How to handle me and my hearing loss

I have a slight hearing loss, I'm not deaf but depending on what's going on around me I might not catch everything that is said to me, or none of it at all. When I'm sick it's worse because my ears are plugged. I have had to deal with this all my life basically and have had to deal with people who don't understand or just don't care and get frustrated with me if I don't hear everything the first time. My hearing loss is due to having multiple ear infections as a young child. I thought I would share some things to make it easier for people to deal with me, kind of a do this not that list. I have been thinking about doing this for months now and in reality I should of done this YEARS ago. So strap on your seat belts and here we go.

Don't talk to me while walking away from me, I won't hear everything you have to say.  The farther away you get from me the harder it is for me to hear everything. My mom is particularly bad about this, she will ask me to do something as she is going to another room, I might catch everything she says and then again I might not.

Make sure you have my attention before you start talking. This one is important especially if we are in an area that is very noisy. Background noise makes it very hard for me to decipher if someone is actually talking to me. Best way to do this is make eye contact with me or tap me on the shoulder.

Don't get mad if I don't answer you, I probably just didn't hear you. As I mentioned before background noise plays havoc with my ability to hear, so if you call my name and I don't respond I'm not ignoring you, I just didn't catch that you called out to me. My husband doesn't call out my name to get my attention anymore cause I didn't respond a lot of the times but if he whistles I will hear it and stop and look around for him. The downside to this is if someone else is whistling I automatically stop and look around for him even though I know he isn't with me.

Please repeat yourself if I asked you to. I know it's annoying to have to repeat yourself but if I didn't catch everything you said I will ask you to repeat yourself or say what? Sometimes I might have to ask 2-3 times before I get everything you say, if this is the case especially if I am battling a cold please be patient with me

Don't say Never mind. I hate when people say something and I wasn't paying attention so I didn't hear it or I was paying attention but just didn't catch it and ask them to repeat what they said and they say never mind. Please tell me what you said, if it was good enough to say it once please say it a second time.

Treat me like you would any other person. If we are meeting for the first time you might not know that I have a slight hearing loss. If I need you to speak up, or repeat yourself I will ask you to. Don't tease me about it once you find out about it either. I have an older brother who does that for you already. I let him get away with it for the most part because he is family, and I know he is just teasing to tease and not cause harm.

 Oh a good way to know if I have a cold and my ears are plugged is the volume of the T.V. if it seems louder then usual it's because I have had to crank it up so I can hear. At that point it is ok to speak a little louder then normal to me so I can understand you.

Oh to Drive

It's days like today when it's beautiful and hot out that I wish I could drive. I would be out maybe walking at Potters Marsh or just driving or even find a cool place to investigate with my camera and take pictures. Instead I'm in my apartment with a melted cat, daydreaming. Yes I could go outside and just sit but that gets boring and where I live there really isn't a good place to do that, with out being bugged by the kids in the daycare wanting to know what you are doing. I could go for a walk but, I have seen it all around here and there's no real place to walk to besides either a gas station or Safeway. Plus I am a very social person so I want to be able to hang with friends while doing said stuff.

I wish I had more friends too, don't get me wrong I have friends but I only have a few close ones that I actually hang out with, and one whom lives in a different state. The ones I do hang out with are busy so I can go weeks if not months without seeing them.

I'm not really complaining, it's just hard sometimes being by myself all day and wanting to do something but not being able to due to the fact that I can't drive. I have tried and tried and tried the job thing and they never pan out. I get so sick while working, or I'm not the right fit and get let go. I just wish there was an easy way for me to go places that wasn't public transportation. I don't have anything against public transportation besides the fact that it costs money and is a pain to get to from where I live. I need like a golf cart, or a segway (however it's spelled) so I can just take off and get away from the apartment for a bit during the day.

Ok complaining is done. I have more important things to do like washing dishes.

Grown Up

 I find myself feeling like an adult today, not that I don't feel like one everyday cause I do but today it just kinda hit and I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm wearing a polo shirt instead of my regular go to T-shirts that have funny sayings on them. I feel like I am out growing them, that they don't suit who I am anymore. I'm not saying that I'm totally going to give them up but I find myself wanting more "grown up" clothing. Like a T-shirt with a funny saying is ok every now and then but I don't want my shirts to be all of that and nothing else, if you get what I mean. I even find myself wanting to own and wear *gasp* dresses. The last time I wore a dress was I believe at my wedding. I have worn a skirt once or twice after that and didn't really like it but I want to start wearing them again. But that's not going to happen any time in the near future so my tomboy ways are safe for now. That is unless I lose enough weight that dresses actually start looking good on me then watch out.

