Deaf Girly sings (hmmm)

Working from home makes me do odd things. 

Things like eating an entire packet of Rich Tea biscuits without even noticing and working my way through some horrendous Spotify suggestions because I refuse to pay for the Premium service as really, it’s basically falling on deaf ears.

However, today’s procrastination project quite possibly took the biscuit, the very last Rich Tea in fact.

Today I decided to try a Spotify instrumental of a song I know the words to and I recorded myself on PhotoBooth on my Mac singing it…

Why? Well, I can tell you one thing, it wasn’t to become a YouTube star called Deaf Girly Sings – although actually, if I wasn’t so anonymous, that might not be a bad plan – it was to see how bad my voice sounds when I sing.

So I sang along to Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran, which is one of my favourite songs at the moment while Spotify produced a perfectly acceptable instrumental version of the song to sing along to.

And can I sing? Well, I’m not really sure as I don’t know whether I hear what most hearing people hear. But all the windows in the flat and crystal glasses are still in one piece so perhaps it wasn’t completely horrific. And I didn’t see any neighbourhood cats running for cover either.

Seriously though, I would love to be able to sing. Sing in a way that people liked to listen to. Sing in a way that when you were singing along to music in your car you didn’t have people wishing they were in the car next door. And singing in a way that didn’t result in your boss writing you a post-it note (albeit a lovely cute one) requesting you not to harmonise to the Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s version of Under a Bridge or she was going to have to jump out of a window.

In fact, if a genie popped out of my Turkish tea pot that’s currently bubbling away on the stove right now and said you can choose between two things, a perfect singing voice or perfect hearing, I would honestly have to go away and think about it, because as we know from The X Factor auditions, perfect hearing doesn’t necessarily give you a perfect singing voice.

When I was six and more hearing I was pretty obsessed with music. I was desperate to play the violin and my Ma finally realised how serious I was when she found me with her guitar under my chin attempting to play it with a pencil for a bow.

But what I didn’t realise then was that making the notes wasn’t guess work. For most people they were audible.

At 18, while practising for my grade 8 flute – which I did get, albeit not with startlingly great marks – I realised, having lost a chunk of my hearing two years previously, that I needed to build on my audio memory as much as possible. And each night before I went to bed, I would play middle C on the piano in my bedroom and then the A above that and sing them, locking them away in my head so that pitch was always there. So that even if one day I wouldn’t hear them, they would be in my head. For my flute this was brilliant as I just mentally transposed everything I was playing down an octave and my grumpy mermaid in Reinecke’s Sonata Undine sounded more like a disgruntled baby hippo to me.

Anyway, as I get back to the proper task in hand for this afternoon – writing – and delete the file called ‘DG sings’ for all of eternity. I can safely say that today’s procrastination activity certainly ranks up there with weird things to do when alone in a flat. But if you know of anyone who can teach people with a hearing loss to sing – Gareth Malone, a new documentary perhaps? –  please drop me a line as it’s up there on my lifetime achievements wish list.

Happy Wednesday peeps

DG

x

Deaf Girly and the optician

This morning I had an opticians appointment to check my contact lenses.

Being a girl of very little hearing, I am always quite anxious about looking after my eyesight, particularly as I am already really shortsighted. Shortsighted to the point where if I didn’t have my contact lenses or glasses on, I would be unable to see anything beyond a few blurry shapes. 

So anyway, I’ve recently changed opticians and today was my first appointment at the new place. Once there, I explained I needed to lipread or have really clear hand gestures to show me where I needed to look. It’s amazing how similar ‘Look up, down, left, right, blink’ etc sound in a dark room even when I do have my contacts and hearing aids in – and the optician was great, waving his hand in each direction and speaking slowly and clearly. 

He then took out my contacts to do some eyeball-checking tests and started to talk, which of course didn’t work at all as I couldn’t even see where his head was anymore, let alone what his lips were saying. Cue much scrabbling around for my glasses.

Next, I went and did a nerve test. For this I had to wear a patch over one eye and watch a screen and click a button whenever a white dot appeared. I failed the test as the assistant doing it had forgotten that I needed my contact lenses in for this test to see and that I needed to be looking at him to hear. It was a total car crash – I was almost fast-tracked to a nerve specialist as the results basically said I was dead.

However, once we had established the test instructions and restored my vision, I realised it was basically a hearing test for my eyes and as I sat there clicking away at the now-visible white dot, it made me realise how amazing it is that I can be so horrifically shortsighted and have this made completely perfect with contact lenses or glasses.

Thinking back to my bleep tests at the audiology clinic, I know for a fact that a bleep test with my hearing aids in would not product a score of 100% or even close. 

Hearing aids don’t make everything perfect. They enhance and add another dimension to what I hear but they don’t give me the equivalent of 20/20 vision.

And that got me thinking about the day that perhaps hearing aids will do this. A day where I can put on my hearing aids and they give my ears what my glasses give my eyes. 

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

But in the meantime I remain incredibly happy that at least one of my senses can be restored to 100% and the other one? Well as I’ve said many times before, I’m more than fine with it for now.

Happy Monday peeps.

DG

xx

Deaf Girly and foreign languages

I am still grinning from the great weekend that I just had.

I went to Rotterdam (or anywhere) to watch the tennis with FJM, saw Big Bro and also caught up with Fab Friend.

Rotterdam is an amazing city with the most bonkers architecture including Cube Houses that you can actually go inside – a museum one anyway – which left FJM and I feeling more than a little seasick. Your eyes don't know which way is up as none of the angles makes sense.

On Saturday we set off to explore Rotterdam and the first thing we stumbled upon was Markthal – an amazing market hall full of food from all over the world. The building itself was pretty impressive, too.

There I discovered they sold Turkish simit – something I've had a 10-year long obsession with. It's the most amazing bread ever. I love it so much, I even once tried to make it but it went a bit wrong, exploded and started leaking out of the oven while cooking.

But that's a whole other story – and one that's probably in documented on this blog somewhere.

Anyway, one of the things that amazes me about Dutch people is how amazing they all are at speaking English. Everyone can speak English to you. But I feel guilty about this. It seems wrong that you are in another country and making people speak English to you.

So I did try to say thank you and stuff in my limited Dutch, but I have a feeling my pronunciation was so terrible they probably just thought I was saying something random in English.

I love languages and while I find them quite easy to learn on paper, I don't find them easy to speak or understand when spoken. Indeed, my knowledge of French is still quite good, but I cannot lipread it, which means it doesn't matter how much vocab I have, I will still never hear what a French person is saying to me, unless I learn to lipread in French.

It's not impossible. It will just take time. Time to learn how the the different words, vowels and patterns look while at the same time piecing together the different language to work out what is being said.

In my 20s I spent quite a lot of time going to Turkey with Sharkira Shakira. In Turkey, not everyone speaks English, so I thought I would learn Turkish, first with SS's help and then with a book that I worked my way through. And while I learnt the grammar and vocab, I promise you, I could not get to the end of a sentence without the person I was saying it to bursting out laughing.

'What are you laughing at?' I asked SS one day as she wiped away the tears of hysteria.

And apparently, I had learnt Turkish gangster style. My pronunciation of the language made me sound like, as SS put it, a Turkish wide boy. She suggested I added the word 'innit' at the end of my sentences to help. I was not amused.

I persevered with Turkish and on going on holiday to a place where there were no English people at all, I was able to use it a bit more. But still, people burst out laughing at the sound of a blonde English girl speaking gangster Turkish.

