HLAA Indianapolis Chapter Meeting June 5th, 2021 Gael Hannan Presentation

2:03PM Jun 5, 2021

Speakers:

Ella Hurrell

Don Grayson

Bruce Wiseman

Paula Sutton

Cathy Phillips

Laurie Hardin

Gael Hannan

Patricia

Keywords:

hearing loss

hearing

people

loss

hear

presentation

bluffing

person

tinnitus

nice

talking

years

communication

important

hla

gail

grateful

question

laughing

situation

So unfortunately, our president, Teresa Gonzalez, was unable to be here today, and our Vice President is essentially your either. Cindy Helmich. But we have Ella, who is our secretary. And we have Kathy, our treasurer, and I'm a board member at large. And I was a vice president but then I moved away. In, so they let you stay as a board member, so I'm very happy. So I'm here in California, that's my home state, but I was in Indiana for about 10 years. And that's where I have some deep roots. I have some ancestry relatives in Indiana, and I still feel very connected very connected with this group. And I'm having a little bit problem with my mouse here today, so bear with me. Gonna have to use my finger I think. So we're at two minutes.

To start, but I guess we can go ahead and confirm that we have a couple sponsors today, very pleased to have vicolo with us to be Harris communications, and also clear captions. As I guess they're a phone company, or they have phones for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. So we were pleased to have them sponsor our event today and this is a special event.

Bruce had his hand up. Bruce

Oh no I was, I was waving hand five from caption sponsors.

There is a little raise your hand symbol at the bottom if you like to use that anybody, but during Gail's presentation, it would be nice if you found the mute, which it looks as if most of you have found, there's a little microphone symbol, and you can click on that, at the bottom and it will mute you. So any interrupting phone calls, will not be heard by everybody else. There is a chat box if you go to the top, there's like a little symbol that denotes writing, and it's a little chat box, you can click on that, and you can pass on any comments, any thoughts, any questions that you may have for Gail, or anybody else or any other links. All of this will be transferred to a summary email that I'll send to everybody, which will also have the transcript, and also hopefully my recording will work, and there'll be a link for the recording of Gail's presentation.

Well, thank you all for those tips. I'd like to start with this quote from Marlo Thomas. Laughter is important not only because it makes us happy. It also has actual health benefits. And that's because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others. And that in itself has a healing effect. That's by Marlo Thomas, well we've always also heard that laughter is the best medicine. And I really agree with that. So today we're very fortunate we have renowned humorist and writer, who also has a hearing loss. She's also a hearing loss, advocate, we're gonna welcome Bill Kennedy Hannon. Now, Dale is a renowned humorist writer and public speaker on hearing loss issues in over the past 20 years. Gail has created awareness campaigns school programs, and award winning presentations that help people better understand life with hearing loss. Gio has a passionate international following following for her presentations, and her writing includes a regular column for Canadian audiologist. Also she has weekly insightful articles on hearing health matters.org And she, she has a new book, The way I hear it a life with hearing loss. So, since about 1996 She's been a dedicated volunteer, and she has supported many hearing loss projects and organizations. She has served on the board of directors for Canadian hard Hearing Association, both nationally and provincially and she's also very involved with the Hearing Loss Association of American lives on Vancouver Island with her husband Doug, also known as the hearing husband. So please welcome. Gail Hannon.

Good morning everyone, don't. First of all, everyone can hear me, right, and see me. It's I had to put extra light on my computer here because it's really early out here on the west coast, but anyway that's the sun's up at five so I would like to start off by offering an incredibly deep apology for my No Show last month. I have never, ever done that before in my life. And imagine me a month ago, was Saturday morning, I was going to be presenting the HLA Indianapolis. At 1030, and I'm sitting there, my husband and I used to have a hot tub in the morning and we have our coffee. And so I'm sitting there and I had. I checked my phone for something, and I get this message saying, we're waiting. Where are you, and you've never seen anyone jump out of a hot tub so fast, I, but I tell you, There was no way at that point I could.

Apart from not being as attentive to my presentation, patient details as I usually am is that when the meeting was first set out. I had COVID and that it was in, is like, I caught it and march was a wipeout for me and I believe we've referred set it up, and normally I made sure the time zones are right, so I am so sorry I know it was a birthday celebration for you and I. Anyway, I'm sorry. Anyway, we're here, and thank you for all muting your mics yourselves. I'm telling you, I love doing online presentations I prefer being in person, but this is one thing that the pandemic has given to us for people with hearing loss is that we are able to do that, and connect. And I stream. So everything's coming into my ears so even when I left the room, I can hear you, chatting and it's great, it's wonderful. But a couple of months ago I was giving a presentation. So, to people with acoustic neuromas and all over Canada, and they didn't use Google meets or Zoom they use some custom platform that had been designed for them. But it was really challenging to get people to turn off their microphones, and the host did not have the capacity to mute everyone. So, I frequently had to stop because you'll hear someone come a little pouring their coffee or get out but I heard that toilet flush in the background, and that was all fine, but it wasn't fine I had to stop and because I couldn't hear myself right sirens going by in a big city, but the word was all of a sudden I heard this well. When is she going to tell us something we don't already know. And I it stopped me in my tracks and I actually should have ignored it. I said, Oh, well, apparently, I have I've given this presentation before in any way. So, thank you for that nice introduction, I really should shorten the bio that I send to you. The other thing is you're expecting me to be funny, so I just want to let you know this is not a stand up comedy which I, I can do that but I just do that live so. So what I would like Ella to if she could share this screen, and I'm going to give you my presentation that was just my intro so let's just wait until my brilliant screen comes up. Here it comes. So, you know, hearing loss, changes lives. And I know that it changes lives because I'm just going to ask everybody muted. I'm hearing this quickly, and it could be from my end too so I have birds outside my window here so who knows. Anyway, so I know that hearing loss changes lives. No, go back. Never don't. And I know that it changes lives, because if I didn't have hearing loss, then I would be married to a completely different die. And I know this because there were some other fellows in my path, who seemed interested in something more permanent. But I think I just didn't hear them correctly so those romances fizzle.

