Cochlear Implant Bilateral WOW moment

The strangest thing happened today - this CI old-timer, who has been using a CI for 14 years, and has been bilateral for three years, just had another WOW bilateral realization today. I do believe that my bilateral hearing continues to get "better"! 

No, I wasn't in a testing booth, I was at an antique show - haven't been to one in many, many months. This one was indoors in a cavernous event space - with additional exhibitors outside.  It was after browsing the entire show that I realized that a lot of dealers were talking to me today - and I wasn't even looking at them, but I never asked for a repeat, and for most of them, I answered without even looking back at them.  I didn't think it was necessary to look at their faces to continue conversing with them? 

This is definitely a case of my bilateral hearing continuing to get "better" - and me getting more used to hearing casually - being able to hear people from all directions and wider distances.  And the more that happens, the more casual my reaction - just talking back to them without consciously thinking "WOW."  In fact, it wasn't until AFTER doing this for about two hours that I realized that my behavior had changed.  Oh, my!

Reality check: this doesn't happen all the time, and much depends on acoustics, background noise, voices, etc. - but the reality is that this NEVER happened to me as consistently as it did today - not in decades or miles of antique browsing.

Arlene

Cochlear Implant Miracle: DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?

This season, as usual, I was looking for holiday cards that were "special."  I had barely begun my search when this box of cards tumbled to the floor at my feet.  The box was a bit battered, but the cards were intact.  This was the only  box left, so I bought it.

Here's the front of the card:

And here's the message on the inside of the card:

I knew that "Do You Hear What I Hear" was a Christmas song, but I didn't know much about it, so I looked it up and found this:

Wikipedia info about Do You Hear What I Hear

It seems that the song was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, as a plea for peace.  For those too young to remember those days, the world was on the brink of nuclear war.  I remember my schoolmates thinking that we should protest at the United Nations (I lived in Manhattan at the time), but then realizing that they didn't want to spend what might be their last day on earth protesting. The world situation was that intense. 

The song gained popularity in the years that followed. 

So - the question remains:  Do you hear what I hear?

My hearing with bilateral cochlear implants is incredibly good.  But I don't really think that's what this question is about, not at this time of year.

I am deaf and I can hear the sounds of the world around me, connect with others, enjoy the music of the season, including my own voice chanting blessings. 

I hear the sound of a miracle. 

Cochlear Implant WOW moments

I had a WOW moment yesterday - and one would think these don't happen after 14 years with a cochlear implant (CI) - and three years of bilateral CI use.  A WOW moment is the realization that you could do something or hear something you never would have been able to do without the miracle of your cochlear implants.  Here's the story:

My husband bid on and won tickets (at a charity silent auction) to a dinner/magic show held at a posh location in Manhattan. It was the kind where they do magic tricks at your dinner table, and then a magic show with a lot of interaction with the audience. I was a little leery - I never like to put myself in a position of potentially not hearing - and this had no assistive listening devices or captioning - so I knew I'd be flying without a net.

When the magician did his magic at our table, I interacted with no repeats - did all the "pick this" "tell me that" instructions and answers instantly.  WOW!  And then the magic show itself - in this small room environment, everyone was in the hot seat - I got called on to "knock on the wall" and "do this, do that" - from 20 feet out.  I got it all - and even the jokes, and laughed along!  They never suspected I was deaf.  WOW!

There was one coin trick the magician did at our table, where I held two coins in my closed fist - and he magically "dropped" a third one into my closed hand - and I HEARD the "clink," and when I opened my hand, I had three coins!

I told my husband immediately (and excitedly) that I heard the "clink."  Turns out that he wasn't going to mention it to me because if I hadn't heard it, he didn't want me to be upset (I think that's why we're married 41 years).  But nope - I heard it - and you better believe that I wasn't expecting to!  So add another WOW there.

This was bilateral WOW - and it's "advanced WOW" - because I put myself in this position - it didn't just happen to me. The confidence to try to do something I never would have done before. That's the WOW part - and my husband, who often knows better how I'm hearing than I do, thought I could. And he was right.

TOUR ARLENE ROMOFF'S WEBSITE www.listeningclosely.com

It's been a while since I've blogged - plenty of good reasons for that - but the big news now is that my new website is ready for your viewing pleasure!  Just click here and you'll be taken to http://www.listeningclosely.com/  or really, MY WORLD.