I wish there was a way around the pronunciation and lipreading challenge. But the problem is, I have enough trouble pronouncing words from my own language and still don't get the lipreading right either, and that's with 30-odd years of practice.

In the meantime however, it can't hurt to practice. So I'm just off to have a go at some beginners Dutch on the DuoLingo website so that when I am next in Rotterdam (or anywhere) I can give it a go, hopefully without people laughing at me.

Happy Monday peeps.

DG

Deaf Girly and her skiing lover

This week, I haven't been wearing my hearing aids. I've been enjoying the comfort of my new glasses without the additional hardware behind my ears. And mostly I've got by OK.

But there have been some noticeable times when I've struggled – mainly in shops at the till when paying. It's been so long since I've struggled with this that I'd kind of forgotten how hard it used to be – the 'Would you like a bag?' question, the random conversation they've been told to make by management, the payment chit-chat and the where-the-heck-I-want-them-to-put-the-receipt conundrum.

With my hearing aids, I tend not to have too much trouble with this.

Today however, was an absolute car crash of mishearing. In Uniqlo, I'm surprised I managed to get out of there without my face exploding in a big red embarrassed mess, while in Marks & Spencer, I tried to plan ahead as much as possible about what I might be asked and still didn't get it right. And then I started to flap, and I almost walked straight out of Oliver Bonas with an empty bag after I hadn't realised they were still gift wrapping what I had bought. And no one thought my strange behaviour was because of my deafness, they all just thought I was totally bonkers. Which actually is highly probable on reflection.

One good thing to come out of this is that not wearing my hearing aids this week has really made me appreciate what they give me when I do wear them – often without really noticing. They take my 2D world and make it 3D and they also remove a lot of the angst involved in everyday tasks that I experience without them.

And I can honestly say that I will NOT be going shopping without my hearing aids again. There's only so many times a shop assistant can repeat a question without both you and them wanting to curl up into a ball and die.

No more so than a few weeks ago when I was skiing – without hearing aids as I get feedback in my helmet – and went to the ski hire shop to get some skis. The man had a strong French accent and was a bit grumpy looking.

'What's your lover?' he said, as I tried to stay upright in my newly tightened ski boots.

'My what?' I said, looking at him in panic.

'Your lover,' he said, adding a Gallic shrug for good measure.

I looked blank.

'Your skiing lover! Tell me your skiing lover?' he continued, looking at me like I was a complete moron.

I went through the word again and again in my head, replacing bits of it to see if I got a more feasible word and eventually cracked it.

'My skiing level?' I asked.

Yes I'd got it eventually but not before he and everyone around me thought I was a total moron.

So if you ever serve me in a shop and I look like a rabbit caught in headlights every time you say something, I promise you I am not stupid, I am just deaf. And overwhelmed. And still blushing from the skiing lover mix-up thing.

Happy Thursday peeps.

DG
x

Deaf Girly and modern technology

Today I was able to do the most fabulous thing – chat to one of my best friends Miss K who lives in South Africa over FaceTime and, with the help of my pink POP phone handset, I was able to follow everything.

Amazing huh?

What I am a bit horrified about however, is that Miss K has lived in South Africa for three years now and that was the first time I had FaceTimed her. You see, after spending most of my adult life unable to use the phone, I still forget that I can call people over FaceTime and actually 'hear' (OK, lipread) them, thanks to the perfectly matched picture and sound.

I am still amazed that I can follow what is going on, after years of simply pretending.

For example, when I was a teenager, one of my good friends used to call me on the phone on my birthday every year for a chat. He was from Kent and had a very strong accent that I found hard enough to understand in person, let alone on the telephone. He'd call up and we'd chat for an hour, with me guessing the whole time what he might be saying. By the end of the hour I was absolutely exhausted and also slightly nervous that I'd said something random, answered something wrong, or he thought I was completely mad. I have no idea why I didn't just not have that phone call with him. But that was back in the 90s when email wasn't the norm and I was still years away from getting my first mobile phone.

Looking back, I cannot imagine how I would have got by as an adult in the 90s. With crap internet and the main form of communication for everyone being the phone. I think there would have been a massive chance that I would have lost contact with a lot of people. Or just had totally misunderstood phone conversations with them a lot of the time.

I feel so lucky that I live in a time where technology makes things easier. Where restaurants and hair appointments can be booked online, where texts can be sent in the place of phone calls and emails are a perfectly acceptable. Where I can call my friend, over the internet and lipread what she is saying for free. Where there are apps for song lyrics, subtitles on most things and a world where I know longer have to fight with plugging in the caption reader.

Anyone else end up in a rage about the amazing puzzle of wires needed to get those words up on the screen?

I can still remember the look of horror on my friends' parents' faces when I showed up for sleepovers armed with my Caption Reader and proceeded to trash their carefully set up TVs just so I could watch a video. And even then you had to make sure that the video in question had the CC symbol on the side, which back in the 90s was also a rarity.

I think that also explains why I don't really watch movies. I forget that I can. They never really became an integral part of my life. I'm missing a huge chunk of movie education. And the last new release I saw at the cinema was Sex & The City 2.

So I've made a pact with myself. I'm going to remind myself that modern technology makes lots of things possible that I forget about. I'm going to FaceTime more, watch movies with subtitles more and generally see if  I can embrace all the things I learnt to live without but no longer need to.

I'm on a mission.

Starting with another FaceTime conversation with Miss K very soon.

DG
x

Deaf Girly and the song lyrics

I'm off to Rotterdam (or anywhere) soon and this has meant for the last few weeks, I've had the ear worm (yep, even through my hearing aids) of that catchy song by The Beautiful South. However, the only words I know are 'Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome' and then I am stumped.

I did't even know what the song was about until I found a subtitled YouTube video last night.

I remember realising I couldn't hear song words four years before I knew I was deaf. I was six years old and my grandparents gave me a red Walkman cassette player and a Kylie album for Christmas. The first thing I had to do was crank the volume up to the highest level and even then with those fetching foam covered flimsy 80s headphones, I could hardly hear it – but I assumed that this was just something that everyone struggled with. And then I remember truly believing that pop stars didn't sing song words. I thought they just mumbled the words and that it was your job to guess what was being said.

On a totally separate subject, I actually used to think that was the whole point of Dictation exercises at school, too and often used to used them to creatively enhance the story instead of writing what was being said as I couldn't hear what was being said. And then was totally gutted and confused when I did badly in them.

Anyway, back to those song words. The first time I realised that song words actually did exist was when I started singing my own version of Hand On Your Heart by Kylie with some friends from my class on the rounders pitch and they all started laughing at me. Mortified, I found the words in the cassette cover and memorised the whole lot to prevent it happening again. Assuming that this is what all my friends had done in the first place.

On discovering I was deaf, a lot of things started to make sense – dictation at school was in fact a test of your ability to follow and write down a story without making errors, French listening was actually to see whether you understood the words, not whether you heard them, and the violin – those high notes, well that wasn't guess work, normal people could actually hear them.

And don't even get me started on the fact that birds actually sing.

Anyway, back to those song words. Back in the 90s, there was no internet to Google lyrics on, so instead I spent all my pocket money on Fast Forward and Smash Hits magazines so I could tear out the lyrics pages and learn them after recording the Top 40 charts off Radio 1 onto my pink and white cassette recorder.

