 So good morning, everybody. We're at the bewitching hour, 10 o'clock. We're happy that everybody is here and decided to spend their Saturday morning with us. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Anne Thomas and I'm the president of the HLA a Diablo Valley chapter. I would also like to introduce our other officers who are present and they also work behind the scenes to ensure that our male excuse me that our zoom meetings run well. So here Chiba is our vice president so here can you just say hi. Hello, welcome. Alan, can you say Alan could serve as our secretary and all around ace tech support person. Alan, can you say hi. Yes, morning everyone. Yeah, so I asked people to say hello because what happens is that means that they should come to the front and their thumbnail should be highlighted so that you can identify who they are. So today we're very happy to have Pat Dobbs be with us and I'll introduce her in a moment. But before we get started with our presentation, we'd like to ensure that everybody's really familiar with zoom. And so, now we're on to our presentation and I'm very, very, very happy to introduce my friend Pat Dobbs. And Pat and I have a long history together. I think that that we met the first time both of us attended an HLA a convention, and I think that was in 2010. And I was walking across the street going to a drug store to pick up some business card stock to make business cards for somebody who was at the convention. And Pat and I were standing next to each other at the stoplight and both of us had on our, our HLA a convention badges and started talking and we've been talking ever since. And Pat left that convention and went back to, she was originally at that time in New Jersey and she went back to New Jersey and started an HLA chapter in Morristown, New Jersey. She's also the founder of another organization that I'll let you let her tell you about. She has subsequently moved to Maine and she's starting a support group in Maine. This time I'm going to turn it over to you Pat, you can go ahead and share your screen and tell us about partner communication and hearing loss as a family affair. Beautiful. So I should share my screen now. Correct. Perfect. Great. So one thing I need to add that and didn't say is that I, I had a hearing loss since I was 20, but from 20 till about 60, I didn't let anybody knew I had a hearing loss, because I was too embarrassed. I was a professional bluffer. I know you won't get it. And by total chance, I went, I found out about HLA and I went to that meeting. I honestly didn't know anything about it. I met and and we're talking and she says, you know, you should start a chapter in New Jersey. And I'm thinking, why I don't know anything about this organization. The rest is history. So thank you, and you're the one that got me started. So just a little bit more about me. Once I got over the negative stereotypes of hearing loss, you can stop me from advocating for people with hearing loss. So I started that New Jersey chapter. I was its presidents for eight years. I moved to Maine, and I'm in the process of starting another chapter organization there actually through the whole state. Since Maine is large like California, and a local meeting too. It's very exciting to see it start from scratch. I'm also the president of an international hearing loss support group called the say what group. My real impetus was from my two year peer mentoring certificate that I got from call it at university. I'm wondering if anybody else are peer mentors, I can't say but if you are, it's a fabulous, fabulous training. After that training, I changed my life coaching practice to working specifically with hearing loss people. Just to help them live on a day to day basis as best they can. I put together workshops again, also motivated by what I learned from Gallaudet and presentations like today. I'm so excited to give this presentation. It was motivated from what I learned from Sam Traykin. If anybody of you remember Sam, he's really one of the earliest people that learn to advocate for people with hearing loss and acknowledge the psychological implications of people with hearing loss. So, so today I want to talk about how hearing loss is a family affair. It doesn't only affect us. It also affects our partners. And so the first thing I want to do is talk about, oops, wrong way. It's talk about some of our challenges. And I would love to know all of these are going to be filled in. What is there about 12 columns of our challenges? But I wonder could we do it that you tell me what you think our challenges are? And I'm not sure if that would work. Yeah, so Pat, if someone would like to provide Pat with information about what your challenge is, just raise your hand and we'll call on you. So I can only see four screens so I won't be able to see it. No, we'll call on them and then they can. Okay, perfect. Okay, Lori, go ahead. Hi, I'm new to the hearing loss world in just the last few years. So I feel like it's been a huge transition, not just for me but for my spouse. And so social situations. I'm single sided deaf. So it's very hard for me to discern in crowds and mixed noise. It's a lot of needing to, I guess upfront each other before we go out about what I need. That's really hard. Beautiful. Thank you. Anybody else want to share? Don't worry, I have a lot of things to share. Okay. I'm going to start sharing. Okay, we miss here exactly what you just said. And of course, the hardest situations are in social situations where there's a lot of people, a lot of ambient noise. Actually, our biggest challenges are noise, reverberation and distance. Those are our three biggest challenges. Okay. And what do we do? We avoid social situations because they're too challenging. Our spouses love that. Okay, move on. Stigma. So we like to think there's not a stigma of hearing loss, but there sure are. Does anybody want to raise your hand and just tell me one stigma or two or three, anything quickly? Okay, I'll tell you what the statement is. So Pat, I'll say something. Oh, I'm old. What did you say, Ann? I'm old. Got it. So the stigma is that you're old. Of course, when I was 20, I must have been old. Anything else? How about when it's intelligent? How about spaced out when people talk to us and we don't hear for them? Anything else? What am I missing? Not worth our time repeating. Yeah, fatigue. Oops, I'm not going too far. Isolation. Isolation kind of is avoiding social situations. I don't need to tell you this. Isolation is when people are talking and we don't hear, so we feel isolated. But there's more to it than that. But I don't need to explain it to you. You know it. Fatigue. Did you ever notice how at the end of the day you're exhausted? Because we're not only hearing, but we're also perceiving with lip reading. And we're also filling in the words. We went to the store and bought. We have to figure out what that word is. It takes a lot of mental concentration. So fatigue. Tinnitus. Tinnitus is really a separate thing from hearing loss. But many people