First you'll notice that it's the same color pink as the cover of my book, Listening Closely: A Journey to Bilateral Hearing .  That sets the tone because that book is all about me and hearing loss, and so is this website. 

The categories to choose from:

HOME - quick links to current reviews, articles, book links, videos - plus my favorite picture, Albert Eistein and me taken at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

VIDEOS - all captioned in English and Spanish -  make sure to watch my TV interview - and also my bilateral cochlear implant presentation.

ABOUT ARLENE - a brief introduction, with lots more info available in my books.

RESOURCES - current articles, information about organizations, captioned movies, captioned theater (in the US, UK and Australia!)

AWARDS - nice to be recognized by some wonderful organizations and agencies that care about advocacy and hearing loss - including the NJ State Legislature and Senator Frank Lautenberg!

TESTIMONIALS - reviews of my books, reviews of my presentations - and some fan mail.  Too much to list it all, but a nice sampling.

CONTACT - easy to reach me at  arlene@listeningclosely.com

That's the quick tour - you'll now have to go see for yourself, so CLICK HERE to begin.  I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.  You might even want to connect with me on LinkedIn !

And don't forget to sign up on this blog to get email notifications of future blog entries.

September 11, 2001: A Remembrance

My thoughts turn now to remembrances of that grim day - September 11, 2001.  It was a day we had been looking forward to, the date chosen months before for the League for the Hard of Hearing's annual Comedy Night.  It was a fundraiser for the League, the agency that is now renamed the Center for Hearing and Communication, but for us, this event was always more than about raising money. It was the one evening where people with hearing loss could experience professional standup comedy without missing a word because open captioning and asisstive listening devices were being provided. Comedy Night had always been our favorite event, and we were expecting almost 100 of our friends and family to join us that evening.  We started getting ready early in the morning, since we would be heading into the city in the afternoon to fine tune all the seating plans.  And then we got the phone call - my sister-in-law saying that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. 

My immediate thoughts were that this was a freakish airline accident.  But we rushed to turn on the television, and followed the horrific news as it unfolded.  I watched in horror as the second plane dove into the second tower - and I vividly remember realizing, incredulously, that one of the towers had just collapsed. 

Needless to say, we knew our plans for the day - and beyond - were forever altered.  My recollections of these events have a second layer of meaning, though.  Like everything else, it always has to do with "hearing."  I was watching the live news coverage, and it was captioned - in realtime.  My cochlear implant was allowing me to hear a lot of the live reporting, but I still needed the captioning to fill in whatever I was missing.  And that meant the difference between being part of this tragic event, or merely a bystander wondering what was going on. 

I mention this because this is in stark contrast to my experience a mere ten years prior, at the beginning of the militrary actions of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.  At that time, my hearing was at the profound level, and my hearing aid didn't help me much, if at all.  Although many television programs were captioned, live breaking news typically had no live captioning coverage - not yet required by law.  I remember desperately trying to understand what General Schwartzkopf was reporting to the news media, so important to me because I had a friend in the military now in harm's way.  I was a nervous bystander, hoping someone else would please tell me what was going on.

September 11, 2001 was vastly different - with the captioning being steadily streamed, so I could know exactly what was going on, at the same time everyone else was.  Being connected isn't just for the good things - it's as important, if not more so, during trying times.  I learned later that it wasn't by chance that the captioning continued to scroll throughout the morning when the reporting was so important.  I read about how the captioners needed to stay at their stations for hours on end without a break because they didn't want to lose their phone connections.  The dedication of these professionals to their consituency is one aspect most of us don't think about - or didn't, until then.  The National Court Reporters Association documented these real stories of how captioning continued on September 11 and they give a glimpse into what was going on behind the scenes. 

I "only" knew one person who perished that day - the mother of my daughter's friend. But knowing even one person makes it personal.  I watched the memorial ceremony on television this morning, the reading of all the names. I could hear most of it with my bilateral cochlear implants, but I had the captions scrolling, as a reminder of why my recollections of that infamous morning ten years ago are still so vivid.

Hearing Loss: Getting Down to Business!

