 Good morning, everybody. We'd like to welcome you to the first HLAA Diablo Valley chapter meeting of the new year. So we see some people who are chatting out here, they're saying hello to their friends. We understand how important that is. We're happy that you were able to complete our conversation. So I'd like to introduce myself for those of you who don't know me. My name is Ann Thomas, and I'm the president of the Hearing Loss Association of America, the Diablo Valley chapter. Yes. It's been a year and a half going through a hearing loop. So I should have done that first. This room has a hearing loop, which is an assistant listening system that is required by law in places of public accommodation that have public address systems. You need to look for this sign everywhere. Rossmore has the largest number of hearing loops of anywhere in Contra Costa County, maybe in Northern California. We've created a list here for you so that you know which rooms have hearing loops. So if you have a telecoil in your hearing instrument, and I'm using the word instrument because hearing aids, cochlear implants, and bone conductive devices all have telecoils. And rather than saying those three words a million times, we're calling them hearing instruments. If your hearing instrument has a telecoil, all you need to do is press the button on your device, or possibly it might be in an auxiliary device like a mini mic, and you will automatically connect to the hearing loop in this room. And how a hearing loop is different than the PA, the effective range of hearing aids is only about six feet. So everybody sitting in this room is further away than six feet from the loudspeakers. So that means you're past the range of the effectiveness of your hearing instrument. The hearing loop takes the sound directly to your hearing instrument. It's like the sound is in the middle of your head. Any of you, if this is your first time attending one of our meetings, may not have any idea whether your hearing instrument has a telecoil or not. And that's because, unfortunately, most audiologists don't tell their patients about that. So we have a card right here, this one is created, so that you don't really have to worry about what to say, because based on our experience, we found that it was really confusing to many of the consumers. So we created a card for you that explains to your audiologist everything that you would like to know about your instrument. It says, audiologists and hearing aid provider, please advise me if my hearing instruments have telecoils. If they do, please activate and program them for a hearing loop. On the back, we've left space for them to write in for you so that you know how to find that. So most hearing instruments have the ability of having multiple programs. So you know, if you don't know what program your telecoil is, it's problematic, you're pressing the buttons, you don't know what's happening. So this potentially could say the third program, the third beak, the second beak depends on where it is. And it's written there for you. So once you leave their office, you don't have to really think about, oh no, what did they say to me? I didn't really quite understand them, because you can look at your card. So if there's anybody here who would like some more information about that, please talk to me later. When we use a hearing loop, every single person needs to talk through a microphone. And so we'll have people who are runners. So I introduced myself as Alan Thomas. This is Alan Kotsura, our tech person, all around person who helps with everything. This is Zohar Chippa, our vice president. Alan wants to say something to me just now. I need to raise or tilt your. That's good. Thank you. See, you need additional helpers because I can't look behind me and look ahead of me as well. So I saw a woman right there who has her hand raised. So Zohar, this microphone, Zohar, the microphone right there, you're going to have to turn it on. Press the, no, it's on the side. Press the button. And how we explain to people to use a microphone with a tea coil. It's not like on television where you see it's down here. Those microphones cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Pretend it's like an ice cream cone that you're going to lip. So it's right about here. And you hold it just below your lips so people could lip read. What did you want to know? I was just trying to inform you that the video is not showing you. It is showing your chest mainly. And is the camera only on the computer? So the camera here is for people who are zooming in. Okay, so all of you can see me, but you need to look here to see the captions. So Alan came by to tell me that it wasn't positioned very well. And, you know, I'm a really effervescent person. It's hard for me to stay really still. Okay, and so the camera on my laptop is what's getting me. Okay. And so if that's distracting, I'm sorry. This is only our second hybrid meeting. We feel grateful beyond the moon that everybody's, we think hearing on zoom and all of you are hearing in this room as well. And we should be able to hear them too. It's really a feat that we were able to accomplish this. So if something happens, see when I turn around, that looks really weird. Right. So just let me know what's happening out here. Okay. So I'm going to do something so it looks better or it's more appealing to you. Okay. So Kathy, did I say everything that I needed to say at the beginning? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for reminding me. So most people don't realize that hearing loss is a disability covered under a variety of federal. State and local laws. So the symbol that you need to look for. This symbol on the top without a T is the generic symbol. That indicates that there is an assisted listening system in the room. If there is the symbol with the T. And can everybody see it? It's this one here and everybody on zoom. That means that there's a hearing loop. It's confusing to people frequently. Because the T stands for telecoil. So sometimes the telecoil is actually in your hearing instrument. It's not in the hearing loop. So what's in the room is a hearing loop. So all technologies need to be available. What is the two features there? One has to be one doesn't. One that doesn't, what does that mean? Okay. So the ADA band standards. Have specifications for assistive listening systems. There are three kinds of assistive listening systems. One is an FM, which is radio frequency. It's just like your FM radio, but they designated a certain frequency for assistive listening systems. The other one is an infrared and an infrared is line of sight. And you might be familiar with that because most of your remote control guns are infrared. Okay. Both FM and infrared. One single person is required to get a receiver. And if you had a telecoil in your hearing instrument, you would use a neck loop with that receiver. One of the things that makes hearing loops so wonderful for all of us is if you have a telephone, you don't need anything. You walk into the space. You press the button on your hearing instrument or you use your remote control, which is on your smartphone frequently today. And go to the telecoil program. You're all set for the other things most venues require you to either leave your driver's license or they have a whole myriad of things. Not only do you have to remember to go get it and identify yourself and make a big deal. You have to remember to turn it back in to get your driver's license. It's so easy to forget that. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All hearing aids do not have the telecoil function. You need to make sure to ask for one. Okay. So everybody needs telecoils. And Bluetooth. Bluetooth is at this point in time, it's one to one. And it's one to one. And it's one to one. And expanded version of Bluetooth is on the horizon. For most of us with hearing loss. We're probably not going to see the benefits of that. For probably 10 years. And the reason for that is we only buy hearing aids every five years. So by the time there's a critical mass of us. It's going to be 10 years. So those are the three systems. So for the hearing loop, you don't have to identify yourself. You don't have to do anything. You personally don't have to worry about whether they charge the batteries. I can't tell you how many times I've ever used an FM system. And I'm very knowledgeable about technology. I'm not ashamed of my hearing loss. I self identify everywhere I go. I call three, four times ahead of time to make sure the batteries are charged in the devices. And here I'm going to play on that something and write it. The most important part of why I went to whatever location. I did with it was a play or a meeting or a lecture. The battery dies. So you don't have any of those problems with the hearing. That answer your question. Oh, wait a minute. So here. I'm talking to you. See, and I can understand. During the pandemic, I got two cochlear implants, two very successful cochlear implants. So I'm carrying better than I've heard in 20 years. And so I keep forgetting. We passed around. It needs to be passed on weekends. Would you like to help? I couldn't hear that baby over there. Yeah. So then you continue with what you were saying. That was on this. Everybody in the audience. To be heard has to speak into the microphone. So we. So here is the designated runner. If he's over here, take this side because we have two microphones. Would you like to distribute them on this side? Would you like to be a runner on this side? Otherwise you just have to wait till zoe hair gets to you. Okay. So everybody has to speak through microphone. So is there any other question right now before we move on to what our program may or may not be here about. Our book discussion. So everybody's good. Okay. So. Jerry e birds and Gail. Hannah have written. What I consider to be the seminal book on hearing loss and. Okay. Is that good hearing loss and how to create your best life with it. All parts of your life. Physically, emotionally, socially, and especially with your relationships with other people. And your audiologist probably is not giving you the assistance that you need to be able to function well. You need to be able to work with all of the things going on about that. And that's why the hearing loss association of America was formed in 1934 to help all of us with those things. I know that my life would have been radically radically different. If I hadn't found HLA and 2009. I might have been a cloistered person. I can understand how that happens to people. I can understand how they feel to be in a room. Even at a close range with somebody and absolutely not understand it. Even with your best devices. So. With all of us. We're all in the same boat. You don't have to say, I'm sorry because I can't understand. You don't have to make excuses. You don't have to feel bad because all of us. Are here with your mates. Frequently. Before people start coming to HLA a. They didn't, they don't realize what they need to tell their mates so that they can understand well. And a variety of situations. And the biggest one of all. Is please face me. As I said, if the effective range of hearing aids is only about six That's not very far. If I put my arm out, a person there puts their arm out, that's six feet, that's not very far. Theoretically, if I was standing on this side, and this is an information table and you're standing over there, if you have more than a mile to moderate hearing loss, there's a great likelihood that you won't be able to understand. So with your mates, you need to tell them. If you're not facing me, I can't understand you. You need to face me also so I can live free. So before this book by Sherry and Gail, there was really no documented information all in one place. Both of them are my friends, my fellow advocates. I know them personally. Sherry lives in New York and Gail lives in Canada. And we all get together at the HLA Convention every year. So they gave a presentation about their book at our last chapter meeting. And if you weren't able to attend that meeting, we have a YouTube channel. And you can watch all of our previous meetings on our YouTube channel. Now, originally at the beginning of the pandemic, we started including all of the directions for Zoom, which eventually I'm gonna get to in this presentation for people who are participating in Zoom on the other side, all over the United States, which is the wonderful golden silver lining of the pandemic that that venue has been created for us. So at that time, before our last meeting, we asked everybody if they would like to have a book discussion for this meeting. And the majority of people said yes. But I would like to know in this room, can you please just raise your hand how many