with hearing loss do have tinnitus. And that's not a big deal. And of course, ringing in the ears is a challenge that many people have dealt with successfully. With different strategies. Cost of hearing instruments. Well, of course, they're so cheap, but that's not a big deal. I'm sorry. That was not nice. We all know the cost of hearing instruments. You're hearing aids or cochlear implants are paid for. When, of course, is the VA. And there's some insurances that do cover a small amount of your hearing aids. I should say cochlear implants are generally covered by insurance because it's a surgical procedure. Using equipment. So. How many people use Bluetooth? How many people use T coil? How many people have to figure out how to work it? How many people are challenged trying to figure out how to use their equipment? You know, I'm not a technical person at all. But if I don't. Struggle to try to figure it out. I'm not going to be able to use assistive listening devices. I'm not going to be able to use it. I'm not going to be able to use it. I'm not going to be able to use it. Maintaining equipment. So we have to. Always have charged batteries. We had to, if they're self-charging, we have to charge them. We have to make sure we have spare batteries. We had to make sure that our hearing aids are clean. We have to clean them out. There's a lot of things we have to do to maintaining our hearing aids. We have to make sure that our hearing aids are clean. When we go into that room, we all love putting up our hand and saying, yes, we hear that beep. Yes, we hear that beep when we're not even sure if we hear it or not. I wish I could see people's faces to see if you could challenge. But ENT visits. Because I sure do. Pat, if you look in your upper right hand corner. If you select. Side by side gallery, you'll should be able to see everybody. Well, that cut off the. Where did my view go? The upper right hand corner. You know, it was there just a second ago, but it decided to go away. Well, for now, I'm just going to keep on going. It's your ears. If anybody had itchy ears, because of your hearing aids caused the itchy ears. And oil rehabilitation. So for those who don't know it all rehabilitation means. So we don't hear with our ears. We hear with our brain. So the more we work with our brain and hearing strategies. The better we'll be able to hear. So this is more for cochlear implants than for hearing aids. But it's true for both. The more we listen, the more we're training our. Our mind, our brain to hear better. So moving, you know, I really should find that view. Sorry, just give me one second to see if I can find it. For some reason I can't find it, but okay. We're annoyed when our partners don't make eye contact. My friend Ruth Bernstein says, look in the whites of my eyes. Talk to softly. Talk to loudly mumble. Can you see this joke? Yes. We can hear. So. Here's the deal. We are challenged and hearing loss is a communication disorder. So it doesn't only affect us. It affects our partners. And the more we understand that and the more they understand where we're coming from, the easier it is for all of us to communicate together. So let's look at some of their challenges. This is something we all have to do is go through the grief of losing our hearing aids or losing our hearing. And the change of how we interact with each other. So there are many changes that we have to go through. We'll talk about it in a second. But. From social activities from one-on-one conversation. Actually, and gave me a great example. Of. Before she knew she was losing her hearing. She would ask her spouse to continually talk louder. And not really understanding why she kept on saying talk louder, talk louder. He took it as a negative. But she didn't know that she couldn't hear. She didn't understand that. When she understood, she could hear, she could explain. I'm sorry. I haven't been understanding you. And let's talk about how we can make it better. So. So these are some of the things that our partners are challenged about. And I'm going to go through it quickly here. And then in more detail in a second. So a lot of us don't want to acknowledge it because we don't want to have anything to do with the negative stereotypes. And so we don't want to be a part of that group of people with hearing loss. But there's another thing. We may not know we have a hearing loss. I have a friend and audiologist who did hearing. Test at a corporation. She said that two out of five people in this corporation who didn't know they had a hearing loss. Had a hearing loss. We get insulted when people say never mind. We know that. But how do they feel. We often bluff. I hate it when we bluff. We resist confirming information. We sometimes tune out. We keep the radio and TV too loud. We can't talk. But often our partner, we can talk. But often our partners can't respond. We ask our partners to change how they talk. Okay. So I'm sure that all of this is familiar to you. But let's, let's look and see how they feel. About how we act. So we don't acknowledge our hearing loss. How do they deal with it when they know we have a hearing loss and could be helped? I've talked to so many people when they know their partners have a hearing loss, but they refuse to get hearing aids for one reason or another. How challenging is it for them? They have to talk loud. They have to scream. Not easy for them. We get insulted when somebody says, never mind to us. So we all know, I think that might be number one for how we feel about hearing loss when somebody says, never mind. We want it. Right. We want to scream. We want to yell and we want to say, come on, I'm not a nobody. Don't say never mind to me. But how do they feel? Moment for that. They ask fun thing is lost. They have to recreate it, but the moment is lost. So they can do it, but it's challenging. It's hard. I mean, you know for yourself. If there's something that let's say you see somebody go by and you say, oh, look, isn't that funny? And then you say something funny. And then somebody doesn't hear you have to recreate it. It's difficult. Take just check this one out. Not very nice, but that's what can happen. Okay. We often bluff and don't acknowledge that we haven't heard. So I always laugh whenever I give presentations. I used to say to people with hearing loss, please raise your hand if you bluff. If there's anybody raises their hand. So now I say, is there anybody with hearing loss that doesn't bluff? Please raise your hand. So of course, nobody raises their hand. But how does a partner feel? A partner has no idea if we've heard them correctly or not. What do they do? What I know. Sometimes partners can read people's expressions and no, they have no idea what's being said and they'll call them on it. But sometimes they don't want to call them on it because they don't want to embarrass us. Sound familiar to any of you. We don't confirm important information. Yes, sometimes we don't want to do that because we are so sure we know what's being heard. But how often do we make mistakes? So, you know, let's say my partner says, let's meet on the corner of fifth and 42nd street. And I go to fifth and 30 fourth street rather than 42nd street. If I had just confirmed it, written it down or said, oh, fifth and 42nd street. No, we don't want to do that. Does anybody can anybody tell me why we don't want to confirm important information? And, and I need your help. If anybody has anything to say. Yeah, so no one's Linda Verden. Click the reactions. Click the reactions in the menu. Disappeared, it seemed to raise my hand. But I think, I think. First of all, we may think we actually understood it correctly. But we don't want to do that. We don't want to get the information. And then secondly, that makes us appear. Stupid, I guess is how I feel. Because of course I got that right. If you have questions, you might get defensive. So that's. That's why I think we don't try to confirm it, but mostly I think. We actually think we heard it correctly. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. We have some other people Margaret. Yeah, hi. I don't think. The stigma thing gets to me as much as. I should do more in the sense of repeating back to the person who's talking to me. So I'd say, did you say, you know, I'm sorry. I should do that more often. And it would help. It is when you feel like, oh, I absolutely heard that correctly. Like, oh, you absolutely said yes. And the person said no. It's, it's my brain. Anticipates what the person might say in the context. And if my assumption is wrong, which it often is. My brain will tell me what I heard. It's not true. So. For. For techniques or tools, I do try to. Repeat back. But I forget to, or. The conversation is moving so quickly. I often find myself asking somebody to tell me what was just said. If it's in a group. I think. That with a partner, you try to work together, like speak in the same room and face each other kind of thing. But we're only human and we're walking around that, you know, from the kitchen to the living room of the family room. And it's hard. Thanks. Laurie. Yeah, I think with me, I don't even realize until. I realize that I never was really good at self advocacy. I prefer to be. The quiet behind the scenes person. So it's just going to mean another situation where I have to speak up. And. I feel like. It's too late that I should have asked for it because I thought I heard just fine. So I didn't even know that I needed to ask for clarification or sometimes I think I don't even want to enter into that situation because. I'm not going to be able to speak up. And I feel like I get so easily overwhelmed now that I don't even want to enter into that space. It's just. And something else you said, my husband's voice. And it's his normal speaking voice. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. So. We're trying to navigate that because he doesn't. Want to change his whole demeanor that's worked for 35 years. So. He doesn't want to change it. I don't want to enter into it. Let's just meet at the wrong place and call it a day. That's wrong. It's challenging, but thank you for sharing. Jim Schroeder. Yeah, I find that. I often will just simply repeat what has been said. And, and that's that doesn't work well. Because people aren't what I'm looking for is the affirmation that I heard what was being said. But people tend to interpret that as just agreement with what they're saying. And so the conversation just kind of moves on. And now I'm not really sure whether I got it or not. People, but when you say, did you say that? That that's better. But a lot of people don't really want to confirm that. They simply say something else that is moving that conversation further on. So it's really hard to stop people in their conversation and get them to affirm that you properly heard them. And it's, it's a technique that's, that's I think pretty hard for all of us to manage. Thank you so much. I appreciate what you're saying. Anybody else see him. I don't see any other hands raised. So I hope you appreciate this. Joe. So. I'm not quite sure what's happening. Okay. Here we go. We ask our partners to change how they've been talking to us. Down familiar. It's not easy to change how you've been talking your whole life. I think this is one of those things where we both have to give in. We both have to, we both have to work on this. Does anybody have any brilliant ideas for our partners? I think it's just something that you have to work on my friend, Debbie, her husband has just started to lose his hearing. And she says she tries to talk to him so that she'll, he'll understand her. She says she forgets, she forgets, she forgets, she forgets. She tries the best she can, but she forgets. Ah, does this sound familiar to anybody? What should they do when we, when we tune out? Should they act as our ears or let us spend for ourselves? So I've heard a lot of partners say they can tell that their hearing loss partner has no idea what's going on. Pat Margaret had a comment she wanted, she wanted to say, so can we, can I interrupt you and can she say something? Yeah, there you go, Margaret. Okay. Thank you. The techniques, something interesting. Something good has happened in our household. We've been fighting this for years is. I use Bluetooth all the time and I listen to books on tape and radio through my Bluetooth through my phone. And so I'll just be sitting there and I can't hear anything in the room other than what's being fed into my ears from my phone. So my husband has gotten into the habit of, and he seems to be okay with it. He'll say, can you hear me? And it'll either be because I have to turn off my phone or maybe my hearing aids are out because I'm waiting for my ears to dry after a shower. Or I'm spacing out and said, can you hear me? And I'll answer yes, or just a moment. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to turn off my phone. I'm going to turn off my phone. And that's, that's really worked out pretty well. Annoying for him. I feel bad for him. The other thing is we try to make it a rule. We don't always stick to it is, is to see each other's faces when we talk. So we're not in the other room. We're not walking away from each other. We're talking then. It's helpful, but it, like you say, it's not going struggle. Is there anybody else in? No, we're good. Okay. So, um, This is something I've heard a lot of partners say. They, they don't know if they should advocate for us. Or if they, we should just not be able to hear. And I think some people feel. They, they get caught in between if they advocate. For their hearing loss partners. Are they, what is the word? Are they giving them? Are they taking too much care of them? Or should they let them fend for themselves? And I've heard it's always a give and take. Never exactly sure what to do. And again, I think this goes back to communications between the partners. And I have something to say about that. So in my scenario with my husband, my husband really doesn't like conflict. And so. When there's a situation when I'm advocating for myself. What happens is he starts