This was the week that "moved heaven and earth" here in New Jersey.  We felt the ground shake from the radiating tremors of an earthquake, and we've just survived the furies of Hurricane Irene.  These two events seem a fitting herald of yet another feat of nature - the appearance of an article about hearing loss in the Sunday Business Section of the NJ Star Ledger, a major newspaper in the state! 

Hearing loss is usually relegated to the Health or Human Interest sections, but here it is - right there on Page 2 of the Business section, alongside a listing of the 200 largest public corporations in New Jersey.  And as you can see from the picture and headline, the article is about my advocacy work and hearing loss.  The reporter had sent me questions to answer online, in preparation for this article.

My article on Page 2 of the Business Section of the Star Ledger

You can read the actual text of the NJ Star Ledger article by clicking on this link.  You'll see that the article mentions my co-founding two hearing loss organizations, with leadership positions in both.  It delves into the life skills I gleaned from my education and work experience that prepared me for my advocacy work, and asks about upcoming events, plans for the future, and my proudest acheivements.  So, in a nutshell, this is very much an article about business - with the product being solutions to the very real challenges that people with hearing loss face. 

Considering that hearing loss impacts business people as much as those who read the Health and Human interest sections, I applaud the Star Ledger for recognizing the serious nature of hearing loss, and its importance to its readers.  And applause are also in order for Joel Strasser, HLA-NJ board member, who handles the PR that made this article happen.

The fact that this was also the week that the Yankees made the record books by scoring three grand slam home runs in one game - well, that's pretty amazing, too - almost as amazing as having an article on hearing loss appear in a Business section!

Captioned Theater - A TRU Story



Bob Ost presenting Humanitarian Award to Arlene



They say that one picture is worth a thousand words. Well, the above picture is of Bob Ost, Executive Director of  Theater Resources Unlimited, a professional organization for theater producers, presenting me with TRU's Humanitarian Award for my captioned live theater advocacy work. One look at TRU's website and you'll know what this organization is about - everything to do with professional theater. That photo was taken in 2008 at their annual "TRU Love" benefit luncheon. As you can see from the photo below, the event was open captioned (see the LED screen to the right of the picture?)  And as Bob pointed out to the audience of mostly theater people, nobody would miss a word of the lyrics with those captions scrolling. (Assistive listening devices - ALDs - were supplied as well.)

Arlene giving acceptance speech while captions scroll on the LED screen

A curious thing happened the next year, 2009, as Bob was preparing for the annual TRU Love benefit once again. He realized that if TRU didn't provide open captioning, then Arlene and other people with hearing loss wouldn't be able to attend! And Bob also realized that people with  hearing loss don't only want to attend events related to hearing loss - they want to attend what everyone else is attending, too.  SOOOOO - the 2009 TRU Love benefit luncheon provided open captioning again, even though nobody with hearing loss was being honored that year.  So I went - along with a bunch of others with and without hearing loss - not only because it was captioned, but because this event is really super!  There's a wonderful cocktail hour, then a gourmet luncheon, and top notch professional entertainment - in addition to the award presentations.  AND - and this is very important - it supported this amazing organization that "got it" about people with hearing loss being able to attend a mainstream event "with dignity" - and the need for captioning in the theater.  

Some of the entertainment at the 2008 TRU Love benefit luncheon

So another curious thing happened in 2010 - again.  TRU made sure to have open captioning for its TRU Love benefit luncheon again, even though no one with hearing loss was being honored.  Bob was committed to making this event accessible to people with hearing loss.  And now, the "regulars" with  hearing loss returned for another delightful afternoon of food, drink and professional entertainment - while hobnobbing with REAL theater people - producers, actors, writers, and I imagine a few angels as well. This event is beyond just being accessible or a captioned theater performance - this is a REAL New York theater experience!

The 2011 TRU Love benefit luncheon planning is now in the works - NOVEMBER 6, 2011 - and once again TRU plans to have open captioning and ALDs.  With the cost of a ticket at about $100 (higher levels of support available), that's a pretty good deal for cocktails, lunch and entertainment - all without missing a word.   And supporting this amazing organization that educates the entire theater community about the benefits of captioning - PRICELESS!

If you'd like to thank Bob for his amazing work, just email him at TRUnltd@aol.com and tell him Arlene sent you.