For years, my bedroom cupboards were plastered with the lyrics to Chesney Hawkes, New Kids On The Block and most importantly Kylie. 

Next, came a rather amazing school friend who wrote all the lyrics I requested into a book for me and another friend who mouthed them to me with hilarious home-made sign language that I can still remember to this day.

It worked – and it's these songs that I can still remember all the lyrics to.

By university, lyrics websites had popped up and so I printed and learnt the lyrics to the songs that I needed to bounce around to in the Students Union – storing them in a ring binder, creating quite a library. And then all of a sudden came the Sound Hound and Metro Lyrics apps which worked with your smartphone and literally turned it into a Karaoke machine and the rest is history.

To this day however, I still don't really get the importance of lyrics. In fact, quite often, learning the lyrics can actually ruin a song for me. My favourite songs are much more about the chord sequences or melodies than what the lyrics are. I feel quite lucky that while my deafness has take away so much clarity of speech, but I still seem to be able to retain my understanding of pitch and melody. So long as it's not more than an octave and a half above middle C. 

But for the sake of my sanity, I did google the lyrics to Rotterdam Or Anywhere and they're really quite weird, but I'm going to learn them, if only to get me out of the 2-line repetitive rut I am stuck in.

So if you hear someone singing The Beautiful South, horribly out of tune in a check in queue at Heathrow in the next few weeks, be sure to wave won't you?

DG

xx

Deaf Girly and the taxman

A few weeks ago I put out a panicky tweet about my self assessment thingumajig for the tax man and the lovely @CazzONeill told me about the 'additional needs' link on the HMRC website. In that section there is the option to book a face-to-face meeting with a tax bod. So I clicked on the link and two hours later was presented with my appointment time and date.

Amazing huh?

And today I went along to it. Apparently, according to the tax bod I met, there aren't any offices anymore for these meetings and instead they book a room in an office space for the meeting that is required and that is what I turned up to. There wasn't a single HMRC sign in sight, which I found a little bit worrying at first, but luckily he had his ID.

And so he talked me through the whole self-assessment process. He answered all my questions, and created an amazing PacMan/Taxman analogy that I've completely forgotten about – and I left there happier but poorer.

I chatted to him a bit about how great this service is and he said that he could put me forward to give feedback on it, but that they would call me to get this feedback – the only mega-fail of the whole service HMRC provides.

Knowing that I can get an appointment to ask about tax stuff is absolutely invaluable. It means I don't have to get someone to lift the phone, or struggle to make the call and worry that I have missed something. I would definitely recommend using this service and am slightly terrified that Government cuts will see it sidelined in the future.

It got me thinking whether there are any other places you can get these face-to-face meetings? I have requested one with the Citizens Advice Bureau before but they actively seem to discourage this and push people towards phone calls or email.

Let me know though what your experiences have been.

I'm just off to start documenting my taxes for the 2014/2015 tax year – after all, I know how to now.

Have a luffly evening peeps.

DG
xx

Deaf Girly Reviews gets up and running

I have exciting news. See that tab just above this blog post that says 'Deaf Girl Reviews'? Well, I've finally got it up and running – and I've posted my first review too, about the Subtitles Viewer app available on iOS.

Deaf Girl Reviews is going to be the place where I write about my cinema and theatre experiences, the latest tech, apps I've found and anything else techy or deaf-consumer related.

Why? Because there's so many things out there that can help that I don't know about yet. And the things I do know about, other people don't know about. It's like that wonderful speech that Donald Rumsfeld gave about unknown unknowns, which later became the inspiriting of a brilliant book by Mark Forsyth about independent bookshops called The Unknown Unknown, which is well worth a read if it's currently unknown to you.

So if there's something I should know about, write about, review, pull apart or try, then get in touch with me @deafgirly on Twitter, where I can mostly be found tweeting about the extraordinarily large amount of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers I manage to eat, or email me at deafinitelygirly@gmail.com.

Happy Thursday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly and the spinning class

It's January.

I spent most of Christmas eating chocolate. For every meal of the day. Including midnight feasts and snack times. I also spent a very small amount of Christmas doing exercise. I worked my biceps by opening the fridge, my glutes by getting on and off the sofa and my abs by leaning back to pat my stomach after a big meal. *raises eyebrow*

So naturally, I am joining the nation in a Get Fit for 2015 crusade.

This for me means going to the gym. And more specifically going to classes where I am trapped in a room for 45 minutes and cannot leave or slack off without being yelled at by an amazingly perky skinny – clearly didn't eat chocolate for every meal over Christmas – instructor.

I've covered the subject of exercise on my blog regularly over the years. I covered my experience of training for my first running race, my experience of a gym that didn't want to let me workout unaccompanied because it thought my deafness was a health and safety risk, and I have covered some of my more amusing Zumba classes.

More recently, I talked about how hard it is for me to hear in exercise classes and how I always wonder what I am actually getting out of them.

But yesterday, I forced myself to go to an evening spinning class. I got there half an hour early and took my time getting changed, before wandering into the studio to find the equivalent of a German sun lounger battle occurring. Ever spin bike was taken by towels, water bottles and clothing, but not a person was there.

'Ah-ha,' I thought, I will know this for next time, before taking my place behind a pillar on a bike that looked like it had done several rounds of the Tour de France.

The lycra-clad instructor arrived shortly afterwards, turned off the lights, turned up the music, turned on a disco ball (yes really) and started yelling into a microphone attached to her face.

From behind the pillar, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Although in all honesty, I am not sure that from in front of the pillar I would have had a better idea.

Very briefly, I considered requesting the eviction of a person on one of the bikes situated in a more convenient place for lipreading, but given that it had been reserved more than 40 minutes earlier, and I seemed to be invading some sort of spinning clique, I thought better of it.

So instead, I decided to focus on the person next to me and copy what she did.

Except for the duration of the first song, she was reading BBC news on her phone while paying no attention to whatever the hell the instructor was yelling about.

In short, it was the most odd 45 minutes of my week so far. And I have absolutely no idea if it did anything for my fitness whatsoever. Although I was quite red in the face when I came out, but that could have been from the sheer humiliation of the whole situation.

It got me thinking though, is there a loop system I could give the instructor so I could have a direct pick up to what she was saying? If I had that, plus I managed to get my towel on a bike to reserve it two days before the class was scheduled I might have a hope of actually doing a spinning class, rather than just cycling like a lunatic in a room full of strangers.

But my fitness quest is not going to stop there. I am also going to ask FJM to force me to get better at running. So I can do this. On my own. Outside. For free. Without anyone reserving anything with their towel, or a mad instructor screaming incomprehensible instructions into a microphone.

So keep a look out for a mad looking deaf girl running while clutching an egg timer (read all about the time I actually did run with an egg timer here) and the very lovely (and good at running) FJM jogging along next to her.

Coming soon to a park near you!

*beams

Deaf Girly on the mountain

Today's blog comes from the snow.

*beams

The Swiss snow to be precise and after yesterday's downfall, there's a lot more of it, too.

I love being in the moutnains. I love how it can be so cloudy you can't see the end of your own nose one minute, and then blue skies and sunshine the next.

Right now, it is the former, with rain, which is why I am cosy and warm in the ski flat looking out of the window and writing this blog.

One thing I have done that has surprised me this week, is completely ditch my hearing aids. So I am back to being very deaf at all times. Up the mountain, it doesn't reallly matter. I can use my eyes to check if there's someone behind me rather than listening for the grating of their skies carving into the snow, and for FJM and DangerMouse, there's hand signals.