And if the zone open. Okay so we yeah, we just want to Yeah, turn your mic off. Yeah, perfect. Okay. You know, as I have grown in my hearing loss live I have learned that there is a better path to communication a better way to, To communicate and when I think about my hearing loss, life is divided into two sections, and the first section is my entire life, before the age of 40. I'm born with a hearing loss, that knows that, too, was mild Doctor back then and what I call the Middle Ages. The doctor didn't want me to have a hearing aid. Got a hearing aid at 20, and then I just kind of mosey along. I didn't know anyone else with hearing loss. I didn't have any information, and I don't mean to be playing the violin here but that's just the way it was. And then at age 40 I had a burning question, a burning question about my hearing loss. I was expecting a baby. And for the first time I went, I was concerned that my hearing loss would have an impact could have a negative impact on someone else. Wow. So, my baby. I didn't know so I reached out for the first time to other people with hearing loss and for me in Canada that was the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, and my burning question was answered. And a lot of other questions that I didn't even know that I had were answered and it was a life changing moment for me. My child, did survive, grew up, I didn't do much damage to them because of my hearing loss, but it was very life changing for me. And when I got involved in hearing loss. I learned that my goal had to change. Well first of all I did, I learned that there was a better, I would read ways to hear better. But then my goal changed, not, not to hear better, but to communicate better. The older I get the worst my hearing get, but the better I hear, because of technology and because of all the, the strategies that I've learned the non technical strategy. So I'm going to I'm going to talk about how to become that fabulous person with hearing loss. Now, by the fact that you're here. I know that you are all already probably most likely definitely are already fabulous on how you live with your hearing loss, but there's always something more we can learn. There's always something more we can remember about communicating better with with hearing loss, and then our goal isn't to convince other people that were that it was our goal is to feel that confidence in ourselves and that we are doing our best that we can to communicate and that we're living the best possible life with hearing loss. And then when we're confident, without hearing loss, other people will be to Allah, slide please. So, it's what we're going to talk about this morning, I'm a communication challenges, self identification, actually I don't need to tell you all this dump I mean what will come through but just a few of those strategies, and some important ones about being that fabulous person, lol. Next slide. Before we get into the strategies, let's look at the stuff that makes it hard, and I bet you could add a few things to this list. And this is kind of a general list.

It takes so much energy to communicate. When you agree, regardless of whether your hearing loss is mild or moderate or profound like mine. We need to concentrate when we're talking to someone, we need to follow those conversations that I meant say here their zip lines, You know, you know, if you're a speech reader like me, someone says something, okay, but then this person responds over here, and by the time I tuned into to their face someone else has responded and where is that planning, all over the place, and it takes a lot of energy and that energy can become stressful and retire. I mean, how many of you feel a little tired at the end of the day when you're on Zoom calls etc. Yeah, not, we do. And then our enemies number one into too much background noise, and not enough light, we want more light, less noise. And note text interpretation when we've become used to having visual interpretation of words, when we don't have it. It can be tough. I remember one woman, years ago told me, she said, Hey, I'm so used to captioning on the TV, that when my husband and I were having words that she put it, we were having words. And sometimes when you're having words with hearing loss, it can be it can be challenging, and she found herself looking over to the TV to see if by some miracle his words were going to be on the TV screen. And I laughed and laughed, but then I realized, I've done the same thing too, I've looked around for words appearing miraculously but text interpretation, where we sit at any given time with a group. Now I'm talking theoretically it when we're in a live situation and I think that's coming really soon. I don't know what it's like in your state, but here in British Columbia things are are opening up after pandemic still our circle is really wide. We sit outside our neighbors and I always sit in a wide circle, and have a cocktail, and that circle has been getting smaller, not with fewer people but we can get closer together so, but it's tough, tough for me, tough for me to follow the conversation. But where are we in a circle, and that's the best place for a person with hearing loss, because you can see all the time. Um, we don't know how to change things. We don't know what needs to be changed and we don't know how to express our needs. These are all challenges that we face all the time, and we look as though we're following. And that's bluffing, and that's not necessarily a good thing and I'm going to talk about that, though, let's talk about the good stuff how we're going to get through that. So, next slide out. I can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is to self identify and tell people that do have hearing loss. Is everyone here really really comfortable with identifying their hearing loss with strangers know some yes some No, it is difficult, I think it's probably the most difficult thing. One of the most difficult things about living with hearing loss. If you grow up with it, like me, it doesn't necessarily mean it's easier but in my case, my parents, my mom was a nurse. My dad was. Well, they both focused, they couldn't help me in any other way they couldn't make my hearing better. The doctors wouldn't prescribe hearing aids, but they could talk to me about communication, and to let people know what I need. And I also found out that if I didn't tell my teachers or someone else that I had hearing loss, my mom was going to do that for me. And I like to be the one. So we need to let people know for so many reasons, because I believe the most important thing to tango. This is something that I want to show you this per presentation that I did and I should have had it ready to