feeling for the other person. Because he knows I'm good at advocating for myself. So he tries to diminish the stress that they may be feeling. When I'm asking them to do something different. So that's it. That's another, a whole nother level of, then I have to say, Hey, Alan, please don't do that. That nobody knows that. Yeah, that's it. Again, just out of curiosity, out of curiosity, what does he say to relieve the tension? Rather than allowing me to continue to talk to the person to ask for what I need. He tells me what they said. And for those of you who don't know me, I am a very powerful advocate for those of us with hearing loss. And I use it as an opportunity always. Especially in this happened to be in a medical setting. To try to elevate them on their skills and, and education about what they need to provide to us. So if my husband helps them out in that situation, then they don't learn how to communicate with me. It might have been that that person would have to get out a piece of paper and pencil and write it down so that I could understand them. And that's what they need to do. Right. You know, it's interesting. Sometimes my partner will say to someone. When we meet someone new, he'll say, Oh, I have a hearing loss. She may not hear you, or just look at her. And I gotta tell you, I hate it when he says that because it's my job to advocate for myself. But 10 years ago, I probably would have been thrilled with it. Cause I wouldn't have wanted to speak up. Okay. Anybody else? Or should I move on? Nope, you're good. Go on. Okay. Thank you. You know, just listening to the two of you talk about that, it feels like personality differences come into play between husband and wife. And because mine was sudden hearing loss, even though we've been married for almost 30 years, I feel like things that used to work for us before the hearing loss have just turned 180 overnight. And I'm realizing it's about like attachment styles from childhood and the way that our parents would like attune to us. Those things we must have navigated well for the first 29 years of marriage, but just because of the hearing loss and the advocacy needs. So that's where I think I'm just listening to the two of you talk about that it's become so apparent that that has to be what it is. And we must be in that messy middle phase of trying to navigate this new paradigm. So thank you. And you've lost your hearing. It was a sudden hearing loss. It was sudden hearing loss. It started for mild but ended up profound in a matter of just two years and so now I'm single sided deaf with a cochlear implant and in oral rehab and all of that so great great. The burden has her hand up to. Okay. I'm new. For a couple of things. I also have a, I have a cochlear implant and a hearing aid and I'm just on the verge of saying yes to the second cochlear implant. My biggest concern is how will the sound be once I had the two, but I also as you know, as Laurie was saying I was, you know, just lost my hearing once overnight in the one year and then eventually now the other ones. Going away side but that's, that's a different subject than what we were talking about. But I wanted to relate to your story that. I also had problems with my late husband, but it's just very hard for him to deal with my loss of hearing and to work with me and help me. My, my current husband is very good at it is just marvelous because he also has a hearing problem but he has hearing aids and there's really well. He's just been great and looking at me and saying, can you hear me, because sometimes I have my own devices off, depending on what I'm trying to listen to, but I was volunteering at one of our outreach programs for HLA. I think it was one of the schools here or something. And there's the story is to tell you what it must feel like for the spouses or the partners or whatever. This woman came up to me. She was looking at our display and everything and she said, I am so angry. And she was, I mean, physically, her face, her body, everything just visited anger. And she said, so I just started listening to her. And she said, my husband can't hear me. And she says now she said when we used to go to bed she said we would lay there and talk with each other. And she says now we can't. And she says he makes no effort to do that. And she said, someone suggested I go get a pattern paper and pencil. And he has this, you know, the vibrator alarm. She says he sets that and all this noise goes up and it's just awful. And I realized it was, it was those things, but it was about much more than that. Just accepting this. So I listened to her and then I said to her, Oh, and then she told me this horrendous story where they were at dinner. I mean, I felt horrendous as the non-heron person. She was talking about her husband using one of the devices, you know, that you can set on the table or you can pass around so it can help people. And her son, his son, starts passing around his car opener, sort of making fun of the situation. And so I said to her, I said, I know it must be very frustrating for both of you. I said your life has changed and you can't go back. I said, that's, that's what hurts the most. The things you enjoyed, you can no longer do and you'll have to make a new way of doing it. I said, for you, you could make sure there's a patent pencil right there at the bedside. And I said, he doesn't have to have that sound on his alarm. He can just have to buzz. So there was two things that, you know, she pointed out. And then I said, please, please never let your son do that again. And I said, you know, I said, it really is so hurtful to the person that can't hear. And then we talked some more. And by the time she left, she had really calmed down. And I think she understood that those things had to leave. But it just made me realize how awful it must be for our loved ones or our partners to go through this as well. I was sitting around moaning that, oh, I can't hear anymore. What am I going to do with these things? But that's just as bad for them as well. So true. So true. When I give workshops, I give a lot of workshops for communication strategies for people with hearing loss and the people with good hearing. Very often the people with good hearing are in tears for what they have lost. We kind of accept it, but it's almost harder for our partners. So thank you. Anybody else or should I move on? I think you can move on. Okay. Ah, you have to look at this joke. Did it ever happen to you? So Andre, the king wants to know how you're coming with St. George and the dragon. But a he course did St. George and the dragon. How often do we miss hear things like this and come up with ridiculous scenarios like this or like I am deaf and I need to talk to you. And the guy says, it's okay if you're deaf. I'll just talk louder. Does this sound familiar to any of you? All of us will keep the TV or radio louder unless we use assistive listening devices. So what should our partners do? Anybody? Or what should we do? My friend Ellen says that her husband who has a hearing loss who refuses