I've mainly ditched my hearing aids because when I put a helmet on my head they go absolutely crazy and start whistling like demented Jiminy Crickets. Add some sunglasses and it's just plain painful. Hearing aids and ski helmets are not for me.

The first day I skied without my hearing aids, they were the first thing I reinstated once I was back for the day. But for the last two days, I haven't bothered. And it's been quite nice actually. OK, so I haven't been able to hear what DangerMouse is saying, but FJM is doing a good job of translating for me.

What it's reminded me though is what life pre-hearing aids was like. When I had to rely on someone to be my ears and when I used to get so tired from listening, I'd fall asleep in group situations - last night I basically fell asleep on the sofa at 8pm and only woke to eat something before falling asleep again.

My hearing aids stop all that. They stop me from getting exhuasted with the effort of day-to-day listening. They give me a more effortless insight into what is going on.

So as soon as this holiday's over, they going to be reinstated. But for now, I'm rather enjoying my deaf(er) week. A week of regular naps, complete snowy silence and tech-free ears.

DG
x

Deaf Girly's Thankful Friday

Much to my annoyance, I've fallen off the blogging wagon recently.

I promised myself that this wouldn't happen – but it has.

But it's Thankful Friday and I cannot possibly neglect this.

If I'm honest I've had a bit of a tough week. Sometimes being a grown-up, and dealing with the responsibilities you've chosen to take on, is hard.

Things like home-owning for example (*leaves that thought there).

So this week, when I've felt like running to the top of a mountain and screaming at the top of my lungs about the insanity of it all, I have reminded myself that there are loads of amazing things and people in my life. And for that I am very very thankful.

There's also a distinct lack of mountains in London. And if I did go out and scream at the top of my lungs, I would either be arrested or avoided like some crazy person.

And I think it's fair to say I'm not the crazy one here.

When things are trying in life, it's really easy to think that everything is bad. And it's not. It's just one thing. OK, so it might feel like the end of the world, but if you lay everything out, and assess it, it's really not.

I remember doing this when I was about 17. When I'd lost a lot of my hearing and I felt that my deafness was the end of the world and I couldn't see the good stuff anymore. It wasn't the end of the world, it was just a gentle nudge in a different direction to the one I thought I was going to be taking.

So this week, as Friday draws to a close, I'm reminding myself that the current crap in my life will probably give me a gentle nudge in a direction I might not otherwise have gone. And actually when you think about it like that, it's a little bit exciting.

This week however, I have people to thank for keeping me sane in the crap – Ma, London Aunt, Friend Who Knows Big Words, Hannah Banana, and of course the fabulous (UTH-06:00) FJM.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

There is one more thing I am thankful for this week and that is that I will soon be at the top of that mountain and, if it's people free, I am going to yell my head off. Get it all off my chest. Find some peace with the whole situation.

Bring it on.

Have a lovely weekend peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly's Thankful (not Black) Friday

Today is Thankful Friday.

Not Black Friday.

And I am thankful that I am not one of the people that felt compelled to queue for something I didn't need while being photographed by The Daily Mail this morning.

I am thankful that I do not need to buy anything so badly that I will lose a shoe running for it, or risk arrest scrapping with someone else because there is only one thing left.

I am thankful that I did most of my Christmas shopping last week – and still saved 20% thanks to those amazing voucher code things.

So anyway, yes, I am one of those people raising a disdainful eyebrow at the invasion of Black Friday on UK shores, especially when we haven't got the day before it to celebrate – Thanksgiving – and were not able to take holiday yesterday and stuff ourselves with an unpardoned turkey.

However, this weekend FJM and I will be doing something a bit early for both of us and putting up the Christmas tree. It's ready and waiting to be decorated and lit and to fill our little flat with festive cheer. And I can't wait.

I love Christmas. Not the shopping or the traffic chaos or the snow that one year prevented us from going away to somewhere erm… snowy. Instead, I love fact that ordinary things become festive. Things like switching on lights – not table lights but fairy lights. Or buying satsumas, which always taste much better in December. Or baking – because it's the only time of year I actually make pastry. Although my mince pies always look like pork pies for some reason.

Cranberry sauce fights for shelf space with canapés to rival a wedding and wrapping paper gets more wardrobe space than shoes. Chocolate becomes an acceptable breakfast food.

And then there's the pang.

Every year about this time, I start to feel a pang. A pang that I want to spend all my time with the people most important to me.

And that is what I am most thankful for today. That I have these amazing people who I love very much.

Happy Friday peeps.

DG
x

Deaf Girly hears a baby (I KNOW!)

A few weeks ago, I went to meet SuperCathyFragileMystic's new baby, Baby A.

And she is cute. Cute in the way that I don't think I put her down the whole time I was there, unless I had to, or someone offered me a biscuit, or I was asleep on the sofa.

I love babies. Especially ones that belong to my friends, because I get to enjoy all the great bits but still get eight hours sleep at the end of it. If I ever have my own, this will not be the case.

Anyway, one of my anxieties about babies is that I can't really hear them cry. They're completely out of my frequency, unless I'm actually holding them right there, or they're in a quiet room with me, and I"m awake!

Take the time, aged 22, I babysat for London Aunt and Uncle while they went to a party next door. London Cousin 2 – a young toddler at the time – decided to have complete hysterics in her bedroom, which had a stair gate across the door and I heard nothing. It was only when London Aunt and Uncle heard her crying from the party next door and came over to find a puce and downright furious London Cousin 2, that we all realised that a baby alarm would be a really good idea.

But don't get me wrong, not hearing babies crying has its benefits. Overnight visits to friends with kids means I am rarely disturbed. Unless of course they burst into the room I'm in and actually start yelling in my face that is.

So anyway, after a long day of baby holding, I had fallen asleep on SCFM's sofa. Baby A was snoozing in her crib in the living room and SCFM was indulging in her Strictly Come Dancing obsession.

And then, all of a sudden, before I knew what was happening, I was stood in the living room, holding SCFM's three week old daughter.

And SCFM was laughing. Apparently, Baby A had made one loud squawk and I had leapt up (from being fast asleep) and picked her up and stopped her crying. Except I did all this without even realising I'd done it.

I did the whole thing on instinct. SCFM was impressed.

And me? Well, I found myself beaming. Somehow my rubbish ears had managed to tune into the one important thing in the room and made sure she woke me up. Made sure I went into autopilot and that Baby A's cries didn't fall on deaf ears.

And do you know what? I could have cried. With absolute relief. Relief that my ears worked a little bit better than usual just when I needed them to.

Amazing huh?

Happy Monday peeps

DG

Deaf Girly's book addiction

Over the last week. I've had a cold. I've felt ill. My face has what looks like a thousand spots. It's red and blotchy from the fast-approaching winter. I don't know whether to smother it in tea tree oil or moisturiser.

I hardly recognise myself.

Most days I leave the house with a sigh, a cough and sniff. But leave the house I do. Mainly because I'm excited about my bus ride to work.

Why?

Because I can read.

I am racing through the books on my Kindle at the moment. Currently I am reading the Unfinished Symphony of You & Me by Lucy Robinson and in my ill, hazy, emotional state, I found myself bawling my eyes out on the bus this morning.

