect for technology. And I remember going, OK. And so I did. I really was a shift in that technology can be my friend. It is helpful. It is not there to make my life more difficult. These are two examples of mind shifts. All right. So let's now turn to that second leg of the stool, the technology piece of it. And we all know technology, it can be intimidating, right? Remember that negative attitude in the attitude selfie. Hearing aids are ugly, expensive and don't always work. And like Gail was saying, we need to reframe that attitude into something like what you see here. Technology is my friend. My devices let me hear sounds I had forgotten or had never heard before. They connect me to other people and the world. So why, then, are so many people still reluctant to adopt your technology? And I think part of this reason is that people don't always have the right expectations. I'm watching you, Gail. You're going to give me a moment. OK, this one, we did it. Case in point about technology. But I think for hearing loss, part of the issue is that people don't always have the right expectations, right? They expect hearing aids to work like glasses. You put them on and poof, your vision goes back to normal. And we all know that that's not the case with hearing aids or really any hearing device. And I think, though, that people don't understand that. They expect it to work in a different way. And if they don't know that hearing aids are not enough in certain situations, we need to help them understand that, right? They need other things, branded accessories, remote microphones like Roger Penns or things like that. Also, smartphone apps. I'm sure all of you have a favorite speech to text app. I know I do as well. And we're very lucky to have access to all of this captioning everywhere. External accommodations can also be life enhancing tools. Neither Gail or I had ever heard of CART or a hearing loop before we had gone to our first hearing loss conventions. And this is really a missed opportunity. We need to help others understand the life changing power of these tools that are available and also over the counter devices. Now, they might not work for most of us on this call. They're geared toward people with mild to moderate hearing loss, actually adults, adults with mild to moderate hearing loss. But they could be a good backup device. And I really hope that these new devices will help jumpstart innovation and reduce stigma because the more people that are walking around with things in their ears, the better it will be for all of us. Now, no matter the device, our two must have features are Bluetooth. And until or a cast is regularly everywhere, T coil as well. So I think it's an exciting time to have hearing loss. If you're going to have it, this is a good time to have it because of all the technology that we have at our fingertips. But we also need other things, non technical strategies. And that's the third leg of the stool. Going well here, moving well here. So I want to communicate better. And it takes more than technology to do this. I must use softer skills to two slides in a row. I'd move properly. You know, sometimes even small changes in communication behaviors can have a huge impact on the quality of the conversation, how well the interaction goes. And most of us, most people with hearing loss are already using some of these tactics that we talk about to some degree, often without realizing it. I mean, how often have you heard someone who's new to hearing loss say, well, you know, I can hear them talking, I'm just not understanding. So they, but they know that even with their hearing aid, they struggle in some situation. So what are the some of the soft skills, some of the communication game changers that will help? One of the most important right off the bat is self identifying as having hearing loss. It sounds simple, but for some people, it's difficult. Seeing I am hard of hearing or I have hearing loss, it takes a while to get used to that. It may it may go against their private nature. They could have be dealing with the stigma. Sometimes they don't even know what the proper term to use is. And guess what? Sherry and I don't care what term people choose to describe themselves. I mean, I know I used to say when I first became an advocate and I say, oh, you can't say you're hearing impaired. Really, if you want to call yourself hearing impaired, that's fine, because the most important thing is more important than the label that you use is that your decision you've made a decision to be open about your communication needs. Telling people you have hearing loss is simply informing them of a fact and even experienced people with hearing loss sometimes struggle with this in certain situations. And if you do, we recommend practicing. And Sherry likes to recommend practicing on a bus. So perhaps at some point when Sherry was riding the buses of New York City, she would get on the bus and say, hi, I'm Sherry. I have hearing loss for no reason whatsoever, except to practice her self-advocacy skills. You know, one of our mind shifts is being open about hearing loss will help me communicate better. Trying to hide my hearing loss leads to misunderstanding. And I know we all have so many examples where we have gotten into trouble by hiding our hearing loss. When we advocate for ourselves, we're simply telling people what we need. People aren't mind readers. We need to tell them