Record Breaking Winter and other fun stuff

Last year we broke the record for snow fall this winter we I believe broke the record for longest winter. It snowed Friday into Saturday. It has all pretty much melted now except for a few spots that are in the shade and it didn't snow all that much. I wonder what this next winter will bring and I'm in no hurry to find out yet either.

I am pretty much back 100% from the blasted sickness. I have a little bit of a cough still and a little bit of hearing loss due to plugged ears but I got them to pop while making dinner tonight and I can hear even better then I did this morning so things are looking good there. I know mom is happy cause she hates my cough because its annoying. I'm happy cause now I don't have to listen to her complain about my cough, plus it's no fun being sick, I should be fine till this fall. Well besides allergies that is.

Since I'm now feeling better I am going to start a cross stitch project for one of moms friends. Her friend wants me to do a birth announcement one I guess you could call it. She saw some of my cross stitching on Facebook and asked me if I would be willing to do it for her. I put it off till I was better cause I didn't want to goof up on it cause I wasn't thinking straight, or was tired. This thing is pretty big and will take me a while to do it cause I want to take my time and do it right.  All my other projects will wait until I get this done, well besides the one for my brother which I haven't even started yet, so it has now become his Christmas gift and I need to come up with a birthday gift now. 

Difference in Opinions

I was reading a friends blog the other day and couldn't believe what she wrote. I firmly believe that everyone has their own opinions and that no one is right or wrong in their own opinion but I have to disagree with her on what she thinks. Basically she thinks it's stupid to wait to have sex until your married and that if you do that, that you could end up being cheated on, be the person who is cheating, or both people being miserable. I don't think this is true in all cases, some yes but not all. She made it sound like every marriage is doomed if you don't do it before you get married.

I am proud to say that I didn't give it away until I was married, that was my choice. I chose to wait because I wanted to know that the guy I loved, loved me and wasn't just trying to get into my pants. I wasn't going to let sex be a bargaining chip, it wasn't even an option. Now I'm not saying waiting is for everyone and I don't look down on people who don't wait, cause to each their own, but to say that if a person decides to wait till they are married that their marriage is doomed is just in my opinion wrong. I have been happily married for almost 9 years, neither one of us cheats and we aren't miserable.

that's all I'm going to say on this matter. Besides the fact that I hate when people lump everyone in to one big group and say they are all doomed, or all of them act a certain way. That's not true and you can't prove it so why say it?

Queen of the Sickness

Here I sit sniffling, sneezing, coughing, wheezing and feeling like someone is stabbing my ear. I get winded just standing up and these dang rubber bands around my chest aren't any fun. If you guessed I'm sick yet again you win an internet cookie to be delivered never. :-) That's right yours truly is sick, this time with Asthmatic Bronchitis and an ear infection. This all started Thursday with a nasty sounding cough and morphed into what I described earlier. The bright side to all of this is the mild fevers I was throwing from Thursday night to Sunday Night are now gone. So I no longer go from freezing to death to sweating to death in .005 seconds. I am however still pretty miserable. I have crowned myself the queen of sickness cause when I get sick it's never anything simple.

Richard has been a real champ through this whole thing so far, I have pretty much stayed in bed so I can pass out and not have to worry about anything. He has brought me drinks and food and switched out the discs in the dvd player for me so I can just rest. Last night he even slept out on the couch for me so I could try and get some better sleep last night. I still woke up every half hour or so but I didn't have to worry about being quiet and not waking him up with a coughing fit. I am truly a very lucky lady to have such a caring husband who feels bad that I feel like crap and tries to make it better for me any way possible. He was even willing to call in sick today to take me to the doctor if I wanted him to. Which he didn't, I had mom take me after she got off work and she even forfeited her lunch to get out earlier so she could take me sooner. I am very blessed to have both of them in my life.

I'm now very much on the dead side so off to the bedroom I go.