Warm and cosy under the cream checked alpaca scarf that is actually a blanket (no really, my Ma took it off a bedroom display in a shop and fashioned it around her neck to see if it would fit the bill before buying it for me for my birthday) I was a snivelling wreck as the characters I'd come to know and love went through quite a bit of emotional trauma.

Add red puffy eyes to the mix of my amazingly unrecognisable face.

I've written before about the amazing escapism I get from reading. About how I can disappear into a world where I hear everything but don't have to have a presence. Nothing is required of me. Nothing except the ability to read the words and click the button to turn the pages.

When I read a book, it doesn't matter anymore that I am red, blotchy, puffy eyed, snotty and spotty. (What an amazing vision I am?!). It doesn't matter that my hair has taken a turn for the worst and turned into straw – fluffy, uncontrollable, coarse straw.

It doesn't even matter that by scragging it into a ponytail (How do people do those effortless up-dos?) and wearing my glasses – because my eyes are stinging from feeling ill – my hearing aids push my ears out at right angles and make me look like a cross between Big Ears from Noddy and a vagrant Cabbage Patch Doll.

Because I am IN THE BOOK.

And that's where you'll find me for the next few weeks. In other people's books and in my own. The latter needs a lot of work. And there's no better time for it.

Happy Wednesday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly and the light bulb

I have a cold.

*sniffs

As well as all the usual side effects of a cold – the nose-blowing, the sniffing, the sneezing so many times you do your entire weekly quota of sit-ups in one go – I am also much much deafer than usual.

I seem to have lost the edge of the sound that helps me get by. That turns the lipreading into comprehensible conversation.

So yesterday, I had a snuffly lunch with one of my favourite people TT. We were sat there chatting and I was getting by until suddenly I lipread the word 'boobs' at the exact same time that she did a corresponding hand movement that also looked like boobs.

I sat there for a moment backtracking, recounting the train of conversation, my mind flailing around wildly, fork mid-aid as I struggled to work out why the hell TT was telling me about boobs complete with sign language when just a second ago we'd been talking about her new flat in Battersea.

'Boobs?' I said, stuffing a mouthful of EAT's delicious Falafel salad in my mouth.

'Boobs?' TT replied, the question mark audible even with my very, very deaf ears.

'Boobs.' I said back, fighting back a snort of laughter for fear of falafel coming out of my nose.

'Didn't you just say boobs?' I continued, while doing the exact hand movements (kind of Benny Hill-esque ones) at the same time.

And at that moment there was a slight danger of TT's meatball panini being laughed all over EAT…

Turns out boobs and bulbs (as in the ones for lights) look the same when lipreading… and the dual hand action of screwing in a lightbulb, cupped around the bulbous bit…

Yes...

That.

So we went shopping after lunch to buy boobs. Still giggling like a pair of schoolgirls.

Problem is, I have a day full of meetings today. Important ones. With important people.

Please nobody say bulbs. Or anything else with dual lipreading consequences.

Such as colourful. And I love you.

Wish me luck peeps...

*sneezes

Deaf Girly: I'm hearing when I read

After the excitement of discovering you can download programs with subtitles to iPlayer and watch them offline later, I've been spending my commute watching all sort of documentaries and dramas.

The downside of this however, is that I have missed reading. I've missed the pure escapism of immersing yourself in a world created by someone else.

So last week I dusted off my Kindle, charged it up and set off through the books waiting there patiently to be read.

When I first moved to London 10 years ago, I didn't know anyone – except London Aunt and Uncle. I was also struggling with my deafness in the profession I had chosen. The reality of being deaf made me cry most days. All the listening and attempting to use the phone was exhausting.

And so everyday, I read for one hour on my way to and from work. My chosen authors – Freya North and Katie Fforde. Freya North because many of her books were set in London and so I'd take myself off to find the places her characters went, which meant I spent quite a lot of time in the National Gallery talking to Mr and Mrs Andrews in Gainsborough's painting (Read her book Chloe if you want to meet them yourself).

And Katie Fforde because her books were set in the Wild West erm Country – my childhood home –and it was amazing to be back while seeing it through new eyes.

In those early days, I read their latest books and re-read their old books. And in that one hour as I hurtled under London in a tin tube (I didn't hate the Underground back then), I wasn't deaf and struggling to follow what was going on. I could follow everything. I could 'hear' conversations. I wasn't left exhausted. And I didn't feel lonely.

And this week, after ploughing through the books on my Kindle I've realised that even though 10 years have passed and I'm way more confident and sorted about my deafness, I still love the fact that when I step into a book, I 'hear' everything and miss nothing.

And so, while I love the iPad and downloadable BBC programmes very much, I'm giving it up – at least for my morning commute anyway. After all, why have subtitles when you can step into a book and 'hear'.

Have a fab Tuesday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly and the Step class

Today I went to the gym for my usual lunchtime workout where I don't talk to anyone, interact with anyone or hear anything. My hearing aids come out and I just zone out for one hour. It's bliss.

But as I walked in today, there were the tokens for the lunchtime classes sat by the towel bales and for some reason I picked up a token for a step class.

I usually avoid classes – especially ones I have never done before like step as I find them so hard to follow and always end up making a complete fool of myself. And so, as I was throwing on my kit hastily I was having a mental yell at myself for being such an idiot.

The tiny optimist in me suggested that I might enjoy it. That I might follow it and that it might be OK. So gripping onto that thought, I headed into the already full studio.

Everyone had set up their step. There was very little space left. In fact, the only space left was a bit of the studio floor that was a bit shonky and that according to the instructor who was extremely bouncy and bit shouty, 'YOU WEREN'T ALLOWED TO JUMP ON'.

'But see how you get on and move if it feels too dodgy' he said cheerfully before adjusting his sweatband and getting on with the class.

Honestly, I looked like a newborn foal on acid but I did try very hard. And for that I think I should get a gold star. And what's more – I actually enjoyed it a little bit, too. I enjoyed zoning out and following the moves of the instructor.

OK, so I was about half a move behind him constantly as I had no idea what he was yelling down his head microphone. But it was 45 minutes of pure escapism. Of spoon fed exercise. Of just doing what everyone else was doing.

Has it made me braver about trying other classes? Quite possibly yes. I mean, I'm not sure I will ever try Body Pump without a friend to tell me what weight I should be using when, but Step was simple. You got on the step. You got off the step. You waved your arms around. You looked like a complete nutter.

Well I did anyway.

So if you were at my gym at lunchtime and wondered who the girl was dancing slightly out of time with no clue what was going on, refusing to do any of the jumping moves for fear of crashing through the slightly shonky bit of floor. That was me.

I looked good eh?

Happy Tuesday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly and the accidental manicure

OK so today is Thankful Friday and I'm thankful that it's almost the weekend.

AT LAST!

Penfold and Dangermouse are coming this weekend and we're going to do some touristy London stuff and catch up. Can't wait.

So anyway, I am typing this blog today with a perfect, brand new gel manicure in dark grey. My nails look amazing. I'm thrilled (and broke). And, it's only thanks to my deafness that I've got them.

Eh?

You see, I've never been very good (or confident) at making beauty appointments – I can't make phone calls to book things like haircuts and manicures, which means I have to go in to the salon and book things. But the noise of the hairdryers, chatter and general hubbub, plus the fact the receptionist is looking at the computer not me, makes it very difficult for me to lipread or indeed hear.

My last hair cut was in March.

I've had five manicures in my entire life. Well, six now.