what we need and what we don't need. Communication best practices should be standard for both sides, meaning the hearing people and the people with hearing loss. Get my attention, face me, lights up, noise down. Don't yell or over enunciate. These important tips are extremely important, but they're easy to forget. And reminders are necessary and be comfortable in asking for repeats. If we don't ask for something to be repeated, what do we do? We bluff. We pretend we zone out. Bluffing is the evil twin of self-advocacy. Learning not to bluff is a positive communication behavior. Now, I admit that it's almost impossible to stop doing it completely because there's just many reasons that we do it. Lack of assertiveness, desire to hide our hearing loss, the fatigue of trying to follow, the zone out is a really easy escape. And we deliberately do it sometimes. But rather than becoming a better bluffer, why not become a better communicator? We talk a lot about these things at much greater length than what we're talking about here in the book. So I hope you'll check them out. But we do have one other favorite tool that Sherry is going to tell you about. Yeah, and we really do love this one. So it's called here and it's our communication checklist to determine what needs to change in any situation and how to make that happen. So the first step is hearing check. Can I understand what my communication partner is saying? And if the answer is yes, then congratulations, you're done. But if the answer is no, then you move on to the second step, which is evaluate. And here's where you figure out what needs to improve in the situation to improve communication. And these could be environmental fixes, like maybe you need more light or a different seat, but it can also be communication partner issues like they need to speak louder or slower. And this is also a good time to look at your tech tools to see if an app or a different accessory might help. And then the third step is articulate. And this is often the hardest part, right? Telling people what you need from them. But obviously, we cannot skip this step. We have to ask for what we need. Otherwise, we're not going to get it. Learning to do this assertively rather than aggressively ensures a much better result. And we just have to remember that articulating our needs benefits our communication partners too. So this is not being selfish. This is actually being helpful for everyone in the situation to improve the communication. And then the last step is revise and remind. And this is sort of like refreshing and restarting that we were talking about on the hearing loss journey. Sometimes adjustments need to be made. So maybe a musician arrives or for some reason, the noise level picks up. Or more likely, your communication partners slip back into their old speech patterns. So just apply the steps again when the listening situation changes, even if it's just to remind people of what was already suggested. So it's simple, it's effective. And with practice, it really will become second nature. So putting it all together, you know, the final feature of living skillfully is applying what you've learned, applying what you know from the hearing loss journey and the tools and apply it to all aspects of your life, all the things that you do. Your work life, leisure life, especially the most important area of our lives, which is relationships. Hearing loss flams its biggest fist into our communication based relationships of all sorts, and we actually devote a whole section of the book to relationships and how we can manage them better. You know, and the new relationships, for example, when you meet new people, you're working with new people, there's always a filtering process that is unique to people with hearing loss. Nice person, check, fun to be around, check, intelligent, check. For us, there's an extra question, can I understand this person? If it's not a check, we might be in trouble, but maybe with some effort and some honesty, we may be able to communicate well. With existing relationships, we don't get to choose. We have trouble understanding our family, our friends and colleagues, and they get frustrated with us, but there are ways to keep those relationships from dissolving or suffering too much. And it's that combination of mind shift technology and our personal interaction. For example, Sherri and her family have had some, shall we say, highly charged, but very rewarding, focused family discussion to set ground rules when they go hiking, for example, or when they go to restaurants. And in my house, technology has saved my marriage on more than one occasion. For example, watching television. The hearing husband, what I call him, likes volume at a certain level. I need it at another. So I use a TV streamer and he uses the normal TV volume control. So with the first go round of this streamer in my smartphone was that I could hear the TV, but I couldn't hear him. So to get my attention, for some reason, he felt he had to talk to me while I was enjoying a film to get my attention. He started throwing a pillow at me, a pillow. That also nearly ended our marriage. But there was and there is a hearing hack that I suggested that might help us communicate during the night when it was dark. And I don't have my devices on, but my hearing husband absolutely refused to wear glow in the dark lipstick. I tried anyway. And a big hearing hack and a hearing