pause pours and it's the one thing I can't find the most important thing for a person with hearing loss is to Oh, actually I do have a coming up with a slide so I'm better than I thought. But to self identify. So, what term do we use. There used to be kind of strict rules that if you had a certain degree of hearing loss, this is what you called yourself and there's a whole lot of terms. I'm hearing off I have hearing loss, that's what I say. But I grew up saying and I still say on occasion I'm hard of hearing that people kind of understand what you mean by that, I could say that I'm deaf, because ideologically. Now that's what I am. I'm down there death or small d deaf like some of us and then a big day down that sign and death, middle size deaf, hearing loss, oh and I like to use acronyms in my writing so the, the acronym for hard of hearing is H O, H on paper H always when you say that out loud, but say, Would you mind speaking up, I'm a hole. Now you really have to be very careful about how you use that term Hi ma Whoa, that people understand what you're talking about, but it's short, snappy and fun, it just probably not always the best terms, especially, Like when you might get pulled over for speeding at night and it's dark and the officers, leaning in your window, they do with the light behind him and you can understand them so if you said Officer, bring your lips a little closer I'm a hole that's not going to end well. Just be very careful how you use those terms so hearing impaired. Some of you may use hearing impaired and it has been political correctness in the hearing impaired. You can't say that. For me it's not the best term because this implies some brokeness, but you know what, I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter what you call yourself, what label you choose for yourself. It's your choice. It doesn't matter just choose whatever name, or whatever term you want. The important thing is that you do self identify as having hearing loss, and you let people know what you need, because if you don't, I mean who's gonna look at you and they don't know you and say, Oh, that person looks like they might have hearing loss. Therefore, I should speak up clearly out ain't gonna happen, you need to be explicit in what you need. And we'll talk a bit about how we can do that in different ways. But the important thing is to self identify. And people say, when's the best time. Well I would say right away when it's necessary, I mean you wouldn't walk into a store, grab some milk and put it on the counter. I'm buying some milk. And I have hearing loss, really. But with the milk on the counter, and the person that the cashier whoever says something, and then you say, I sorry I didn't catch that. I have hearing loss I'm hard of hearing, I'm hearing impaired, whatever, would you mind speaking now. Right. So, this is an extremely important thing. And again, as I say it's, it's the hardest thing to start doing comfortably especially for people who develop hearing loss as adults or later in life, when it might not be their normal way of doing things, it's a very personal thing, what are the emotions of hearing loss, but when we can find the ability to say that life's going to go better. Our next slide please. Right here at the top. That's the sign I was looking for. This is what I did not believe, for that first part of my life.

It's indeed not unique. You can do whatever you want but believe in your right to here. Believe in your right to be heard and to participate, you have that right having hearing loss does not make you a lesser person. There is no shame in having it. You didn't deliberately become a hearing loss because hearing loss because you want to annoy people, it's part of your life, for whatever reason, that you have there, it is okay to ask for support, it is okay to ask for someone to perhaps change seats with you and all of this is okay. So, this is the underpinning the basis, the fundamental of living well with hearing loss. We also know how to know how to practice two ways strategy. My hearing loss isn't my hearing loss alone. It's my husband's the hearing has been impacted in a big way by my hearing loss and that is communication is the glue that connects us as people. So, we have to learn how to communicate, and we, after 30 years we're still working on it, because it's something that comes up all the time. We need to be assertive and comfortable in expressing our needs. Now, assertive and aggressive, especially when renewed a hearing loss, sometimes we can be a little aggressive once we know what we need like you there speak up or, that's my seat, you can't sit there. I'm hard of hearing, you know with assertiveness, help some of it to practice that. It may be something in your group. And it sounds silly practice, practicing how to ask for things but you have to know what they are and ask for them it's sometimes it does take practice. I think all of us have felt the same thing of when we say sorry I didn't catch that. What do you say, and adult. Oh, never mind. Wow. Never mind. We need to explain to people how that hurts us. That's when we are made to feel like we're lesser that we don't matter. Usually, quite often, when someone says oh never mind, it's really because what they said wasn't worth repeating, in their mind, but that must be the judge of that. Don't dismiss me by saying oh it doesn't matter. It does matter. If you said it, one, I want to know what it is. Let me decide if what you said was boring or silly, but I can tell you by saying no, never mind. That's hurtful and we need to explain that to people. And again, understand the impact of our hearing loss on them. So, next slide. Oh,