to get hearing aids. When he watches TV, she closes the door as tight as she can. And she can still hear it loud, but she really misses the time watching TV together. Okay. Anybody need to add anything to this one? Well, I actually have a little story. Go for it. So there's some of you here who don't really know me. And in the last two years, I've gotten two cochlear implants that have been very successful. And after I got my first implant, we used to have the TV at this arbitrary, I had the TV at this arbitrary place. And it was 50, even though I couldn't understand it at 50 and needed captions, couldn't go above 50. Well, after my first processor, when we turned the TV, when I turned the TV down to what I can hear now, I have been just absolutely, totally completely appalled that my husband could even handle that 50. Oh, loud. I just, I'm still, every once in a while, I'll turn the TV up, maybe 45 to see what, and I don't understand. I really don't understand how he could deal with that. It's a good story. And there are assisted listening devices. When we watch TV. And that is a whole nother story. I'm sorry, am I cutting somebody off? And so Barbara Odell turned her mic on. And I don't know if she may have a question or a comment to make. Her hand isn't raised, but she turned the mic on. So Barbara Odell, would you like to say something. Thanks, Alan. I guess not. I guess not. Okay. Thank you for checking. I appreciate it. This is interesting. We can talk, but our partners can't because we won't be able to hear them. So I never thought about this. But what if we're driving, and it's dark, we won't be able to hear what our partners are saying. Or what if we're too tired, and we just can't listen anymore. But we sometimes forget, so we'll still ask questions. So I know with my partner at night, if I ask him a question at night, unless he looks snack at me and talks directly at me, I can't hear him. Anything else. I'm just too tired to hear him. But I also know my friend Mary Ellen said she gets so frustrated if her husband is driving. He asked her a question, but he can't hear her. But he expects an answer, but he can't hear it. It's like a catcher 22. Does anybody have any suggestions what we should do if we are driving and we can't hear our partners talking. Any suggestions. Laurie. Go ahead. Well, this has been again new territory for us to navigate I flat out tell people, I can drive. Or I can be a passenger and talk, but I can't do both. Because I can't have the brain energy to do both. It's too much. And they said to me once night hits like it's just more energy needed it because of the diminished senses. So we do that. And then I'm fortunate to have a mini mic that I realized I need to use in the car as a passenger because it being streamed my processor is so much more beneficial than trying to look at the driver or God forbid if you're in the back seat and you can't read your lips. So, again, I mean, these are just things I've started to trial and error my way through but I don't certainly have, you know, the answer for everybody but those are just things that have worked for me. Yeah, thank you. So, I have specific devices specific devices have assistive listening devices that can be paired to them through Bluetooth. And so the mini mic is one device where the person you're who's talking to you wears a device, and you connect it to your cochlear implant or hearing aids. But there is a very inexpensive and simple solution. And that is a pocket talker pocket talker is hardwired. It's simple. It's relatively inexpensive. And it works really well. I always mention pocket talker because it's overlooked because it's kind of old technology. It's not cool like Bluetooth. It's not cool like telecoil, but it works. Anybody else before I move on. I do. If I'm a passenger before I had my got my implants. And I recently used this with someone else who does not have cochlear implants but has profound hearing loss. And I use my smartphone with a speech to text app. And it's really fabulous. You can put your smartphone in right in the vent holder. And the first time I ever did that before I got my cochlear implants was the first time I'd been able to talk in the car in years. So one of the situations that happened to me for me was that none of the devices worked in the car, because they also picked up the road noise. And so when they picked up the road noise, then I couldn't differentiate between the road noise and the voice. So the speech to text app in the car is just absolutely over the top fabulous. Do you use Otter or what do you use Ava. Do you find that better than Otter. I personally believe that Ava is the most robust speech to text app period. Okay. Okay, thank you and use it on your computer. You can it has a floating screen on your phone now so you could use it with anything on your phone. It's a little floating window that floats around your eye on your tablet everything. Thank you can do that with Otter to Otter doesn't allow you to do to different conversations. So two people can participate in a conversation as individuals. That's true. That's true. So Margaret has her hand up. Can you hear me. I have tried both of those and I prefer Otter. So really the message I think would be for people to try each one and decide which one they want to stay with or bounce back and forth I mean two years ago three years ago the best one out there was live transcribe. What I'm finding is that there's more and more applications coming out and technology keeps improving so that would be my recommendation to folks is is try out a few and see what happens. It is incredible. It is incredible how there are so many captioning applications. And they're free. I'm so hooked on pocket talkers that I forget about those great and free captioning applications that are available to us. Anybody I see Susan has raised your hand. Yeah, I wondered. I thought when I use my mini Mike with my cochlear implant. That I could hear very well but it stopped me hearing anything else from outside. So if you're driving isn't that unsafe. Do you have two devices or one device. I have a hearing aid and a cochlear implant. But the hearing aid is not, you know, outstanding. Okay, I would maybe my suggestion when work I was suggesting that you connect the mini Mike to just one device. Yeah, yeah it's just like if I'm using my phone to give me direction. And Siri will tell me it will speak only to me no one else can hear it but it also stops. I can hear the sound that I might hear and I'm just concerned about that when I'm driving. Susan are you sure that you can't control the balance between the external microphone and the mini Mike in the app. I could. I mean no I'm not sure. I haven't looked into it is sort of assumed. Is there anybody else here who has a cochlear America's implant who uses a mini Mike and the app. Can you adjust the balance between the external microphone and the mini Mike. You know, that's what I have and I think you should be able to that looking at it quickly I don't see how you can but I'm actually