But for HannahBanana's wedding two weeks ago, I bit the bullet and booked a gel manicure. And then I booked a removal for two weeks time, which was yesterday.

When I went in to book it, the salon was very busy and I was served by a girl who appeared to be a little spacey. Spacey in a way that she looked like she would much rather be chatting to her mates on What'sApp that talking to me.

I left with the knowledge that I'd booked a gel manicure removal for 6pm. The next day I received an appointment confirming my appointment for 6.30pm.

*raises eyebrow*

Anyway, once there I sat down and had my nails wrapped in tin foil pads soaked with nail polish remover. And while I was waiting, the fast-talking beautician showed me the latest colours of gel nail polishes.

We oohed and aaaahed over the shades for winter – the deep plums and browns, and the glitter ones for parties and I pointed out the dark grey shade as my favourite.

I tried to follow what she was saying but couldn't really until she started putting on the base coat for my new manicure.

And then the penny dropped.

Not only had the receptionist booked me in at a completely different time, she'd also booked me in for a whole new gel manicure.

Being me I didn't dare slam the brakes on and say 'WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA NO! I did not sign up to this new expensive gel manicure as they cost £30 and are strictly for special occasions.'

I didn't even say, 'I'm terribly sorry but this error might well be mine as I can't hear and definitely couldn't hear your spacey receptionist when I made the appointment.'

Instead I just smiled and went along with new manicure. Parting with cash and leaving the salon with very shiny grey nails and the promise that they will last for two weeks until I come in to have them removed.

And when I do, I think I am going to take a hearing friend with me – otherwise this whole not-hearing-in-beauty-salons business could get rather expensive.

Happy Friday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly's radio rage

I have just had the most horrendous few minutes in my hearing aid-wearing life.

Listening to a song called In The Morning by The Coral.

Now, I have 'heard' this song many times before – indeed, it came out a good few years before I got my hearing aids and while it's not really my favourite song in the whole world, it hasn't, in the past, left me wanting to throw the radio out the window.

So today, sat at my desk I was aware that this was the song on the radio – I was also aware of what to me sounded like the noise those cow bells you used to occasionally get let loose on in music classes in school when someone else had already beaten you to the cymbals but the triangle was still up for grabs.

It was horrific. Distracting. Clanging. Grim. Frustrating. And kind of rage inducing. As well as drowning out almost all the other sound I could her in the office.

'What is that noise?' I asked before being told it was actually part of the song. Part of the song that pre-hearing aids, I had been completely unable to hear.

You see one of the things that makes my Phonak Sound Recover hearing aids so great is that they move the sounds I can't hear into frequencies I can. But this isn't always done tunefully.

I discovered this when I tried playing my flute with my new hearing aids shortly after getting them and almost died at the cacophony of high notes coming from what was once my most prized possession. Read all about that here.

 And it seems, after more than two years, I have found another thing that sounds plain wrong with my hearing aids in...

So the next time In The Morning by The Coral comes on, the hearing aids are coming off. Well it's either that or the radio's getting chucked out the window…

Happy Wednesday peeps

DG
x

A thankful Monday

Today's blog is about one of my favourite people.

I haven't seen him for more years than I knew him now, but he's here. He's everywhere.

Whenever I see people queuing for tube tickets or crossing platforms to change tube lines.

Whenever I walk through Soho in the evening and remember aged 15 when I was wide-eyed in wonder.

Whenever I stroll through the park and see the slightly wonky tree – the tallest of four. The strongest. A launch pad for messages heading for the sky.

Whenever I don't boil the potatoes long enough. Or when I feel the need to watch Flashdance.

Or better still, Grand Designs.

Whenever I start a chore and fall asleep on the sofa – leaving it unfinished and mess everywhere.

And whenever I'm cooking while holding a glass of wine chatting to people in the kitchen – I must do this last one more often.

People don't really go. I mean they disappear from your life physically but it's all the little things they leave behind that pepper your daily life with awesome memories and experiences.

So today, on this slightly chaotic, vaguely sunny, bother-it's-Monday kind of day, I'm thinking of him.

Big love
DG
x

Deaf Girly sleep talks

People who know me, will be well aware of the fact that I'm a bit of a chatterbox.

Ever since I was little I have liked to talk. About anything and everything. I just like words.

I also spend quite a lot of the time I am asleep talking, too. Friends have told me this when we've shared rooms. And it seems to run in the family as well. One Christmas while sharing a room with London Aunt and French Cousin 2, we were all sleep talking. London Aunt with expletives (that's all she ever seems to say in her sleep), French Cousin 2 in French and me – well I have no idea what I was saying as I was asleep at the time.

A while ago I downloaded a sleep talking app for my iPhone. It is noise activated and so you leave it running at night and it records anything you say. But after a week of monitoring, I was disappointed that I had yet to be recorded saying anything.

So I stopped using it.

Since FoxyJM and I moved in together however, I've been more than a little talkative – much to his increasing amusement.

In the first week of our new flat, I apparently shouted, 'Fantastic! Fat penguin,' very loudly while he was still awake and reading.

More recently, I proclaimed, 'It's a process!' with what he said was a mix of anger and frustration and then two nights ago, after I'd fallen asleep ahead of him he was lucky enough to hear me declare:

'Invoices. No invoices today. Unless you want them?'

Before rolling over and face planting the pillow.

Cue much mirth from him. And questions the next morning about whether invoices are ever a part of my daily life – they're not.

I've blogged a few times about how I'm always hearing (never deaf) in my dreams – here and here – and I wonder if, because I can hear in them and follow everything that's going on, my brain can't switch off. So I talk my way through them.

I know if I woke up with perfect hearing I wouldn't be able to switch off. So perhaps it's the same in my dreams.

So now, I'm eagerly awaiting the next update from FoxyJM about just what I chatter about in my sleep. And maybe it's time to dig out that sleep talking app again.

Deaf Girly loves LV insurance

OK, so regular readers will know when I am not happy with a service, I often shout about it here.

But what about when I am?

Since I moved house a few weeks ago, I've been faced with all the usual life admin tasks of changing addresses on things. This has been a mega pain. Mainly because it involves quite a lot of compulsory phone calls.

The calls I least enjoying making are to insurance companies. This is because they normally have to quote a load of compulsory blurb down the phone at me that I haven't got a chance of understanding.

So a few weeks ago I emailed Liverpool Victoria (LV) my car insurance company to let them know I had moved house and needed to change my address.

I heard nothing.

One of the reasons I chose LV is that London Aunt and Pa speak so highly of them. Pa especially likes the fact they have a UK call centre. And so I have insured my car with them for 2 years.

In that time, I have had to indeed contact them after a moronic lady reversed into my car in KwikFit car park less than five minutes after it had passed its MOT. I ended up doing a conference call with LV and HannahBanana where she lip-synced with the lady on the other end of the phone so that I could sort out my claim. And LV was nothing but accommodating about this slightly unusual scenario.

So anyway, after realising that I probably wasn't going to hear back over email from LV, I tweeted them. Their twitter handle is @LVcares. And guess what? They really do. They wrote back straight away. They told me there was a live chat service on their website that I could make the address change on.

Now, I had noticed the live chat function but had dismissed it as only for general enquiries as my previous experience of these sorts of things usually don't allow sensitive data to change hands.

So I clicked the link they sent me on twitter and then selected the Chat Now button.

A chat window popped up, I entered my details and within 10 seconds had someone asking how they could help.