hack. You know, there's life hacks and how to do things better. A hearing hack. Again, we have a whole section in our book on hearing hacks. That helps us do everything better that has communication relationship. A big hearing hack is to make partners out of the people in your life. A support network doesn't mean that people just cheer you on. Hey, you're doing well with the hearing aid today. And listen to your emotional rants. They may also offer tough love and tell you truthfully how you're doing. Just as Sherry did when she sat down with her family because they let her know the impact on them as well. And so we can create support networks. Communication support networks within our family, with our friends, with our colleagues and also the hearing care professional. That is one of our most important relationships. And having a good relationship, two sided relationship with your hearing care professional is important. And there's a responsibility on their side as well. And we're seeing the fear that the practice of hearing health care delivery with client centered care is starting to go in the right direction. So. So. All right. So thank you every much everyone for your attention during this presentation. And we just wanted to end with this one last thought. Living skillfully with hearing loss is an ongoing process. And so for each of us, the journey continues. And we invite you to take that journey with us. And I'm not sure what I did there, but I'm just going to how did I get. Yeah, I think you're good. What I do, I completely wait. No, I think you're good. So you're so you quit sharing your screen. I have to I've got to get back there. OK, so why do you need to share your screen? We had we have one more slide that just had our contact information in case people wanted to see our emails or websites or whatever. Yeah, so and I have to again, it's a little bit embarrassing because. I think you have to stop sharing and then re-share again. Well, she stopped sharing because we're not seeing the screen. I know, I know, just give me I've lost it. Anyway, I'll find it in a moment. What I wanted to hopefully we can put it in the chat and share. If you wouldn't mind just down. The problem that I was having is that I was also running some notes and things in the background. And it's the first time I've had to do it. Sharing normally do's it, do's it. Do's it. She he does it because she's a dozer. Anyway, we we really invite you to reach out to us. If you would like information on the book and gave some great information at the beginning of how you can get it sold anywhere. Books are sold online in libraries and stores. We wrote this book as a way of sharing our philosophy and to to get back to basics. There are so many wonderful memoirs on living with hearing loss. And we have someone on this call, Claudia Marseille, whose book is coming out in the spring. And Claudia, I'm sorry, the name of the book escaped me. Maybe you could put that in chat as well. We wanted to get back to basics with the strategies for living well with hearing loss. And I told Sherry when I reached out to her, I said, you know, Sherry, you don't write a book to make money. And she said, can we try? I said, sure, we can try. We wrote this book because it was something we wanted to share. And we thank you so much for allowing us to be your speakers in December of twenty twenty three. And as Anne said, we we think that the book would be very helpful for your family members and friends to help them understand hearing loss better. So please reach out on Sherry's blog. I think you shared our email addresses, hopefully Sherry. So we would I don't know, Anne, you let me know whether there's any time for questions. We'd be happy to do that. Happy to welcome questions about the book or about us or about each other. So thank you very much for what was a very personal and intimate presentation. I learned things about both of you that I previously didn't know. And so I feel a little closer to you. So now we're going to open up the whole meeting to questions and answers. And we'd like to request that everybody raise their hand. So if they want to ask a question. So if you look in the menu bar across the bottom of your screen, you see raise hands and who's going to go first? OK, Kathy Rothschild, you need to unmute yourself. Kathy Rothschild. Again, you right now. Yep. Thank you, ladies, for an excellent presentation. I'm very vocal. I wear a cochlear implant in one ear and a heavy duty hearing in the right in the other ear. And I'm very vocal with people that I can't hear. And I go around with my multi mic remote mic. Holding left to people explaining it's not I am. I'm not courting them. They think I'm recording them. However, it doesn't solve everything. And I've tried to use speech to text apps and I find with remote app that I haven't been able to get Ava or Otter to work. You know. Speech to text apps that would work when you're using a remote mic. Well, that's a that's a great question. I mean, I don't know that the speech to text app and the remote mic are particularly linked, you know, in terms of one working well with with the remote mic versus not working well with a remote mic. I think I think what's hard is that the speech to text apps struggle in noisy environments. And that's where we struggle, right? So where we're having trouble getting the clear signal, they often struggle with having the clear signal. I