going to fool around with it and look some more. The audiologist has to give you those settings. Okay, it's not an automatic and they don't necessarily. My understanding is give them to you upfront because of the required mappings until your brain adjusts to the initial basic controls. So it might be working my way up to that but I already feel like I'm compromised as a hard of hearing person driving I mean I'm never going to be back to where I was pre hearing loss. So, I don't, I don't know how you end up determining when it's no longer safe for you I mean I know that's why my rule is either I will drive and no one talks to me or, or they can drive and we can talk. I got it. Yeah, but there's I want everybody here to know that there is no legal inhibition for deaf people to drive. Anybody in the United States who's deaf deaf can get a driver's license. So, you're you may be remembering the other stuff that you could hear, and you might be wondering but there's no legal inhibition about that. Susan Beck. I think my concern is like, I guess it's literally that I already don't feel like I'm a terrific driver. Any distraction. Might be a problem of course it's a distraction time to hear someone. When you're driving to so. I think Susan what I hear you saying is those are things we need to figure out for ourselves personally and our own level of comfort and I, I like you it's hard because you have to let go of what your ideal was before but when we get to that point where it's just no longer comfortable for us then we decide so I see you Susan. And just a quick question. I see it's five minutes after the hour. How much time do we have I just want to know where I should go. You have an hour and a half. Okay. It's a 90 minute meeting. Okay. Okay. So, I guess there's different people have different needs to do different things. And I think that's actually the whole purpose of anything with hearing loss. Just because you have hearing loss does not mean you have the same needs as somebody else. And one what what works for you may not work for the other person, even if you have the exact same type of hearing loss. And what works for one partner may not work for another partner. Okay, can I move on or anybody else. Okay. So, yes, this is the bottom line. We all have to deal with hearing loss and how we communicate and interact. And it's only working together that we're going to find our mutual. Thing that works for both of us. But I think the thing is to recognize that we both have our challenges. So, what we still have a few minutes. What I wouldn't mind doing is, could people talk to me a little bit about we didn't. I would love some feedback on this, on this comment that we often bluff and don't acknowledge that we haven't heard something. I'd love to hear what people think about that if they do that if they don't do that, how our partners feel about it how they don't feel about it. Anybody on that. Margaret. My husband prefers that I don't bluff that I don't pretend. And I get that so I'm working on it. Again, it's my anticipation of what might be said. It's my hearing ability. I start assuming that I won't hear. And that therefore makes me not here. But if I focus and look and pause, it makes a big difference. Yeah, so that's, I mean, I feel very badly for him. I have to do better to focus. Yeah, thanks Margaret. You know, I got mad at somebody I went to a hearing loss meeting. And she we were talking about bluffing. And she said, I bluff in Technicolor, because I do it so often. I don't know how pathetic I was. I got mad at her because I thought she bluffs more than I do. Anyhow, I think we all know we bluff. But I think there's one other thing. And sometimes I think I'm hearing, but people point out to me that I'm hearing incorrectly, or having heard. That doesn't happen to anybody else. Or is it just me? That's happened. That happens. Yeah. Whenever my nephew comes to visit, he's always saying, and Patsy, you didn't hear that. And I'm like, I didn't know that. Laurie has something to say. I wonder, for me, I think I'm hearing pretty well now after the implant and the adjustment. So I don't feel like I'm missing the actual words. But what I've noticed has changed for me. I am much more sensitive, or maybe I end up miss reading the intonation of how it's delivered. So I'm attaching all kinds of meaning on it. Like, he was really angry when he said that when he insists he wasn't angry. He just spoke it in my head. I don't know if it's something in the auditory pathway before it gets to the brain, like I've interpreted it as he's real angry. So I am learning how to stop myself and ask for, is this how you meant it? Because this is how it sounded. And so I am just like, really, I don't know what the word is. I mean, it's dumbfounding to me that I am reading so much meaning into voice tone and pitch and intonation versus the clarity of the words. I don't know if anybody else has experienced that post-implant. Does that make sense? Just added curiosity. Was this an issue before you had a hearing loss? I don't think it was. I think people have said to me, what's the term? HSP, hypersensitive people? Like this is something now my counselor is talking to me about. Was I sensitive before? And I do remember people saying like, oh, you know, you're one of those sensitive people. I'm easily moved to tears. But my audiologist has since said to me, people who were sensitive before become hypersensitive after hearing loss. So the term is hyperacusis. Loud sounds trigger and startle me. Like I have a startle reflex like no other. And so I am trying to learn how to retrain my brain to say like, you don't have to jump out of your skin because the doorbell rang, you know. And it's just the brain not knowing what's that sound, where did it come from? Do I need to be in panic mode? And so that's been the hardest adjustment for me. So I don't think it's about not really hearing the words as much as missing the meaning and jumping to these conclusions and thinking everything is more severe than it needs to be. That's my struggle. So thank you, Margaret, for I see that in the chat. Yeah, thank you. That's I never thought of that. I'm just curious if anybody else feels the same way about that, which shows that we're all different. I think to do Margaret, she had posted a couple of things saying she definitely agrees and it makes me. It's interesting to hear some of this because I'm, I'm like that doing I have been for a long while so jumpy somebody walks in the room and I'm, you know, if I don't see them. I'm so startled by it and I've been that way a long while, but probably, you know, in the process of my hearing degrading but also with my late husband I realized how often I thought he was the way he was speaking to me I was that he was angry with me. And it makes me wonder if some of that reaction now is what Lori's experiencing to and I didn't connect the two at all. Thank you. Margaret still has her hand up. Yeah, I just, I just totally agree that's probably the biggest issue we have in our household is that I'm