you're doing really well how long you're good event. You know what, from every meeting from now on you are going to be the slide changer, I just bet them and make sure you ask for money next time so I'm staying present means no weapon so focusing and staying present in the conversation but, how easy is that if we lose track of the conversation people mumble people talking over each other. So what do we do with that slide off into weapon. How many of you here, would say that you blow it up I don't see all the hands going up, then I know you're bluffing. That's what we do. That's what people would pairing off do we face it, we try to fake it. And sometimes we're really good at faking it, we don't want to. We didn't set out to be fakers. But I am passionate about not bluffing, and about talking about it and finding ways not to do it, but still I'm up I find, you know, you're sitting there. And then you realize that you're not following and but you're, you know, you do that little Mona Lisa smile, or you just, I have all sorts of ways that I am that I blog and but you know what, when you blog. You can get into trouble, because you might miss important information. You might say the wrong thing. You might not say the right thing that could be very good for you, though, how many people had gotten a little bit of trouble because they said the wrong thing or blocked. You smiled at the wrong time you smile when someone was telling you something sad. And, you know, are you ever. It just kind of didn't show any reaction when they just told you some wonderful news. The what we do sometimes when we're bluffing, we're not sure what's going on we just look and see what the person next to us is if there's my next or wait. And if they're looking serious, so we're Wait, we have no idea why, but we're, we're, you know, We're doing it. I want to tell you a couple of stories about the impact of bluffing. And so, a million years ago when I was in my 20s. I was living in Vancouver, British Columbia on the coast I live on an island, grew up in Ontario. Now, I'm a central Canada girl but I've been living out here for a while but in my 20s I was living in beautiful Vancouver, and I was dating a nice, nice guy. I can't remember his name, but I remember he was a nice guy and I really liked him so I'll just call him this nice guy that's nice fella. So one night, this nice fellow and I were out on a date. And we went for a walk along the beach at night. So if you kind of get what I'm saying here is, it wasn't the best listening or conversation environment for a person with at that point, moderate to severe hearing loss, because, first of all, dark, well first of all, you're going for a walk, and you're walking in the same direction, and it's very hard to read the lips when you're walking in the same direction, then it's dark. Can't see anyway. So we've got walking in the same direction, in the dark, having a conversation, and there are waves rolling in beautiful waves. I like waves as much as the next person, but for hard of hearing people those waves can cover up some speech sounds. Anyway, this nice fellow says something, and I didn't catch it. So I don't know, maybe I've been saying Pardon. Pardon, pardon all night long and I would just tired of saying pardon like we do. Don't. I could tell by the sound of the question that, it was kind of a question that was expecting either a yes or no answer. Two choices did difficulty I was going to get it right. So I picked one. And I said, No, right away. I could tell by his reaction, that it was not only unexpected but it was just wrong. Now, the mean. Now, if I saw that reaction I would go, Oh, sorry, nice fellow I may have misheard you. What did you say, but not me back then. No, I just reiterated repeated said no.

And the relationship. Never saw that nice fellow again. And to this day I have no idea what he asked me, I mean, I can guess though he could have said something like, I really like you, Gail, do you like me. No. We've been going out for a while now, Gail, we want to keep going out, no, no, even though I can't remember his name. I, as I said, I remember I really liked him a lot, and I was too proud to try it again to go back and so that was and I learned something. So I'm going to fast forward a whole bunch of years. Not that many, many 10 years. And I was dating another nice fellow. In fact, if we were living together, And before the hearing husband became the hearing husband. I had proposed. And I, in bed at like 530 in the morning, and I kind of opened my eyes and Mary was. Now if you're like me, hearing aid come out at night, contact lenses come out at night, no glasses. I wake up, and luckily I'm a really good speech reader like his head's only one pillow away, and this is what I see, Because I can't hear me anything. I see.