personally have used Otter with some success. I have not used Ava with really any success. They're also right now are built into the operating systems for both Apple and also Android devices in the operating system. There's, you know, basically a speech to text. It's not even an app. It's just built in. You just have to go into your main settings in the iOS or in the Android settings and turn on. I think it's called Live Listen. There's different names, but basically you will then have something that pops up on your window and you can turn it on and it will it will caption. Now, I have to say that sometimes they work great and sometimes they don't work great. So it's not a perfect solution. And I think that's where, you know, you try the mini mic, you try the speech to text. And it's a little bit of experimentation and just sort of having that confidence, right? And having that mindset where it's like, all right, let's try this. No, that didn't work. Let's try something else. Or maybe the real answer is we need to get out of this loud environment and move over into into the corner where it would be quieter. So I'm not sure that really is answering your question. But I get a lot of big, big events with a lot of people and I get slaughtered and I'm getting exhausted from it. Like he's trying and smiling and taking my multi mic everywhere ago, but it's an issue. You mentioned Oracast. I never heard of that. What's Oracast? So Oracast is a new Bluetooth technology that is being currently tested. And it's actually, I think, available in maybe one or two brands of hearing aids currently. But not now, but down the road. It will be a really good replacement for hearing loop technology because it's much easier to install. Now, the way Bluetooth works right now is it's a one on one kind of thing, right? So we attach Bluetooth and we can connect to just one device, one Bluetooth. Oracast will allow many users to connect to the same device. So if you went to a movie theater, for example, that had Oracast, all of us could use our Bluetooth to tune in to that same sound stream. So it really will be, I think, a life-changing technology for people with hearing loss once it's out there. Now, it's not out there. We don't know the time frame, right? So it's not like, oh, we don't need hearing loops. We do until this Oracast is in place. But it is pretty exciting and it is in the works and it will be down the road something that will be available. And people with hearing loss can use it. But I think the key is that people who don't have hearing loss are going to want to use it because they can use their Bluetooth devices to have a better sound experience in a loud hall or at a movie or whatever. And when the people without hearing loss start demanding it, we're the ones that benefit, right? Because we're the ones that need it the most. But it will someday down the road, that will be a great technology for all of us to enjoy. I wanted to just jump in. You made the comment about your multi-mic versus your, excuse me, your app. The multi-mic is bringing sound into your ears. The app is taking it from the speaker through the phone. So that's why the multi-mic and your speech to text aren't complementary in that way. So that's just the work together in that, OK, I'm hearing it and I'm reading it. And hopefully I'll manage to do it all together. I'd like to add something to Sherry's comment about OrorCast. I sat on the OrorCast on the Bluetooth SIG cadences as an HLA representative. And it's anticipated that it could easily take 10 years before there's a critical mass of people with hearing instruments that have an instrument with OrorCast in it because of the fact of we only get new hearing instruments every five years or so. And at this point in time, there are no, just so that you have an idea, there are no venues to the best of my knowledge that have OrorCast capability. So the dream is that it's going to be everywhere. Airports, theaters, transportation. And one of the driving forces behind this is people who don't have hearing difficulties can't understand the announcements at the airport either. So they're going to love OrorCast as much as we hope that it's going to benefit us. So back to you, Gail and Sherry. Thank you. Are you good? Thank you. Claudia. Well, thank you so much for a wonderful presentation and great to meet both of you. I have found the major game changer for me with my new hearing aid that I've had for a year now is the Bluetooth capability. I mean, I'm using the Bluetooth with the Zoom call now. I use the Bluetooth all the time with the phone. For years, I never could use the phone. Now I can actually use the phone with the Bluetooth. And I'm wondering how much do you guys use it? Are you using it now on this Zoom call? Because you're seeming to understand the conversation really well. I use Bluetooth with my devices. I use it for everything. So I'm streaming on Bluetooth right now. So it's on my multi-mic plugged into my, it's coming through. And I use it on phone calls. Same as you mentioned, Claudia. So it's wonderful. I have found, and this was very much so during the pandemic when we lived on Zoom, that after a few hours of streaming, I almost have difficulty with understanding acoustically. So that's not the case as much. I'm not as much on it anymore. But really, it's a game changer, Claudia. And I'm glad that you found it even if it was only a year ago because it