people have actually read the book? Okay, so the majority of people in this room haven't read the book, which is perfectly fine because in my mind when I was thinking about this meeting, I was thinking about how could we orchestrate it so that it wasn't limited to just the book? There are lots of things though in the book club discussion that we all can relate to. So we printed out the list of the book club questions. Does everybody have one? So far, nobody has, but I forgot to have them out. Well, that's okay. It's nice to receive something from somebody. Okay, while Zoher is handing those out, I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and I'm gonna go ahead and we already talked about so now we're gonna go ahead and move toward why everybody may have come to this meeting today. So I think because we have more people who haven't read the book, then maybe we should go around and just quickly say what drew you to come to this meeting if you haven't already read the book? And why don't we start over here? When welcome. I just wanted to share what was found. Perfect, thank you. Marlene. I partially read the book and it's wonderful. Unwalt Bateman, I came to the meeting to see him. Thanks, Walt. I attended many of the meetings prior to the pandemic. This was the first time that. And primarily because I am very unhappy with the hearing aids I have now that are probably less than a year old. And so I just need to find nature. Thank you. Make sure that we're gonna get together after our meeting. I'm always open to talk to people. Maybe they just need to be adjusted. Hi there. I'm Cindy and I've come to the meeting because I felt like there must be help out there more help that I didn't realize. Advices I've never heard of. And people who are experiencing life like I am that I could connect with. Perfect, thank you. We're happy you're here. Hi, my name is Catherine. I'm a union of Ross Ward. I just learned about this group and I'm very interested in becoming a part of it. I do have a good view of it. Hi, I'm Kathy. I belong to HLAA in different cities all over before I moved here to Walnut Creek. I have a cochlear implant in the hearing aid and I still struggle especially in rooms where there's a lot of active noise. Thank you. Before you say something, I just want to let you know many, many, many of our chapter members have cochlear implants. And I think that I know personally over 10 people who've gotten implants since the pandemic started. So since they, in two years ago they lowered the criteria for Medicare for cochlear implants to lots of people who previously weren't flocking to get them or now are losing them. Go ahead. Oh, wait a minute. One parameter. I just wanted to respond to that quickly because I got mine during the pandemic 21 and then Zoom did not have closed caption as an option which I use for training or retraining my brain. And at that time I had used Google.com and that worked perfectly fine. So it's interesting Zoom has progressed in that respect. Yeah, so Zoom actually had captions for a lot longer than you actually were aware of but it was only if you had a professional account. Yeah, I did not. And so when they then they opened it up after that to if you were a person with hearing loss and you didn't have a professional account if you wrote them a note then they activated it for you. But so that's long over, right? Go ahead, it's your turn now. Yes, I'm Rita and I have severe hearing problems and I come because I feel that I may get some insights into what I can do to improve my hearing. Thank you. I've never had a hearing aid and I'm about to buy my first because from my own experience and also from the hearing test I know I get views of that in certain situations. I'm very glad you're a little bit about the null foil and that system which is in the rooms in many of the rooms I lost more than I could use them. Yeah, something that we didn't really go into and I don't know how I'm supposed to go on a side track. All of the devices, the assistive listening systems have to be accessible to people with no hearing instrument, people with a hearing instrument no telecoil and hearing aid compatible. Meaning you have a telecoil that's a hearing loop that's a no-brainer. If it's an anthem or an infrared you get a neck loop instead of headphones for a connector and we have receivers to give out to people who might not have a telecoil in their hearing device. Is there anybody here who would like to try a receiver who doesn't have a telecoil? Here's one. And if you're a Rossmore resident, Rossmore distributes receivers to you. You need to go to custodial which is in the building with fireside, right? Administration, I think. And originally they were giving them to residents for three months at a time. It may be longer than that now. They thought that that was much easier than at every single meeting to distribute them. Now we have them because I couldn't host a meeting without providing accessibility to everybody. So what it is, is it's a box about the size of a cigarette, old cigarette packet. And that receives the hearing loop signal. There's a port on this box that you plug. If you don't have a telecoil, you plug a hearing headphone into that and then you would wear a headphone. And that's coming here. Okay, so while Zoho here is doing the yes, please. It's time, Carol, I haven't even heard about some of these devices I can go and put it in. I mean, we need help, I can't hear. And absolutely it is affecting my life in lots of ways. Excuse me, do you have hearing aids? I do. Okay, so perfect. So please contact me later. Maybe there are things that are available to you within your current hearing instruments, hearing aids that you don't know about. We can talk about that. I'm always open to everybody. Where is the box? Right on the other side of the table. I think it's on the floor. I'm telling you, putting all these things together to bring over here. It's like, I thought, oh my gosh, how do I even remember all these things? So all of these receivers, you have to remember to plug them all in because they're all rechargeable batteries. Do you have a hearing aid to use that? No. So if I, I don't have a hearing aid. So if I go into the fires, when I go into the fireside room, which has a logo, I can use one of these and hear the lecture better than not. We created a document for everybody in Rossmore that lists