And then within 10 minutes the whole thing had been done. New documentation will be emailed to me within three hours and…

Well that's just it. There is no 'and'. I managed an essential piece of life admin without having to lift the phone. And I am still in quiet shock about it.

You see, this is quite literally life changing. If more companies are going to adopt a secure live chat function then sooner or later I will be able to organise my entire life this way. No more getting emotional when I can't hear what the other person is saying. No more putting off crucial things like changing my car insurance details.

So it's three cheers for LV on this rainy grey Wednesday. They just totally made my day.

*beams

Deaf Girly's 24 years of deafness discovery

This month I will be 34.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I am in my mid thirties.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I've known about my deafness for 24 years now.

But recently I've been reflecting on my journey a bit more. Just how I got here. Just how I became Deaf Girly.

You see, my deafness still feels quite new to me. In the same way as when you first get your ears pierced and forget you have earrings and then get excited all over again. Except I don't really get that excited about my deafness.

Funnily enough though, when I discovered I was getting hearing aids – aged 10 – my mum lowered the age I could get my ears pierced from 16 to that exact day. So soon I had earrings to be excited about and hearing aids to erm well… put in a pocket and forget about.

In my teens I was pretty much in denial about being deaf. I knew it was the reason I got exhausted from lipreading in class. And one of the reasons why I fell asleep a lot in history – the other one... sheer boredom perhaps. And the reason why I was more than a little grumpy at times. But I absolutely refused to acknowledge it. And actually I found that most people were happy to ignore it with me.

At university, I faced another struggle. Getting people to acknowledge my deafness. The special needs person was absolutely useless and it wasn't until my third year that I got a notetaker and the difference in my marks was such that I finally realised I might not be so thick after all.

Moving to London put my deafness under the spotlight again. In early jobs I played it down. I didn't tell people until I had to and I cried every day. In secret. In the cupboard at work.

When I had jobs to do that involved phone calls, I cried some more and my amazing line manager at the time used to come with me into the cupboard, which luckily had a phone and make the calls for me so no one would know I couldn't do it.

I remember at the time trying to put into words what was making me cry and realised that it was frustration. Frustration at being reminded every day that I couldn't hear. That I couldn't do have the things on my job description. Or the things I wanted to do.

But gradually – and probably with the help of writing my blog – I began to find my voice. The one that told people what I could and couldn't do. Without sounding like I had a chip on my shoulder about my disability. Without sounding like I was going to make their lives super complicated or be super demanding. Because I'm quite lucky really. My deafness isn't that demanding.

I've learnt to say – 'I don't use the phone but I treat email in the same way that you would the phone and pick them up straight away.' and I've learnt to work hard within the limitations I have and accept help graciously.

I've also learnt to laugh. Like the time I was hard at work in one of my old jobs and turned around to find the whole office empty. Evacuated during a fire alarm that no one thought to tell me about. Or the time I had Taylor Swift blaring out of my phone for a good few songs without realising it until someone asked me to turn it off or at least down.

And now, 24 years after finding out I was deaf, it's safe to say I'm the happiest I've ever been. In general and also in relation to my deafness. I have hearing aids that give me 3D sound. That give me sounds I've never heard before. Things like cats meowing and the occasional police siren if I'm lucky. And I have a fantastic quiet life when I take them out.

I have a job where I can't tell you what my direct line phone number is because I have never had to use it . AMAZING HUH? If you'd told my crying self that when I was hiding in the cupboard at work 10 years ago, I would have never believed you.

I have an amazing support network of people who will pick up the phone and be me, or listen for me when there is no other alternative.

And most of all I have that confidence that at 10, 14 and 24 I never thought I'd have.

Of course there are still bad days where I am reduced to tears of frustration over a phone call (most recently to HSBC) or because I've managed to embarrass myself in some way. Not heard something important. Or felt like I've missed out on something. But my recovery time is quicker. And after 24 years, I've got the experience to know that the good far outweighs the bad.

The last 24 years have been quite an amazing journey of discovery. An initial discovery of deafness, which quite possibly changed the path I decided to take in life. Not the end goal of course, which is the career I'm in now (with a bit of my own writing thrown in for fun) but the way I got here and the person I became on the way. And looking back, I wouldn't change a thing.

Have a lovely day peeps

DG
xx

Deaf Girly and the lipreading mishap

Today I fell through a door backwards.

Crashing into the ladies toilets, I landed on flat on my back and found myself staring at the ceiling.

And the reason for this unfortunately mishap?

I was lipreading the person who was behind me, so turned around to hear her and leant against the door of the toilets to open it, at the exact same time as someone was opening it from the other side.

Honestly, I think she was more surprised than I was. I mean it's not everyday you open a door to find someone propelling themselves backwards at you.

Luckily she stepped aside, as otherwise I would have most likely taken her with me into my heap on the tiled floor. But as I lay there for a moment, blinking at the bright lights and feeling slightly winded, I couldn't help but reflect on just how risky lipreading on the move is.

Take the time I was walking through a car park with a friend and flik-flakked over a low wall that I hadn't noticed because I'd been looking left at my friend instead of straight ahead.

Or the time I almost broke my nose on a lamp post that came out of nowhere and blocked my path mid gossip with a pal.

And then the other day I took out a small child with my handbag due to the fact I was looking sidewise instead of straight ahead and failed to notice him coming towards me. And anyone who's attempted to lift my handbag will know it's not exactly lightweight.

As I watched the poor kid rubbing his head and wondering whether my apology was genuine I toyed with the idea of trying to explain that I was deaf. But didn't know whether that would help him, or his slightly cross looking mum, understand just why I'd nearly knocked him out.

Honestly, I don't think it would have done.

You see, it's hard enough explaining deafness to someone without having to explain all the little things that go with it. Such as walking into things while lipreading.

One of my favourite things I say that confuses people is 'I can't hear you, it's too dark' and this is true. If it's too dark, I can't lipread, and therefore I can't hear but to someone not familiar with my needs it does sound very odd.

So next time I flik-flak over a wall, take out a small child or fall through the open door of the ladies loo backwards, and it's appropriate, I'm going to explain why.

And simply say: 'I'm sorry I just (insert calamity here) but I'm deaf and when lipreading means I cannot look where I am going.'

Well that's the plan, anyway. Whether I'll be able to from my winded place on the floor, remains to be seen.

Have a lovely day peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly and subtitled TV

I've recently moved into a new flat. It's awesome. For many, many reasons. *beams

Not least because there is no one living downstairs

*pauses for a moment for the amazingness of that information to sink in*

In our lovely new flat we have decided to trial having no TV. There's no real place to put one in the living room and I've accidentally put all my jewellery, make-up and beauty products on the shelf designed for a TV in the bedroom.

When this idea was first discussed my first worry was about the lack of subtitles on internet TV but so far, in our 2-month experiment of having no TV, I've mostly been pleasantly surprised.

On my iPad I can watch catch-up TV on the iPlayer app and Channel 5 app with subtitles. Giving me a fantastic spectrum of high brow and trashy television.

And on my laptop I get the following:

BBC iPlayer catch up – all subtitled

4OD – from what I have found so far… all subtitled. But the app is not subtitled. *sad face

Netflix – lots is not subtitled. But I've found some good stuff that is.

Amazon Prime – hahahahahahahaha subtitles WHAT ARE THEY?

So as you see, it could be a lot worse.