really, I use it for the phone, for my television, for the TV streamer, and on the computer as well. So yeah. And one of the things that has been frustrating for me is that I didn't know this at the time that I bought the hearing aid that I have do not have the capability for the T-Coil, for the hearing group. And I'm not in all that many situations that use hearing groups. Like, for example, the local theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater does not have a hearing group that's so frustrating. They have some kind of captioning device that you can use on the phone sometimes. But that's not always so easy to read on your phone while the play is going on. How do you spell or a cast? That sounds really like an exciting technology, but it sounds like it's going to be a while before it's out. I put it in the chat. So it's A-U-R-A-C-A-S-T. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And I mean, it's unclear what the timing is. As Anne said, it could be 10 years. I guess I'm a little more optimistic than that, but that it's going to be a little bit shorter than that. But things take time, because we need to get it in the venues. And then as Anne said, we need to get it into our devices as well. The replacement cycle of devices. So it definitely will take some time. But it seems like technology turns over faster than we expect these days. So fingers crossed. And Gail, you said you're using a multi-mic. I don't know about this. OK. This is, yeah. The multi-mic is I have a cochlear brand, cochlear implant on my right side. But I also have a resound hearing aid on the other side. And this is the multi-mic. They work together. So you don't have to have a cochlear implant to use this if you have a resound hearing aid. If you have Phonak, the Roger Penn is the remote mic. So it really depends. It's just a remote mic from my particular brand. And everybody has a different one. So I see. So it's an assisted listening device that puts the sound into your hearing aid. It does. It does. So it's done either through Bluetooth just without being plugged in. But I actually, with my computer, I have to plug it in. So and it goes through the phone now. So the TV streamer through my phone to my ear. So it's all interconnected. So yesterday, I thought I'd lost my phone at the airport. It was a long day. This was after they found a pen. And I couldn't find my, just before we got on the flight, and my phone. My phone is everything for me. It keeps me connected. And turns out I had put it in my makeup case by mistake. I never thought to live there. So anyway, so it's all interactive. So do you use a remote, Claudia? I have a phone at hearing aid. And I have a round disk, kind of a Roger. And that works great with my husband one on one or with a friend one on one. In a restaurant, it's frustrating because it also picks up all the background noise. So it amplifies the background noise as well. And so that would be the situation I would like to use it in to understand my husband in a noisy restaurant. Sometimes it works better than others, but often the whole ambient noise is also made louder. Did your husband have it close to his mouth? It's sort of hanging here. OK, on you or him? On him. OK, OK. Yeah, but I think to Gail's point, if there's a way to move it up or somehow clip it, I don't know if you can clip it to a collar or something like that. The closer it is to his mouth, the better it's going to be picking that up versus all that other that other noise. Yeah, Claudia, you can change a setting in that to make it so that it doesn't pick up the ambient noise. It's focused. And I'll talk to you about that later. OK, I want to mention something that you talked about in relationship to assistive listening systems in public venues. You were talking about Berkeley Rep. Well, Berkeley Rep is required by law to have an assistive listening system in addition to the captioning devices that you're talking about. And they happen to have an FM system. So everybody who uses the FM system needs to check out a device that looks similar to this. It would be the receiver for the FM system. If you had a hearing instrument with a telecoil, you would use a neck loop with this, and you'd plug it into the port, put the neck loop over your head, put your instrument in telecoil, and it would stream to your instrument. If you don't have a telecoil, you'd have to use earphones on top of your hearing instrument. Now, Claudia, something that I'd like to make sure that you do, a lot of the devices, some of the companies that took telecoils out of the hearing aids gave you an option of having a telecoil in another streamer device. So you need to ask to make sure that there's not a streamer device that can work with your hearing aid that has a telecoil. So that would be a separate device. So a lot of them put it into gales using the mini mic with Cochlear Americas, but there's also another microphone that works with Phonak hearing aids. And that microphone and some of the aids has a telecoil in it. OK, boy, my audiologist never told me about that. I mean, yeah. Well, that's why HLAA is here. Yeah, really. No, that's great because, yeah. OK, Claudia, are you good? I'm good. Thank you. So, Jerry, you're muted, Jerry. You're still mute. Check the, if you're on a desktop computer, check the bottom left-hand corner, the microphone, and click the microphone. Mute, there it is. There you go. OK, I have a