My New Change

Last week I wrote a post about change. Well this is week one of my change.. I picked up my hearing aids and had them adjusted. As I walked out of Costco and didnt realize it but my brain was paying close attention to every sound that was being made. The birds singing in the trees, women walking in high heels, the turn signal in the car, just so many sounds.. One that will never escape me is our dogs nails on the floor, or my small dogs whimper to go out to relieve herself.

There are sounds that many hearing take for granted. You dont realize that those that have been hearing have been tuning out sounds, As well as those of us that aren't hearing so well dont realize how much we are missing. You see when I used to wonder what it sounds like to hear rain fall. Now I can hear it and it makes me smile. But dont get me wrong there are downsides. The loud restaurant that wasn't loud before, has become very much overwhelming.  You find yourself first turning them down then muting them all together.

Overwhelming to hear the roar of the airplane, or the annoying voice of that pesky flight attendant, or even that one child that cries the whole 2 hrs of a flight. Those sounds that you could never hear before and now they are all coming through your brain all at once.. Yes it can be overwhelming. There is a good side to it all.. The key word MUTE.  When you get overwhelmed turn it down til your comfortable or just mute it and breathe deep.

There is a lot of things I have to get used to like instead of turning my hearing aids down, I should in turn turn the tv down. I have to remember that not all sounds are for me. There are times when I should just pay attention and zero in on what I need to hear and not all that is around me to hear. I have to retrain my brain to know the sound of my voice and to understand certain consonants.

Hearing Aids are to aid you in hearing better, they will not act as glass and correct your hearing. Remember that tones and pitches will still be a problem for some. But with the help of your audiologist they will fine tune them to fit your needs.

I grew up

Growing up... Some of us don't have a choice in the matter but then some fight it to the death. I was raised in a village of people.. You know the saying it takes a village to raise a child well my family was my village. We had video games like atari, vextrek, nintendo but we were outside more than we were inside the house playing the games. We didn't have cell phones we had the rotary phone that took 5mins just to dial out and please don't mess up and have to start over again. We grew up on a block where even though we weren't all family, we were family... When it rained my mother would make cookies and my brother and I would sit on our porch and watch the rain with our friends and just enjoyed our childhood.. I don't remember when I wanted to grow up. I don't remember when I couldn't wait to be grown. But here we are 20+ years later grown. Some of us have our own children and we look at them and laugh. They are now us not knowing what the future may hold but know it will be bright.

Change

Change.. I don't like change and for some reason every time I turn around there is CHANGE knocking his hairy knuckles at my door yet again.. I don't take to it very well.. You may say well you moved across country, got married, started a business, and moved back across the country.. But what you don't know that I will tell you is I was nervous to say the least.. The only time my life took to change was my wedding day.. But when I were to move across country was a different story.. I got to the airport I wanted to turn around.. I almost did.. The longer I waited for my flight, the longer I had to change my mind. But I didn't.. And it was the one of best moves of my life..

Well the reason for this blog is because today change has come again.. I have had a hearing disability since I was a child.. I should have gotten hearing aids a long time ago. I have had years of deciding and researching the different ones. The Behind the Ear, the Inner Ear, the Cochlear Implant, Mini Behind the Ear, In the Canal, and Completely in Canal.  Growing up I didn't want the ones that sits behind my ears because of my insecurities, and I didn't want anyone to know. You tell someone you have a hearing disability  they talk louder.. You tell someone that you can read lips they then act stupid and start watching their own lips to see what I'm seeing.. LOL.. So I stopped telling people. When I was in school I would always have to sit up front and let the teach or professor know what my situation was, but then I could see that they weren't going to cater to my needs so I would move to the back of the room and revel in my feelings.  As I grew older I stopped going into situations where I would meet new people or be in an environment where I would feel overwhelmed. I tend to shy away a lot. I also tend to not put myself in places or situations where I am going to feel low.

I really don't like going to movies or looking at tv with others. I have become a little antisocial in my own home. If I am not working, I am in my room watching tv. If I watch normal tv I have to have to closed captions on the tv otherwise, I feel out of place. I realized I started depending on my dogs more and more. You see we have a dog that has self trained his self to my needs. He lets me know when someone is at the door, he is mindful not to bark just because unless he is outside. He lets me know if a child or baby is crying. Yes he is a great dog but it is time to give him a vacation.

I am going to say this again I dont like change at all.. But today my life will change yet again.. I will be able to hear what you may hear or want to hear. I am picking up my hearing aids. This is huge for me because I have been running from them for at least 20 years. My stomach has been in knots all morning and I have even talked to my husband about backing out, and just getting our money back for them. I was told "NO".. Yeah I know right, just like that.. I know he means well and he knows I don't mean that I don't want them. I just don't like change and not knowing how everything is going to be. He knows how I have been looking forward to this but again the issue is change.. What if it is too much, what if I get overwhelmed (because that does happen), what if, what if, what if, and a bunch more what ifs.. But nonetheless Its happening..