the rooms with hearing loops. So this applies everywhere. You can try a receiver here and a headphone and Zoher will get to you shortly. It's just the one. You're like what? Oh, I'm Cherry and we belong to the Golden Nation even though we live on Farming Beach. While I came here, my hearing was really the cherry breeding. And then I mentioned to a couple of the zoologies and not to talk here and talk about our experiences. And through these, through the one year that we've been here, we can both bring our COVID in fast and it's paying my whole entire life. And I really appreciate it. Thank you. Hi, I'm my husband, Lane, and I just came to support it, but I have hearing loss as well. My name is Elaine. I have severe hearing loss. I have hearing aids and I find the hearing aids are not performing. And I wonder whether it's the hearing aid or my own hearing that has deteriorated. And so I have to determine that. I have scheduled a new audiologist that I've never seen before. And I'm hoping that he can clarify that and be of help. I'm Gloria. I am suffering from some hearing loss. I currently have no device at home. One of my biggest issues for not hearing is the tinnitus that just drives me crazy some days. So I am looking for information on how I can address those problems. The woman who was sitting next to you and everybody else, we for a very long time have had this as part of our teaching tools. And I don't know if they can see this on. Yeah, I can see that now. It's a teaching zoom. So what happens is that all of us go to our audiologist, right? And we have a hearing test and the results of those tests are accorded on a document that's called an audiogram. And encourage everybody to always take, ask for their audiogram because over time this allows you to be able to track your own hearing. Your hearing loss, what's going on with that? Also, when somebody says to you, oh, you have mild to moderate hearing loss, you don't have any idea what that means. So it's not adequately explained to people in a way that they can really understand what that means. So we use this form and what I encourage people to do is to take their audiogram and mark directly on here. These are the frequencies and this is the volume. So you mark on here exactly what was on your personal audiogram. And then you're able to look at this document and on the side you can see, okay. So from zero to 20 decibels is considered normal. So if you don't have anything in there, there's no doubt in your mind you don't have normal hearing, right? So, and the most common hearing loss, this age related is high frequency. So the chances are really great that people in this room have high frequency hearing loss. And that's in this area here. And depending on what your personal audiogram says, when you mark it on here, you can see exactly what kind of hearing loss you have and what you can understand. So this is called the speech banana. That's where all the consonants and the sounds are. So for the high frequency sounds, the things that you can hear are K, T, F, S and T H. Well, those are lots of words that really designates a lot of the parts of speech. So if you took your audiogram and you marked on here what was going on, you would have a good idea about, oh, what level of hearing loss do I have? Oh, it's moved into the severe to profound range. So there's a rule of thumb and it's that when you're, the volume is at around 70 decibels or helped really well by hearing aids. As your hearing continues to progress past that, what happens is you have hair cells and the hair cells die. So it doesn't make any difference how much additional volume you give to them. You can't make them stand up and be good soldiers so that they can understand. So what you're looking at for most of us is balancing out how long to keep your hearing aids before you think about looking at another option, which would be a cochlear implant. So when you're no longer benefit, well from your hearing aids, then it's time to explore a cochlear implant. And so that you know different than hearing instruments although in our county, our health insurance is all starting to include hearing aids for the senior advantage plans, but all Medicare programs actually cover cochlear implants. Yes. There's the question here. You had to make it through that for us though. Oh, you're just loving the mic. Yeah. My name is Tina and I'm here, I've had hearing aids for 12, 15 years, I guess it's happened for 15, 20 years. Now it's cochlear implants. And after Florence, I am very frustrated with the cochlear implant. So I'd like to talk to you about the meeting also. Hi, I'm Leslie and I'm here to find out ways to be a better neighbor to my friend here. That's really lovely of you. So the biggest thing for you to remember, oh, and above the board, just make sure you're facing her because if you're not, there's very little chance probably that she's gonna be able to understand you. And today we may talk about some other technologies. It's actually part of the book. One of the things that is really wonderful if you have a smartphone is their speech-to-text app now. During the pandemic, I don't know what I would have done without that. So I would take my smartphone, turn on my speech-to-text app and let's see if I can get it out here. My favorite. So I would turn on my app and I would start talking. And so you're in the grocery store, you can't understand the checker. So I would, the microphones at the top, I would reach out. So the microphone was closer to the checker and it would caption everything that person said. I can, you need the microphone. You need to put your telephone on the computer so I can see it. You can't see your telephone, right? Can't see. Well, so you can see my telephone and you can see the captions on it. Oh, here. We see, oh, wait a minute. There we go. Does that help? Yeah. That's what you meant. Okay, and with this particular one, you can spread the captions. And so apps like that are a lifesaver. We have caption. Telephone call services also that are apps and that's different than a speech-to-text app. So if somebody would call you, it could go directly by forwarding the call to your smartphone, to one of the programs. Two of the most popular ones are EnoCaption and Olelo and both of them forward. So when the phone, and since I have my cochlear implants, my whole language around hearing loss has changed. So I