always in trouble, because I do things wrong, but it's, it's the first sentence might be normal. I always, and then I turn my head and face him, because I wasn't at first. So I say what, or what did you say or I tried to repeat as much of the sentence that I thought I heard, and he has to repeat it, you know he repeats it, and that must be just so incredibly annoying for him he says I'm not mad. But he has, of course, incremented the volume. And I was actually running a workshop in Central Mass where I used to be, and a woman was in tears she was older, and she just was not handling she couldn't handle that her husband was raising his voice to her. And he was sitting right next to her and he says I'm, you know the same old dialogue, said I'm just trying to get to have you hear me. And she was having a real hard time with it. I sometimes have a hard time with it but I do try to tell myself, like by mantras he's not angry he's just trying to be accommodating. And I have to say that to myself a lot. Thanks Margaret. Yeah, something that people haven't mentioned has been. Sometimes I know I found this very helpful for myself is that to have somebody touch me right before they start talking to me. It's not my arm to get my attention, rather than or shoulder, rather than just starting to talk away so I had to go what what how. Yeah, Jill McFadden has her hand up. Hi Jill. Hi. So what my husband and I have been doing most recently is because you know over the years when you have had hearing loss you get kind of sloppy in your habits. You say okay we're not going to talk from each to each other from other rooms. And you know we're not going to do this and not that. So now I finally came up with and I heard this, I think on an HLA a meeting was. Before you start a conversation with me, say, Jill, just get my attention, because then I don't miss the first three words. I wonder if I had any other little gems to tell you. I think my, I have a pretty funny husband and we bring a lot of humor into our frustration with hearing loss. So, I like to say, did you say, you know, and I'll have some weird phrase. It's funny, because it isn't exactly what he said. He'll say, well, no, what I really said was, so humor has been a very helpful thing. And if it wasn't that he had such a great funny bone. I don't know if that would be happening. You know, because it's kind of serious when you have hearing loss, you know, and when you're new to it and you're always getting a new hearing aid or cochlear or a new electronic thing you have to learn and it's, it's a lot. You know, it's the learning curve you keep thinking, okay, now that I'm 80. I don't have to learn anything new electronically wrong, because my phone is so old that I can't get any of the new apps that are out. You know, just, or I can't watch an Instagram thing or YouTube because things are old. And so, you know, you have to kind of resign yourself to say, okay, I'm going to keep learning. I'm going to keep learning new electronics. I'm not going to become a wizard. But I have to learn enough to assist me in my, my hearing loss. Thanks, Joe. So three tears for humor, three tears for learning, three tears for dealing with it, three tears for. I'm just going to come back. Okay. Did you all get this joke? How often do things like this happen where we miss here or something? And I think this goes back to what I was saying before. I don't know if I've misheard it. You know, obviously, if somebody says I'm going to the store to buy a mountain, I know I've heard wrong. But if they say I'm going to the store to buy milk, but they really mean I'm going to the store to buy what sounds like milk. I don't know I've misheard. Anyhow, I want to just ask you what you think about this one. And then let's conclude this presentation. But I would love to know what you think how to handle this situation better. We know we get insulted when somebody says never mind. That's like on all the hearing loss blogs. We hate it. We hate it. We hate it. But our partners don't like it either. So any solutions to this? Is that the right word? Conundrum? Anybody have brilliant ideas with that? Because it is a conundrum. We both have our challenges here. I don't usually mind. So I don't usually mind and I ask my husband if he can explain it to me later. Nice. Nice. But that that assumes an acceptance, a beautiful acceptance on your part. And maybe that's something we just have to know to do is beautiful acceptance on our part. Susan, you're mute. I do get insulted. But one thing, if they keep repeating the same thing in the same way, and I keep not hearing it is asking them to say it differently. Before they've repeated it five times and then they never mind. You know, right at the start, if you say please say it differently, then maybe they don't get so frustrated. And I can understand. Actually repeating things in it, rephrasing things is really, really good strategy. Thank you. I haven't had that happen with my partner, but I've had it happen. You know, maybe wearing playing bridge or something and somebody or at one of my book clubs or something I wanted the other women, you know, said something and then finally just say, never mind. I usually call them on it in as nice a way as possible. I said, Oh, please don't, please don't say that. I said I do have a hearing problem. Could you repeat it just one more time. Thank you. That's that educates them and hopefully I get to hear what they say. Thank you. Pat and closing, can you tell everybody a little bit about the hearing evolution. So, thanks, Ian. So, I'll tell you what my deal is. I started to lose my hearing when I was 20 and from 20 to 60. I bluffed. I wore long hair. I covered my hearing aids. I didn't tell anybody I had a hearing loss. I was at work. If I didn't hear something, I just let it go by. I don't know how I succeeded in what I did. I was in sales. So very often it was just a one on one. But somehow when I turned 60, I finally got it. I finally got that my hearing loss has nothing to do with my, my intelligence. It's just hearing loss. And, and at that point, that's when I met and that's when I went to that hearing loss convention, of which I didn't know anything about. When I started the chapter, I became president, I gave workshops like, I couldn't start keeping my mouth shut. So the hearing loss evolution is an evolution for us to let go of any of the negative stereotypes to not let hearing bother us. It's just that we haven't heard. What I started to do is I have a coaching practice. I'm a life coach. So now I give coaching to people with hearing loss just to help you get over the negative stereotypes of hearing loss, because they're wrong. We just haven't heard. And I know that hearing loss is a challenge. I mean, what makes humans different from other animals, communications, and hearing loss messes up that communications. So it is challenging. I'm not saying other disabilities are easier, but it's challenging, because it cuts us off from other human beings. And when it cuts us off, you know what happens? We