question. I'm kind of responsible for finding programs for our HLAA chapter. And I was wondering, has this been recorded in a way that I can use it and can I use it? The Diablo Valley chapter records all of our meetings and we have a YouTube channel. YouTube channel, OK. So you can find it on the YouTube channel and you could actually project that to a meeting. Well, the last one I did was met with wonderful reviews. So I think I may try this in January. So thank you very much. The other, Gary, that you could, if you wanted to invite, excuse me, invite Sherry or me or both to present to your group. It just depends when it is. And so if that works for you, you can reach out to us. OK, I'll send you an email with the date. OK, is it if it's OK? I can't guarantee we're available, but we would try and make it happen. Yeah, I understand that'd be great. That'd be superb. So OK, I don't see the other hands raised. Are you sure there aren't any other questions? OK, if there aren't any other questions, we have a little bit of business to do. One of the things that we have is that we're raffling off two of your books today. Right. And so we asked people to indicate whether they wanted to participate in the raffle. And I now see two other hands come up. So I'll call on you in just a second. So what we're going to do is to make sure that everybody didn't miss that or we didn't miss their name. Alan, can you go ahead and share the list of people that you have for the raffle? And if there's anybody who is not on this list who would like to be included in the raffle, this is the last call for the raffle. Is there anybody whose name is not on this list who would like to have their name added to the raffle? And if you would, would you please put your response in the chat? OK, so, Carl Brown, I see you have your hand up. Can you please unmute yourself? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. I'm sorry, I just had eye surgery, so, you know. But anyway, I am my problem is not so much hearing the sounds but distinguishing between words and parts of speech. And it would seem to me that technology can play a much better role in this. After all, we have devices right now that are small and can translate between languages. I know I'm thinking that if, in fact, we could get a device that could recognize the word and even possibly distort the sound. So instead of a specific stop, put in an interbang or something like that. So it sounds differently but distinct. It seems to me that in the 80s, if we could take, I worked on a project taking Korean webpages, scrambling them, so full of an American browser into displaying Korean on the other end. We could certainly do something like that with languages today and work more on intelligence rather than just straightening out the sound curves. Carl, do you have a question? Yes. I'm wondering, is there anything going on in this area that you know of? Or are there audiologists that can take and retune my existing hearing aids to distinguish between, you know, say different stops or silhouettes or things like that rather than just working on the sound first? Yeah. So are you aware of the fact that you cannot indefinitely continue to increase the sound of hearing aids to be able to distinguish words? That there is a place where hearing aids no longer benefit you and then you may be eligible for a cochlear implant? I don't think I'm hearing this that serious. My problem is word distinguishing. I can seem to hear them but... No, no, that's what everybody has. That's what hearing loss is. Right. So hearing loss is the inability to distinguish and understand words. Right. And so... That seemed to have, the hearing aids take care of sound loss but not hearing loss. No, the hearing instrument, the hearing aid is... So if you look at your audiogram, the frequencies are across the top. And so if you are deficient in a certain frequency, they try to increase the frequency to a sound level that then you can understand it. Now, unfortunately, your ability to understand words is not completely correlated to the increase in sound. And so generally, as people's hearing loss decreases, their speech recognition decreases as well. But some people who have hearing loss that you think they wouldn't be having as much problem as they do, they have more problems with speech recognition. So I've never seen your audiogram and none of us here are physicians. So we don't know where you are in that spectrum. But Gail has a cochlear implant. I have two cochlear implants. There are quite a few other people on this call who have cochlear implants. So I can, from my personal experience, completely vouch for the fact that I was... I'm a whole new person since I have my cochlear implants. And in most situations, I can understand everybody now. Thank you. How do you find, Carl, how do you find somebody that would evaluate? How would you find somebody that would evaluate whether I would need them or not? Yeah, well, where do you live? I live in Rossmore. Oh, so Kaiser does them, UCSF does them, and Stanford does them. OK, thank you. OK, any other questions here? OK, and everybody who wanted to be on the raffle, added to the raffle is there. Alan, do you want to go ahead and share your screen and run the raffle? I did. OK, so we have two bucks. So we'll do the first one here. This is so cool. Congratulations, Marlene. And I know how to get a hold of you, so we'll make sure that you get