was realizing when I was engaging with people, how could I explain to them in a way that they could understand that sometimes you're with me and I can understand every single thing. I don't have any issues. And then one other person comes into the conversation and they have an accent or they don't articulate well. So what I started saying is, and it applies to all of us. People with hearing loss live uncertain lives. We never know when we're gonna be able to hear and understand and when we won't. So you need to be prepared and make sure to ask for the accommodations that you need beforehand. Because if you don't and you get to a situation that you're going to and you can't understand, then it's too late to get the accommodation. So you need to look at her. I don't know what things that you're using and telling people if you couldn't understand somebody did you know beforehand to say, oh, could you please face me so I can read your lips? Can you please hand her the microphone? Yes, I can do that. Perfect. And so you're just being this wonderful, nice person. You don't want, and I can't see your name from here. And if I leave, somebody's gonna tell me they can't see me on there. So that she doesn't have to tell you that to make things easier. That's really wonderful. You have trouble communicating by either the cell phone which it does have the program for closed captions or that might be the right term. But she also has a telephone that has a screen that also, but it doesn't always work for how I communicate with her or try to handle plans that we're trying to make. And lucky enough, I live close enough that it's a short walk, so I'm often walking over there to make plans. Okay, so from my personal experience, when my hearing got profound, like pretty much quit using the telephone. And texting became my good friend. So if there was something I wanted to know, I was texting somebody about something and I didn't really have those lengthy conversations that I had beforehand that I can now have. For me, it's like, oh, it's like, you know, I'm a kid and I can't just do it. Now, on the telephones, there are landline telephones that can have captions. And some of them are better than others. And it depends on how long you've had your phone. You might wanna think about upgrading the phone. Another thing you might wanna think about doing is, you know, with all technology that we have, lots of it is basically a binary system, which means that the coding is either on or it's off. Well, after you're using it for a long time, sometimes it can't read those things very well. So the common thing for everybody to know about is to reset your device. Doesn't matter whether it's your phone using the internet, whether it's your smartphone, whether it's your iPad, tablet, laptop, or computer. And to reset it means either you restart it or for your phone, unplug it, usually let it sit for a minute and then plug it back in. And lots of times that clears out glitches that may happen in the phone. So I'm understanding that you're using a landline telephone with captions. We're using cell phones to try to text each other. Well, do you have a app on the cell phone so that when somebody, the captions, so they're the two ones that most people like the best are Inu caption and Olelo. And so when somebody calls me, generally I'm connected via Bluetooth to my phone. And most of the time I can understand everybody. See, I'm never sure. And so I always have them go through my caption telephone and it's captioning everything that everybody says. And I think that the captions on my cell phone are better than the captions on my landline phone. So are you using an app with captions on your smartphones? Oh, so let's work on that. Let's have the, after this meeting, contact me and either I'll come over here or we can meet someplace else, the library and all that create, we'll set that up for you. And then you can see how that works. And something that I'd like to mention to you as the friend, caring loss is not just the physical ability of not being able to hear that sound any longer. It also takes longer to process the sound and it's exhausting. So it's a reminder to everybody that you just need to talk a little slower, a little bit louder and a little slower. Don't shout at people because then your mouth distorts. Okay, so then you can't relapse. So then you're stuck. A speech app? Okay, so you need to take that microphone and let me tilt it towards you and then drop it a little, they're perfect. Okay, you mentioned a speech app that you use on your cell phone. Which app do you use? I happen to use Ava, A-V-A. A-V-A. But there are many apps. The reason I use Ava is because I know all of the founders of the company, they were two, three people from UC Berkeley, I know them when they graduated when they were developing this app. And the person whose idea it was comes from a family where everybody's deaf and he's called with a coda, which means a child of a deaf adult. And his whole life, he was always their interpreter and he's French. And he likens the likelihood that it's greater, the likelihood is greater that he would have been struck by lightning than that he can hear in his family. Nobody has ever heard. And so he wanted to direct his fine, wonderful intellect toward helping his family and all of us. And Ava was born. Today of all of the speech to text apps, it is the most robust. So it works on your smart phone. It works on your tablet. It works on your computer. And something that it does, which is different than all of the other apps is it allows multiple people to connect to the same conversation at the same time. And so what that means is, especially during the pandemic where we had to have a six foot distance, right? So all of a sudden none of us could hear because it's past six feet, then you have a mask. So if Kathy, you had Ava on your phone and I had Ava on my phone, it doesn't matter where we are. It shows up as two separate icons where individual people having full conversations. So you can have conversation over distance which you can't do with anything else. So that's why, so some of the other ones are otter. And I just gave a presentation to HLAA Albuquerque on using your smart phone. There's another one called Simply, something that somebody else preferred. And if anybody's interested in that and want to learn how to put that on your phone, just contact