I'm not gonna bluff my way through this situation. This looks like it might be an interesting question. So I did what any self respecting person with hearing loss would or should do. I verified and I clarified the question. So I said, probably really loudly because I didn't have my hearing aids in Doug, because that's his name, Doug. Doug, I think I just saw your lips say, Let's get married. Did you just say, Let's get married. Doug, and he said. So I said, and we did. Now, if I had like now if I see him saying something in the morning I just ignore him and I get up, put my hearing aids and whatever, but that was different that was back then. And I did not love. If I had blocked I still wouldn't be married to a nice guy. So, the hearing has been, it came to hearing husband and bluffing will get you into trouble. And we need to do the best we can to not love. And to do that. We need all of this stuff that we know, be open about our needs. Make the listening environment as best that we can tell that we can fall on anticipate where we blow, Mike, if you're going to go out for dinner at a restaurant that you know is noisy, and that you have trouble and that you're going to blow up, don't change the venue. You have the right to say, that's not going to work for me. Change the seating do whatever you can to be involved in the conversation. You have that responsibility as well as just now, other people have to start reviewing what you have to communicate. We need to find the courage to say, I'm not following them. Let's find another way. So bluffing is a really big topic for us and I had this little no bluff pledge card there's no block pledge, and the pledge goes in my life. I will not blow up. I will not pretend to understand what I do not. Instead I'll do all that it takes to connect, engage, interact and communicate. So I do try to remember to do that. Now I'm not perfect, but it makes life better. lol please so I practice self care self care is really new, Buzzy word recent years and that just means taking care of myself. Staying healthy, and it's become especially important for me because, about five years ago, I developed really, really bad candidates. I don't know where it came from, but it isn't going anywhere, it's, it's constant 24 Seven. And you know, people talk about their tinnitus and their ringing ringing in their eye like a high Bell. I would love just to have a high Bell. I have an orchestra where the conductor has left the room, everybody is playing somebody playing Beethoven someone playing Chopin someone playing the Beatles, all on their own beat. I have it, it's like a really bad orchestra, all the time. And if you didn't feel sorry for me before I hope you feel sorry for me now. But anyway, that's what I live with. So, and that causes directs How many of you have candidates. Then I can see a couple of hands so I know it's often it coexists with hearing loss, but not always. And not everybody with hearing loss has tinnitus. So, and it's an area of intense research. We know what the neural pathways and there's all sorts of things that can cause it, and absolutely no way that can get rid of it at this point, but we can minimize it and we can mitigate it, and I have found the best thing is to try and reduce the stress of my tinnitus, so I started to pay more attention to my health. I've always been reasonably healthy but these things especially when we're older adults as older adults, it.

And I always thought when I got to, I'm 67. I've been saying I'm 68 but I'm 6767. I thought when I got to this stage, I thought, Oh, I don't have to worry about anything anymore. I'm just going to enjoy my wine, I used to smoke, maybe I'll start smoking again. But no, it's more important than ever. And I can still manage my health to be better, and one of them is eating healthier, whatever that means to you, with better, more vegetables, less sugar, I feel better and sleeping well, that tend to be an elusive thing, as we get older, but if I don't have enough sleep, my tinnitus, lets me know that it's louder, exercise, now my doctor says, Gail, your age, you need to have at least 20 minutes a day, active exercise. Well go one better I do 22 minutes a day of active exercise, at least, I discovered hiking, so I'm actually out there for an hour and I like to climb hills. That helps, and yoga. Do any of you do yoga. Oh, ah, yoga is gone mainstream is wonderful, it's really just stretching and doing different poses. And it is wonderful, so I can't recommend it highly enough. My, I do 25 minutes before I go to bed and that really helped my sister who has cancer, and is going through, brutal cancer treatment. It is doing CERIO but they do classes for you when you have cancer that the society they give you all these horses and supports, and so she's doing chair yoga, and it has been an amazing for her it just calms her down and it gives her a bit of the wonderful. The most important thing that I've discovered is three. Someone said it's been mainstream for for 30 years. Yeah, but I didn't know about a 30 years ago but Trisha, I'm new to it. So, if I know it now it's really mainstream right, so let's thank you for that it has been mainstream, but more and more people are taking it out. And part of yoga and part of mindfulness, which is something else I'm becoming better at braved. Now the, your body will breathe for you anyway for most of us, and, but deep intentional breathing, several times a day for two minutes and you can do it. I tell you that when I do my 22 minutes of exercise, and when I do some yoga practice, and when I do some deep breathing. The next day, I wake up and my tinnitus is lower my stress is lower, and it has such a beneficial effect that I am just telling everyone about this because it works for me, it might work for you bump. Now, massages and manicures are also nice stress relievers, and we're back to breed because I'm so keen on it. The other thing, gratitude, it's always been mainstream. It's always with being grateful. I just finished reading, Michael J Fox. His latest book, and Michael J Fox, as you know, has Parkinson's disease, and he's, you know, a beloved comedian and Canadian grew up not far from here. But Michael J Fox was known praised optimism his, his outlook on life. But in 2018, he had a really bad year. A number of other health issues happened for him where his optimism, was shaken to the core. And he actually worried, have I been have I've been selling snake oil for the last while talking about optimism, and he really went through a crisis. And then it got through it and he realized and this at the end of the book, he said.