a book. And Alan, you want to run the raffle for the second book? Here we go. Hi, Adi, congratulations. And I think I know how to contact you as well, so we'll make sure that you get a book. And I'm coming to Rossmore on Monday. Maybe I can bring it to you. So that's great. Thanks, Alan, for figuring out how to do the raffle. I think that that was really quite fun. We had a question in the chat about Claudia's book coming out and announcing when it's going to happen, and I've been in conversation with Claudia about having her give our May presentation. Now, our meeting is the first Saturday of the month. And actually, for that meeting, her book won't quite be released, I think. And Claudia, let me know if I'm saying the wrong thing. I think it's going to be released on the 14th. It's released on May 14th, but it will be available for pre-order at the time of our presentation. So that would work just fine, too. OK, so we're thinking that that would be exciting to hear the story right before the release, and that's what we're looking at. OK, so we also had another question when everybody registered, and that was as if did we want to do our January meeting as to discuss Gail and Sherry's book and the majority of people said, yes, they would like to do that. So that's going to be our plan for our January meeting. Our February meeting is going to be by a UCSF medical student who's doing research into creating specific algorithms for programs to help people hear better with cochlear implants. And so he's in the middle of starting a research project about that. And I have two advanced Bionics cochlear implants. And that's what his research project is being funded for. And if there's anybody here who has an advanced Bionics hearing advanced Bionics cochlear implant and you would like to participate in the study, which will be held at UCSF, please contact me later. And I'm going to send out a blurb sometime soon about their research project. So any other presentations you would like for the remainder of the year, please let Zoher know. Zoher Chiba, who is our vice president, who's also ahead of who is also the chair for the programs committee. All of you know that I'm died in the wool advocate. And I would like to remind all of you that hearing loss is a disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And all of you need to ask for communication access when you need it. The ADA is 33 years old this year. So nobody can say, oh, my gosh, I didn't know. We'd like to remind you also that communication access helps people with hearing loss the same way that ramps help people with mobility issues. We also have a YouTube channel that has all of our meetings that we started recording during the pandemic. And you can go back and watch any of them. And now we'd like to also ask, does anybody have any announcements? Does anybody have any good news? Is there anything that somebody else would like to share before we close up our meeting? We have just maybe 10 more minutes here. Gail. I am so sorry, but I must leave. And that that's good news. It for some reason, but anyway, I want to thank everyone. It was just a pleasure to spend this time with you and thank you for your support of here and beyond. We really appreciate it. So I wish you all happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Hanukkah and all the other celebrations in your lives. So thank you very much. I'm going to sign out now. Thanks. Happy holidays to both of you too. Thank you. Any other comments here? Bob's Astro. Did you want to say something? No, I just wave. Somebody waved at me. We'd also like to remind everybody that we are a membership organization. And even though we're open to the public. We would love it if you decided to join us. By becoming a member and you can easily do that by going to our website. And the membership is in the upper right hand corner. And if we're lucky here. Since we had problems with the PowerPoint. Let's see if that if, let's see if the window will share. And Rob was raising his hand physical hand. Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to thank Sherry and Gail. And this is the first time I've ever been in. Any kind of form. For hearing loss. I, I, I've had sudden hearing loss. Coming up on 11 months. So I have a very good pair of hearing aids and. You know, I'm going through all of those stages. That you described Sherry and. You know, a lot of dark moments and. You know, it feels good to hear everybody talk about their, their issues and it's definitely liberating. And I'm looking forward to the next time and. You know, just kind of, I think Gail said something that, that resonated a lot, like to. You know, kind of, kind of be proud of your hearing devices. And, you know, what else is there? There's, there's, you know, I guess my word recognition is very good, actually. I just switched over to a doctor at Columbia Presbyterian. And I guess to hear, you know, the permanence of hearing loss is something that you really have to reconcile with and just hope and pray that technology catches up with you and. You know, gives you back some semblance of, of what you, you know, what you feel you were ripped off of. Rob Dove so to speak. So I just want to thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. And I'm so glad that you found this community. I think peer support and peer understanding is such an important coping mechanism. So welcome. It's great to see you.