me. We'll figure out what works for you and just keep moving forward. So is there another question out there? So, Zoher, I think somebody's trying to give you the microphone back. So this started with the audiogram that started in the back. So what might happen for you is that if you, oh, and if you didn't ask for your audiograms before, lots of people don't think about that. If you're going to the same person, tell them you'd like a copy of your last three audiograms and they have to give it to you if you ask for them. You know who the person is and you're not seeing them, still ask for that. Tell them you'd like to try for hearing loss. So if you're looking there and you're seeing all of a sudden, hey, these major sounds are all down in here. Time to think about something else because more than likely, you're not benefiting from your hearing instrument in a camp. I'd like to know if there's anything you can do about an age related hearing loss. I've been asked to see an MD and I've been told there's nothing they can do so you don't need to see an MD. I thought maybe there was some help I could get so it doesn't just get worse or maybe there's something wrong or is this just the way it is? Okay, so that's a really, really great question. And what I'm hearing is what's the best way, what's the golden rule about how to engage with your hearing loss? So there are two types of people, two categories of people that can prescribe hearing instruments. One is an audiologist and they have the largest amount of training and in the state of California you have to have a doctorate in audiology today. Now you may run into some people who still have a master's that's because they were grandfathered in when the law change didn't require them to update. So the audiologist, the hearing health, oh, excuse me and then you have a hearing aid provider and a hearing aid provider does not have the same training as an audiologist but they're licensed by the state of California to be able to sell hearing instruments. Now the rule of thumb generally is you notice you have a hearing loss and you go and have your hearing tested you also then would go to an ENT and the reason you go to an ENT is to make sure that there's nothing else going on. So they'll look in your ears, you'll have the conversation with them and they're much more the ENT really knows about the structural things. So in their language when they specialize in actually ears is otolaryngologist. Okay, so in your situation, have you been to see an audiologist? Yes. Okay, so the audiologist said, oh, you have hearing loss and the solution we have for you is hearing aids. He also said it's getting worse fast. Okay, so in this place, see where I'm talking about being able to track what's happening to you. So this is an nebulous place. So how do we believe what somebody says is fast? So potentially you could have a progressive hearing loss that's changing really fast and I'm sorry that that would be happening to you, but it is what it is. And at this point in time, no one knows how to regenerate ourselves. We don't know how to do anything to, quote, repair our physiology. So the technology that's available to you, and I don't know right now, but there is conductive hearing loss and then there is sensual neural hearing loss and there could be a degenerative malformation of your ear, which is a whole nother thing. And there's also a disorder where you have a tumor. Okay, so if you were having something out of the ordinary, start your own hearing loss. It's time for you to see an EMT, doesn't that make sense? Yeah, so here you want to give her a microphone a minute because she's still, yeah. I think you said see an EMT, but they don't have it allowed by you, so I need to insist. When you say allow, what kind of, when I go to the EMT office, there's a nurse there that looks at me and when I said, I don't want to see you, I want to see a doctor, she always says, you just have it, no, you don't see doctors, you just see me. So she looks at my ears and cleans it out. I have something wrong that's growing into my earwax is growing into the bone. And I don't know why she doesn't seem to know why. I don't know what, let's talk about this afterwards. Yeah, so I don't know, because it really depends on which HMO you have, what's happening and you're always entitled with all Medicare to get a second opinion. Okay, so everybody needs to remember that, you can get a second opinion. Okay, and so I don't know who you have or what. After we talk privately, I probably can give you some more input. Yes, thank you. Okay, yeah, so here. And if you have otosclerosis, then an EMT can help you actually with an operation, the small operation to restore the conductive hearing loss. But the EMT will determine whether you have a conductive hearing loss or there's something wrong with the poke here. So I'm gonna make a jump here that maybe there are people in this room who don't really know what's the difference between what Zoher's talking about and your cochlear. And I don't have a slide here, but I can probably demonstrate with my hands. So you have the outside part of your ear, which we all see, right? Then it goes and you have your eardrum. So behind the eardrum, before you go into the space that has the cochlea, which would be the inner ear, you have what's called the middle ear. And the middle ear has little bones in them. And the bones go like this. And what they do is they help propel the sound forward to the inner ear. Well, you can, and if you have a problem in this middle ear, it's called a conductive problem. So see, the sound is not being able to conduct, be conducted further into the inner ear. And frequently what happens in that middle ear is that the bones calcify. So when they calcify, they're hard, they can't vibrate, they can't, there's a little place called a syrup and it does, basically it's like a little hammer, it sends the things forward. And so Zoher was two years ago, you got that? Yeah, so Zoher, in addition to having a sensoroneural hearing loss, also had a conductive hearing loss. And the name of the surgery, if you have a conductive hearing loss with otosclerosis is called a stateectomy. And what they do is they give you little, the little metal components, right, to replace the calcified bones, yeah. And can you tell people how successful that was for you? Who has the microphone? I just want to ask