become isolated, we become depressed. We all know that we've all been there. But somehow, if we let go of those negative stereotypes, it's easy to deal with. It's easy to just say, I'm so sorry I haven't heard you. I have a hearing loss. Can you look me in the eyes? I'm so sorry I have a hearing loss. Can you speak a little louder? But not too loud, of course. And to feel enough energy to take advantage of the technology that's available to us and the captioning that's available to us. And there's so many apps out there that help us hear better. And the assistive listening devices help us learn better. I'm sorry I get very emotional about this, because there's so many of us who still are stuck in those negative stereotypes that hearing loss is bad, makes us stupid, and less intelligence. That's not who we are. That's not the way we are. We just have a little challenge hearing. Listen, everybody has a challenge doing something. Do you know anybody who doesn't have some sort of a challenge? Our challenge happens to be we have a challenge hearing. But with two-way communications, it's okay. It might be writing on a piece of paper. It might be sign language. It might be cochlear implants. It might be assistive listening devices. It might be any of the captioning apps. It doesn't matter. With that, we're able to hear. And actually, one last thing and I'll be quiet. We're lucky to be living today, rather than 50 years ago, because there's so much available to them. Thank you for letting me blab about the hearing loss evolution. Thank you. I'm happy to work with any of you. I'm happy to give workshops. I love doing it. Thank you. I'll be quiet. Thanks so much, Pat, for giving us a wonderful presentation and everybody I believe had an opportunity to comment and share their experiences and what's worked for them and what hasn't worked for them. I just sent our caption or a message and asked if they could stay a little bit longer and I haven't heard back. If they have to go, we'll turn on the auto captions after they leave. Something that nobody mentioned was we talked about the whole scenario about once you take out your hearing aids, take off your processors, when you get into bed, that you were all incapacitated. So my husband and I figured, rather I figured out a way at least that I could have a little bit of dialogue with him. And that is if he has a question to ask me or I have a question to ask him. One pat is yes and two pats is no. If I might say something like, we happen to like the windows open at night, sometimes we forget, you know, I might say, oh, would you like me to open the windows? One pat is yes. So at least it expands the conversation a little bit past what is nothing. I'd like to share with everybody what's our upcoming events. Our next meeting is on November 5. And we are going to show the documentary film. We hear you now hear us. And I put the trailer in here in case you wanted to trailer, see the trailer. It is a very, very powerful film that won awards. So that I hope that all of you come back and join us. And in December we're having Sherri Ebert's and Gail Hannon come talk about their new book. And we're going to have some discussion about that. Oops. You want me to stop sharing it. Oh, please. Okay, so we want to let everybody know that we have two committees ones a programs committee and if people are interested in joining to contact Zoher. And all of you know I'm a died in the will advocate and always looking for other people who are interested in advocating with me. So if you have any desire to do that, please contact me. We're also a member organization and even though you're welcome to join us because we're open to the public. We'd also like to remind you that we also are a member organization and we appreciate you're joining us. You can do so and I upgraded this slide this morning and obviously I forgot to delete one of the pieces here. So you can see on the menu bar there's a piece that says membership. Just click on membership and all the directions and the fees and are there. You can either do it online or you can send it to us. I want to remind you that what communication access everybody today pretty much takes for granted that we have all kinds of accessibility for people who have mobility issues. And this is a reminder for all of us that assistive listening systems help us the same way ramps help people with mobility issues. Nobody thinks that we shouldn't have ramps. So there's no excuse for anybody thinking that we shouldn't have communication access. The ADA is 32 years old this year. If we don't ask for the accessibility that we all need, we are going to continue to go down the same path and not receive it. And so I know it's not always easy to do. But learning how to ask us. I look at it like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger and better you get at it. So you just have to keep practicing. And if others are kind of discounting and all of those other things that that we sometimes experience. Remember that problem is not you. It's them. You're asking for your right that's given to you because you're an American with a disability that inhibits your life. And that's what you need to be able to stay engaged in a productive person. Where can you ask for accessibility everywhere. So this is part of our ask brochure. And it's just a reminder when you look at all the different icons here, all of the different locations that we have a tendency to give up. And not participate anymore. And they're all basically required to provide access for us. I'd like to let people know that we have a YouTube channel and all of our meetings are on the channel. So if you happen to have missed a meeting, just go look at our YouTube channel. And at the beginning, we still have the directions for zoom. And we're discussing maybe another way around that, but you can fast forward on the zoom if you already understand those directions to the beginning of the presentation. And we always have a, we've had a slide consistently at the beginning of the presentation. So should be easy for you to find that. And we'd like to remind you who we are and how to get ahold of us. We have a wonderful website absolutely filled to the brim with information and I'd like to give a shout out to Alan Katsura for recently redoing the whole website. And I'd like to remind everybody that on our website, we have a list of all of the hearing loops in California and all of the ADA coordinators for all of the cities in California. So that you can figure out if you want to participate in city government or any of the services from parks and rec. You just can't, you should contact the ADA coordinator listed there. And that's where you would start the process of getting what you need. Now, just because we created the list for the ADA coordinators, I'm not guaranteeing that you'll be able to get the accessibility that you want. If you don't ask, you're not going to get it. And if you have a problem, please contact me and we'll continue to work on that city that location, whatever that is. So