With gratitude. Optimism is sustainable. And it through a grateful heart. And I think that the person with hearing loss, with a severe tinnitus, I still have so much to be grateful for. And I do in, in what I'm doing my deep breathe in. And when I'm being mindful I think about what I'm grateful for and I can say right now. One of them is that all of us here, being able to meet like this. Two years ago who knew we would be doing this. Unfortunately, it took a pandemic to do this but I love the capabilities that online virtual meetings have provided for people with hearing loss. I'm grateful that there is an HLA fabulous organization. I have presented to HLA groups, alive and virtually all over the country, and they just, it's a wonderful organization in Canada we have the Canadian part of Hearing Association. We just finished a two day conference virtually. It's different, as I said I like being live I like indirect and interacting with people face to face but we had Justin Osman was. I was one of the keynotes, he was one, and he's really wonderful if you ever get a chance to hear Justin Osman who's Donny and Marie snafu and profound hearing loss, really inspiring speaker. So, so I'm grateful for our ability to do this and I'm grateful for the fact that without my hearing loss, I don't think I would be the communicator. The. I'm a good communicator, but we can always do better. I don't think that I would fully appreciate the value of good communication. If I was just a hearing person hearing people do what they do best, they hear. They don't even have to think about it, it just happens organically, and they can hear where the sounds are coming from. They can hear, whether it's here, can fade away, or 100 feet away. I've been, I'm always amazed, than what hearing people can do. And I always feel like they're showing off, right, when they say Can you hear that sound. No, No, but the other the other night, the hearing has been I went for a walk and we sat down with a little pond and where we live, we're sitting there on. I don't sit still for too long, but we didn't see it, and all of a sudden I was like, What's that sound, I have a cochlear implant for years. So there's certain sounds and I didn't hear, or I hadn't heard for a long time or never heard. And he said, That's the frog said Well isn't. And then all of a sudden there were like 200 frogs, and I had never heard I've heard a problem before but this one had a strange sound but then there was this broad chorus that I've ran about, and it was just amazing. And there are, there were a few houses around the pond, and I was absolutely delighted I almost had tears in my eyes, thinking it was such a beautiful experience for me, which I quickly got tired out because it was really loud, and I can only imagine the houses have to hear this all the time. I think it's frog mating season, I think that's one of the reasons why, but it really truly was beautiful. But I was grateful for that. I'm grateful for the sound that I hear, and I'm really grateful for this down, they don't hear as well. Yeah. So anyway, um, next slide, please. I'm gonna, oh my god yeah okay so this is just gonna skim through this a little bit because I don't think we need to see all this, this is how important it is to know to fix the place. We can all the things that we can do, and that I already talked about this next slide please. Now, this is the communication tips for both sides. You've probably been through all this, but it's really important. And the reason I include this is because we as people with hearing loss, We often forget to do this stuff too. You know, when we say to people, don't turn it don't talk to me while you're walking away. Who does that I do. Don't call me for not from another room, who does that, I do. I say that, and then he'll answer and then I go, why did I do that.

Now I have to go to where he is. Well, though, because the rule is, whoever starts the conversation has to go to the other person, right. So, anyone, all sorts of tips here, facial expressions should match words you wouldn't said you wouldn't say to someone. No one makes me as happy as you do. You know as a speech reader how am I, I'm going, there's something wrong, am I missing something here. And you also wouldn't laugh as you talked about how night or something. Something really sad happened we want to kind of keep things matchy matchy. So these are all the communication tips and you can look at them more when, when you look at the recording. Next slide. I know what I you don't need me to tell you this last year has been an insane, crazy time. And I, I, next slide as well but more pictures of masks. When we last February, March, April or March when we encountered mask wearing. It was a shock to our, our hearing loss souls, because all of a sudden we were thrown back to a time before we coped well, we worked hard at communicating well and now all of a sudden, the entire world are wearing masks, and we had to struggle to get through to the, the clear mouth. It's fine if I were them and if your heart appearing well I need other people to do them to wear them, and I like the face shields. I like those because they don't fog up as much mask wearing is. I think it's gonna be around for a while and I think it's a personal choice, if someone chooses to wear a mask, that's their right, if someone chooses not to wear a mask, and we're in a challenging situation that I will back up or not talk to that person. We're a little behind in our vaccines here, I haven't had my second vaccine yet. But anyway, we're coming out of it. After a really crazy, crazy time. And, yeah, we're still working on it. Next slide. Next slide after that as well. One more slide. Yeah. If you're like me you spend a lot of time on virtual call, not just with meetings but with your family, FaceTime, and it's very tiring for people like us. And it's really important that it respect your energy and be able to tell people what you need in zoom calls or Google needs which is a great platform, by the way, it's, I think this is going to be here today, I think that even after we can meet in person with HLA and other groups, we're still going to meet virtually because it's, it's easier in many respects, people can attend easily, maybe they can always drive to a place or take the time this takes faster but it's important to be aware of the effects of too much screen time, Especially when you have hearing loss eyestrain. For me, it's the amount of sound coming into my head I need to take a couple of hours of silence after I've had my, this week on a conference, six hours every day of being on this screen, though. Next slide please. We are getting for this virus situation, but also highly contagious his kindness, patience, well, enthusiasm, and a positive attitude and don't wait to catch it from others, be the carrier, and this has been the last few years, just so much anxiety and stress and Konkan going on, it helps to remember them. We're all people, and regardless of what's going on, what, what issues we have just hearing loss, We need to stay connected in the most positive way possible. Next slide. So, just to summon out the top tips for being fabulous. So being fabulous is aiming for this aiming for the best possible communication you have not feeling shame. Believe in your right to hear and be heard. You know this here today people there's 15 of us on the call, but there's other people with hearing loss in your lives, that may not have this message, they may not understand that it's okay, it's okay to wear hearing aids, they're beautiful. it means it shows that you want to hear, and that you've found out how you can do it. Commit yourself to the best possible communication. Don't block practice self care. No, no days when I have bad hearing days I bad hearing moments, all the time.