a really quick simple question, what is ENT standard? Oh, ear, nose and throat. And the specialty for ENT for ear, nose and throat that is focused on hearing is otolaryngologist. So I have both, I have a problem in my cochlear and I also had a problem with otosclerosis. So with my operation, now I can hear part of the sounds, the lower frequency sounds. I still have problems with higher frequencies and of course I use hearing aids. But my hearing has improved dramatically after the operation. But otosclerosis is not sensual neural hearing loss related to aging, okay. Okay, so, does anybody have another question, something they want to say right now? But you've got a proper age-related, does that mean it's a genetic problem? Sensual neural hearing loss is the single most common hearing loss associated with aging. Like in case of cell loss. No, Zohair had two. He had sensual neural hearing loss and otosclerosis. So when they fixed the otosclerosis with a prosthesis, it allowed more sound to be transmitted, conducted to the inner ear, yeah, the inner ear. But otosclerosis is genetic. Many people in my family have this issue. And apparently, where I come from in South Asia, it's very common. Okay, so I want everybody to know that we're really, really fortunate to live in a wonderful progressive state called California. And we have California Connect, which ensures that all people who have the disability of hearing loss and poor other disorders as well, can use the telephone the best as possible and you're entitled to a free telephone from this pre-amplified or captioned telephone from the state. Now, all states do not have that. And as part of that program, connected to that program, the California Relay Service, that's what we get our captions, the live captions here today through. So it's something to be really, feel grateful for about our tax dollars. Now, in addition to the telephones, you're entitled to an accessory of each kind that they have. And one that I really would like to bring to everybody's attention is everybody who has hearing loss needs to know that in an emergency, fire, carbon monoxide, the chances are slim, you will get out in enough time to save your life. So the reason is it's so hard to imagine that that shrill, awful sound that you can remember potentially when you could hear better than what you're hearing now, that you cannot hear that in enough time and quickly enough to save yourself. Now, I know that one of the things that many of us might do, right, is stand right under the smoke detector and you press it. Oh, I can still hear that. I've done all these things so I can tell you that I'm not that different than the rest of you. The reality is you're sleeping at night, you're taking a nap in the afternoon, you have your instruments out, you have a pillow. The pillow covers your habit. Okay, so how would you be alerted? So one of the devices that the state has is, it's a hub. It's called, what's the first word, aware, something aware? Sonical arm, thank you. And it's a hub and they provide that from the state because you can plug your telephone in and if the telephone rang in the middle of the night, it would flash this device. But this device also has accessories and one of the accessories is for smoke and carbon monoxide detector. So I got my Sonic aware from the state and then I purchased, I think for $99, the accessory item for smoke and carbon monoxide alerting and how this works is it's plugged into the device and it's not only smoke with carbon monoxide. The first time this happened, I thought, oh, this is weird but now I'm just, any time it hears unusual sound, it flashes and says alert. So that made me feel great. So if I run my vacuum cleaner in my bedroom, it's going alert, alert, alert. So I know that it's working and you can feel pretty good about it. Kathy. Yeah, I don't know about that. So we have, as part of our outreach, oh, where are they? No, here it is. A driving force from our chapter members and from people who we would talk to in the community when people would ask things. We developed additional brochures. One of them is asked for communication access when you're out, excuse me. Another one is safety for carbon monoxide and smoke. And every year in September, I give a presentation on emergency planning for people with hearing loss. So please feel free to take these brochures because there's information in there for you. Kathy. I'm sorry. I had a home where I bought it myself. I didn't know you'd get one free. And the lights that went in the outside bought the accessory that fits into the pillowcase that vibrates. So everything vibrates when the carbon monoxide or the smoke from our alarm goes off. Yeah, well, so the one with the state, that's this piece that Kathy's talking about. That is really a funny name. Sometimes it's really even hard to say it. It's called a bed shaker. And so what it is is it's a little puck, like a little hockey puck here. And the one from the state that's free comes with the bed shaker. And that bed shaker happens to be the most stringent. I mean, it really shakes. Some of them aren't the same, yeah. Do you get this free one from the state using the California Access Program? It's called, it used to be called California Telephone Access Program. The acronym was CTAP. They changed names and rebranded. It's now called California Connect. And to become certified, it has to be done by like five different people. Your primary care physician, your audiologist, like four or five things, they certify, yes, you have hearing loss, you send in your form. And once you're certified, you can actually have them send things to your house. Now, I personally like to go there. We have an office in Berkeley. And when I was trying out originally, when I had maybe moderate hearing loss, you can, all the phones are for the same level of hearing loss. So you could try the devices to find out which one worked the best for you. So you're entitled to this device. You're entitled to a neck loop. And the neck loops are either a regular neck loop or a blue tooth neck loop. Everybody needs a neck loop, especially if you have a T-coil in your hearing device. Yeah. What do you do if you have hearing aids or a cochlear implant, what do you do with the neck loop around your neck? So let's say you went to Berkeley WRAP and they had FM receivers to give you and they didn't have a neck loop. If you had your own neck loop, you could, it's okay. Oh, I'm gonna take one of these. So all of the receivers are pretty similar. I mean, basically at the box, right? And they all have ports. So what you would do is, and in this case, because this is for a hearing loop, everybody who wears a T-coil doesn't need to plug a neck loop into here because they just activate their T-coil. If you use an FM, everybody needs a connector. So rather than plugging in a headphone here, if you plug in the neck loop there and turn on the T-coil in your hearing instrument, it would stream directly to your hearing instrument. Does that make sense to you? And thank you. Okay. Another reason to have a neck loop is an emergency. You know, if we're in an earthquake, we're in a fire and you can't go to your house and you're in some facility and everything and the chances are they may have some kind of additional communication access for you could be a pocket talker, but they might not have a neck loop. So everybody needs a neck loop in here to go back. You just need to have one. It's okay. Buying my tickets to the Berkeley Red. Do I just show up for it and ask for one of those things or do I tell them somehow ahead of time, I will be coming and we'll meet it? Okay. So I'm a died in the wool advocate. This is for everybody who wants to join me. These were what we made last year. I sit on the national get in the hearing loop committee. I would like things to be better in Contra Costa County. I would like things to be better in Alameda County. Berkeley Rep is not so straightforward about what their requirements really are and it should it be easier. If I were in your shoes, I would call up the ticket office. So sometimes they say first come, first serve. Somebody said first come, first serve to me. I don't wanna pay for a ticket and not be able to hear. Tell them that. I mean, it's not about being reserved because you're gonna end up being the last person on the totem pole. I'm gonna say, oh, what would you like for me to come to this event? I can't attend this event unless and be able to understand unless I can do this. If they have something first come first serve, say, oh, well good. Can you make an exception for me? And then after you've enjoyed what you did, then we could direct time if there were people who were interested in specific venues, improving their accessibility for people with hearing loss. So on their website, they shouldn't have, and I'm not saying they do, what's available. Okay. So we're getting close to the bewitching hour here. And I just like to add, but some places, if you add them in advance, if you are bang up job in providing you with accommodation. So be sure to ask. So next month, we're having a very special presenter and he's a medical student in otolarygology from UCSF and he's conducting a research project on new algorithms for advanced bionics cochlear implants. And they're looking for participants who would like to participate in the research study. And I've already signed up. So I have advanced bionic hearing aids and I'm really curious to help everybody else as much as I can as well as myself. And so this is called a hackathon. And so what it amounts to is you're gonna have one day where you would spend with him and he's gonna try and make other adjustments and then gauge how well you could possibly hear music, to this improve your ability for music and so forth. And I believe they're paying a $200 stipend. And so after our meeting today, I'll send out the flyer for that for all of you. So he's gonna come and talk to us about that. And even though you may not have a cochlear implant or you may even have a different manufacturer's implant, I think it's really valuable for all of us to realize all the work that goes on behind the scenes to make improvements for all of us going forward. So we have that next month. And in May, we're hoping to be able to have one of our chapter members who's written a book. Her book is supposed to be released in June. So we're kind of fence sitting about, we committed to May and we don't know whether it would be better if we had her give the presentation after her book was released or right before. We have the HLAA convention, which is in June. And this year we're fortunate enough that it's gonna be in Phoenix. So we're not having to pay like $800 for our airplane ticket to go back East or somewhere else. So this past year was in New Orleans. Well, we have no direct flights to New Orleans. So it's nice to look at a Southwest airplane ticket for a couple hundred bucks instead of 700 bucks. In May this year, we're having our walk for hearing. And if you haven't come, I'd really love for you to join us. There are hundreds of people throughout. We have three very active chapters in Northern California. One is in Marin, and it's called the North Bay chapter. One is the East Bay chapter, which is in Oakland and the Peninsula chapter that's on the Peninsula. And all of us come together and have a huge walk. And so I believe this year it's, and I have a slide. Like my slides don't want to advance right now. I don't really know why. So then I can't get out of sharing either. So anyway, I think it's May 17th. And so just kind of put that out there and don't worry. I won't let you forget when that day is. We'll keep talking about it every single meeting between now and then. So for all of, for Zoher and Allen and I, we need to know from you is it really beneficial? Did you really like meeting in person? Because for us, and just for us, it's so much more work. And so we want to make sure that, you know, it's something that people value. So if you really liked the in-person meeting, could you just raise your hand? No, never mind. That was hands down a positive response. Okay, so then this worked pretty well. And I'd like everybody in this room to extend our gratitude to our captioner who captioned for us today. And as you can see, the captions must have been fabulous in the state of California for paying for it. And please know that you can contact me at any time. I will do anything within my power to assist you or direct you to somebody who may be able to assist you. And please take any of our literature, including one of our paddles that we have left from the convention that, of course, I afforded. And we'll see you next month. Go out here, you're available to purchase. So didn't you get the meeting announcement?