Sometimes I don't handle them as well as I should, sometimes I snap at the hearing husband just because he's a hearing person and they forgot for a moment what I needed. But I also recognized successes as well, so keep learning, use the resource of HLA is a treasure trove of resource and for people with hearing loss, and your group you're staying connected not did I hear you were a relatively new group and if you are, that's great. So anyway those are what I consider the top tips and last slide, please. Thank you very much. I hope you did have a couple of laughs I, I didn't say I was going to do a stand up comedy routine, although I can do that on a stage, but I hope that with every presentation that I listened to even though I've been doing hearing loss, presentations and been involved in Project for 25 years, I'm always learning new things. I'm always being inspired by people just in Osmund or, or whoever. So I want to thank you for spending the time with me today. My book you mentioned that it was a new book, but it's not it's actually been out six years, but I have to say that I'm really proud of this book, I am really proud of this book, and because everything that I believe and knows in it, and I've been writing weekly articles for 10 years, you think I'm running out of information of things to write about, and I am I just go to my own book and plagiarize myself. But if you don't follow me on hearing help matters.org Please do so. And you'll get my articles every week. And I just want to say thank you for inviting me, apologies again for missing last time, and I know I've been yakking far too long but if there are any questions I Bay, or comments or arguments. I'm open to those two.

So, who is Patricia. I don't see her, Patricia. Patricia has been all sorts of things, gratitude, self care the mindset be positive about it Patricia, you're awesome, thank you for that. Yes, self care is a mindset. Exactly. That's what I said and so it's Patricia, have you given a presentation to the group you could.

I have not usually given a presentation, no not at all, you should you should ask Patricia she's got all right so fair question.

What do you do when you're told the store cashier to speak out and clear and they're still whispering and mumbling.

Do you know what some people just can't speak out, can't change, and

there's only a few things that cashiers are gonna be saying to us. Do you want a bag. Have a nice day. $4.35 plays. That's why I really like being able to use my credit card for everything. I don't get the house, how much it cost I just kept it, so

I had needed to know the answer to the question that I have that's, I mean otherwise yes I agree with cashiers, you don't need to, you know, there's not much to take here, but I had to I had to have the answer to that particular question, and I just the guy just kept talking softer and softer he was talking louder and louder, you know, and, and finally, the manager must have heard us, or me, because I was getting very antsy about it. And the manager finally came over and she was angry at me. Yes, it was horrible situations like I am never go back to that store at all,

write a complaint, write a complaint. I use speech to text apps. However, in a situation like that, which is normally a quick, get it out and started, um, so I always tried it sometimes I try to remember to have it ready. If I think it's going to be longer. But, you know, Sometimes there's just no good answer to your question, if that person's not going to do it, you're going to ask them to write it down, but emotions get involved, and I would actually write a complaint, if it happened reasonably say, this is the situation, and then, yeah, yeah. Usually people are gonna say, I'm sorry. You're getting wider. I just need you to speak more.

Yeah, this, this was a young guy, you know, just barely old enough to be working, you know, no. And it the attitude was, what was getting to me. He didn't absolutely care

now. So that's one person, and, yeah, yeah, you know, maybe take a person, person,

yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that you talked about self identify early in a conversation. I do that and and in my in my thoughts. If you don't do that, you're living as your mind and you're living your mind to the other person. No, I mean, you're saying, Well I, you know, but because you aren't self identified me and not to everybody but to me, that is alive. Yeah, I would say it is a lie, it's no big deal to tell them, to me it's no big deal. Why,

exactly, it's not. So, it is, It is alive but it's hard to stand apart, why some people, it takes have trouble getting to that place where they don't really comfortable and that's why I think it's really, um, yeah, when you're around other people with hearing loss, that started to become easier because you realize wow hey, you know, it works for other people to come work for me but yeah, it's more of a process.

Can you give me the reason because I don't understand it. I mean I just absolutely don't understand why they won't say hey I'm hard of hearing around data for whenever, can you give me at least one reason why somebody does that so that I can understand them.

Because I think if people are uncomfortable with that. It's possibly because there's an individual choice or an individual reason that they still have discomfort with their hearing loss. They think that other people will think that they're not as quick, not as sharp or disabled, so it's the stigma. It's the stigma, and some people don't want to go around broadcasting, I got here at home, how are you glad to meet you. I've got hearing loss. It's a comfort level and is tying in to stigma, and I think this is a good discussion for your group at a future meeting. Why do we don't. Why do some of us still buy into this stigma, why are we not as comfortable as we could be in being open, but I think it's a good idea to share thoughts because somebody here on this call today 1415 And so we lost one might be feeling that they might be the type that they do have trouble. So I just think it's something to discuss. Not everyone is as comfortable with, you know, bear with hearing loss, as you might be or, I got it took me years

Sagittarians do that now nicely, I'm Pisces we're wishy washy. Well, yeah, Yeah. Okay. Okay. Any other questions. Question. I think Laura H said that people laughing at her. You might have to say, What's he yelling about or laughing about, I don't find anything funny about this is just a matter of fact, I can get here. You know, don't, don't let them laugh at you. Call them down on that, in my opinion, call them down on it, because that's, that's part of what she was working on was robos self care.

Yeah, and sometimes we think people are laughing at us and I'm not discounting what you're saying, or sometimes we think people are laughing at us, but they're nice, but they're not and sometimes it's our sensitivity to what we think people might be,

yeah. Yeah, they may be laughing because they are self conscious about somebody that not at you, but about the situation, because they are uncomfortable talking to somebody who can't hear, or they don't know they don't know how to do it, they don't know how to do it so they're embarrassed. You know, it could be something like that, and laughter in that situation is, is a normal reaction. Like if I'm embarrassed about something. I might start laughing, and it's not, it's not at the other person, it's because I'm embarrassed. And that's my cover up for being embarrassed and showing that emotion.

You know it's interesting because I sometimes I had to say, I'm just not catching what you're saying I know they'll do something, sorry. So, what, sometimes it has happened to me, and rarely, but I will say to a person, I just didn't catch what you said and they'll go, well, so they're not laughing at me but is that sometimes they're frustrated, it depends on the situation,

though. Right, right, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome, you're welcome. What I normally say is I'm hard of hearing. I've been married 59 years.

Now that'll get a laugh. Yeah, that's right, get a laugh, move on that. Right. Well, I think I want to thank you. I think for your time.

I think he has her hand up.

Okay, I have a question and what kinds of color do you have, do you have cocoa in America or BAM frowning, or rock.

Yeah I have coke clear Corporation. I have, and I wear the canso. Okay. Yeah, so it's off the air. There's several of us that have advanced drowning. So I was just curious. Yeah, but where I had my cochlear implant in Toronto, and for my type of hearing loss and that it was so clear that they use. They're all good. They're all good and it's I don't regret that decision at all dabit

you. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else, any other questions or comments, Gail,

I have a question. Has there ever been a TED talk on hearing loss. Oh, I'm

sure there has been, um, I see somebody nodding, and it's something that I've been approached on I just haven't. I haven't followed up on it but there have been TED talks so you could actually Google it. I don't. So there's hearing loss, there's being deaf. So it'll be interesting, and you put something into my head I'm going to look up on that too but do look it up because I'm sure there has been

a process that Justin Osman has when so we can maybe Google that, or look on the internet, youtube.

All right, Justin Osman did a TED talk, but, but yeah, I'm sure he's good. His experience is quite is quite different. He was born with profound hearing loss so the, the oarsmen family. If the irony of it being musician, but having hearing loss, and so he was born profoundly deaf, and taught to speak. And so, yeah, he's a good person to know he's a really fun caring person I met him years ago when I was presenting at the Clark School for the doubt, and he was there, working with the kids who was great. Yeah.

Wonderful. No other questions, comments. Well we really do appreciate you being here with us today, Dale, and we thank you for sharing your experiences and your perspectives. Your fear road, and, and also learning about your tools and tricks for better communication, And also how we might increase our comfort level with hearing loss, so we really appreciate that. And you have a certificate of appreciation if I can get this loaded, and we will be sending that to you. Wonderful, thank you so much. Let me see if I can get this presented. I'm not sure this is going to work. It may show more of my screen than I

want. I've had that I've had that I would get the cyber clutter.

I was going to make a presentation I put something up that I thought was my slide. And it turned out to be my mother's smoking a cigar and down. I couldn't get that off the screen so I did the entire presentation when we had to turn that that whole thing off. Otherwise, my mother would have been fully passed away, looking over my shoulder smoking a cigar while I was talking.

Okay, so, um, we see is this appearing I don't know, I can't tell if it said. It looks like it. Oh, can you see can you see that, you know,

we'll just imagine it, we will imagine it. Let's see if I can get it. Hold on a second.

So Catherine said she made a comment earlier let me just see if I can find that that didn't work. Okay, Catherine mentioned that speak to text, APA choose his or her, and I love otter, that's what I use as well. I love this chat. Great. And Catherine also wears a button saying, I read lips. I like that. I like that. But then, do you find it, if you say, if you wear this button says, I'm a lip reader I read lips, that they start doing this to you. And I say, Oh well,

they look soft oh here it comes. Oh, okay I get it. Is it showing anyway let's just express our appreciation for you to be here today and this is great presentation.

Thank you, thank you so much. It's been an honor. And I'm going to say goodbye now. I'm ready to go have my breakfast. Breakfast time on the West Coast. I hope you are all planning on attending the HLA virtual conference in June, I think it's great. I'm not presenting, but I'm, I'm going to be presenting next year at the live one in wherever this next year I forget so I hope to see you live. So if you are ever in the same place next year, so, so, so lots of mics on so I'm going to say bye. And we'll see you again. Bye.

Thank you. Thank you. Well thank you everybody for attending today. Hope you enjoyed Gail's presentation.