However, the thing I miss the most is BBC Breakfast news. Even though the subtitles on the TV were terrible, they were better than nothing. Live news on my laptop has no subtitles at all.

This means that I have to read my morning news fix from the BBC news mobile app instead. It is not the same.

I miss Bill Turnbull. I love Bill Turnbull.

When I was researching streaming subtitled stuff online before writing this blog, I kept finding old threads from 2012 and earlier complaining about the lack of subtitles on everything. So in two years, things have already improved dramatically.

Therefore, I can only hope that things will continue to improve dramatically. Apps will all get subtitles – with BBC iPlayer and Channel 5 leading the way. But in the meantime, I may just try and stay still long enough in the morning to lipread Bill on BBC Breakfast…

My morning routine just isn't the same without him.

PS. Got any great knowledge on subtitled TV apps/websites? Let me know

DG
x

Deaf Girly crossed the road

This morning, I got off the bus a few stops early to walk a while with FoxyJM. And after leaving him to his breakfast (mozzarella & tomato panini and an orange San Pellegrino I'm betting) I walked onwards to work.

And as I ambled, I realised, after quizzical looks from the people striding quickly on ahead, that I've recently begun to change the way I cross roads in London.

You see, since I nearly got run over earlier this year by an ambulance at a crossing when the green man was flashing because I couldn't hear the siren or see the lights as they were obscured by a lorry, I've been a lot more aware of the fact that green men are not entirely a go symbol for me when crossing the road. That actually, I need to remember my Tufty Road Safety and 'Stop, look and listen' or rather the DG Road Safety and 'Stop, look and double check for blue flashing lights'.

So this morning, that was what I was doing. I was  edging out into the road gingerly, checking all the time for speeding emergency vehicles. To the normal person, I must have looked like someone who had a road-crossing phobia – which is called Agyrophobia apparently.

But you know what? I don't care. It's better than being road kill.

I've had brushes with emergency vehicles before – and I've written about it before too – here. After that occasion I was a lot more careful. However, I think getting my hearing aids made me more complacent again. Because, I really do hear lots more with them in. And I do occasionally hear sirens too, if there's no other noises to distract me.

So from now on, if you see a girl in central London crossing the road when the green man is flashing but looking both ways at all times as if she's afraid of being run over, that's me, and I am.

Please humour me. Don't stomp over me in your hurry to get somewhere. And if you hear the siren before I see it, please feel free to manhandle me to safety.

Happy Monday peeps

DG
x

Deaf Girly's Thankful Friday

Today is Thankful Friday.

Cor, I haven't said that in a while, have I?.

So today I'm thankful that I am off to the theatre tonight, captioned theatre no less. *beams

When I think back to pre-captioned days and school trips to see Shakespeare, I shudder. Unable to follow anything, I'd be fast asleep before the first interval and climbing the walls with boredom by the second.

Theatres that provide captioning, and more importantly Stagetext – the company that does most theatre captions nationwide – have literally changed my life. Made me realise that I am not stupid or uncultured (I don't think), I just need captions to enjoy theatre.

This year, I was lucky enough to see A Streetcar Named Desire with captions, which was amazing, and Matilda the Musical. Next year, I'm off to see Cats

*beams

I'm also thankful for the brilliant people who reminded me – when I had a wobble earlier this week – that this year has been about so much more than what I originally intended it to be. People like HannahBanana who, this weekend is enjoying her last weekend as an unmarried laydee, FoxyJM and of course Mr B of Twitter.

All of these lovely people and more feature in the writing I've been doing since last October – that I started one year ago next week – in the library, surrounded by old men with their flasks of tea, corduroy trousers and very large ears.

And so this weekend, I'm getting back to it. Opening the monster document that's stored in at least 50 different places, hard drives, clouds and memory sticks for fear of losing it. And writing.

After all, I really have nothing to lose. And for that I am very thankful.

Happy weekend peeps

DG
xx

Deaf Girly's travel chaos

I don't get the Tube to work in the morning.

In fact, there are very few things I hate more (except perhaps semolina and rice pudding) than fighting to squeeze myself into the tiny gap that remains in the tube carriage only to have someone else do that at the next station, and the next, until people are somehow contorting themselves into gaps that a dormouse would struggle to get its whiskers into.

So yes, I hate the Tube in the morning. And the evening. And generally most of the time.

This means that I get the bus. A big red shiny bus, which is normally a lovely way to travel to work. I sit on the top deck. Watch subtitled downloads on iPlayer. Read the news. Check twitter and enjoy the view out of the window. And, at no point in the journey does anyone attempt to squeeze in the gap between me and the window.

This is not the Tube.

So this morning I left for my usual journey and was greeted by chaos. The entire contents of three local secondary schools worth of chaos. Buses were terminating left, right and centre and tipping people off at the stop I normally get on. Children with just 100 metres to walk to their school (I recognised the uniform) were panicking about how they were going to continue their onward journey.

*stares at their fully-functioning feet*

And so was I as my work isn't really within walking distance.

I tried to make out what one of the bus drivers was shouting hysterically but couldn't. And when I asked someone next to me what was going on, I was met by a shrug of the shoulders.

Even the hearing people seemed to have no clue.

So giving up all hope of a bus, I set off on foot to the next bit I could get a bus from.

And there, all hell was breaking lose. Police cars were zooming by and traffic was at a standstill.

My usual fail-safe, what's-going-on, back-up plan, Twitter, was telling me nothing.

Normally it's marvellous. On the few occasions I have been on a tube train that's stopped and had a mobile signal, I've usually managed to find someone on Twitter live-tweeting the announcements. Bit weird I know but insanely useful for me.

But today there was nothing.

At my next bus stop, the entire population of central London was waiting get on. All dazed and confused that their clockwork commute wasn't going to plan. All fighting to get on the singular bus leaving once every two hours.

And it's here I'm writing from this morning. So far someone has attempted to fit between me and the window. Someone has also attempted to sit on me.

Civilized bus rules have gone out the window.

Tomorrow, I'm walking.

Deaf Girly's back

This week, two lovely people have pointed out that I don't blog much these days. And they're right.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that in the early days of DG, I used to blog 5 days a week, 52 week a year. I even blogged from the mountains one Christmas when we were surrounded by snow.

This week is also exactly one year since I changed my life. And what an adventure it's been so far. But as it's been pointed out – I need to get back writing again. Especially now things have calmed down a bit compared with earlier this year.

Understandably I'm feeling a bit disconnected from DG though – I've missed her rants, her muck-ups and general every-day mishaps. I've missed her massive attitude problem too when she thinks she's not getting the best she could be. Or if she thinks deaf people are missing out.

So to help me reconnect I spent some time looking through my blog, finding out what I was doing this week several years ago. Last year, I didn't blog in the first week of October as I was quite busy moving out, packing up and starting new stuff. But the year before, this happened: Deaf girly gets HEARING AIDS!

Reading through the blog actually brought tears to my eyes if I'm honest. Remembering how I felt that day. How new and scary everything was and how, if it hadn't been for my twitter, Facebook and blog peeps, I would have probably popped the hearing aids in the drawer and continued as I had been doing for most of my deaf life.

So here it is, the blog post from Thursday 4th October 2012… the day that Deaf Girly got her hearing aids. Oh and guess what, I'm back!

Big love
DG
xx

Deaf Girly gets hearing aids

I'm writing this blog today wearing hearing aids...

Hearing aids!!!!

I KNOWWWWWW!

I'm pretty surprised if I'm honest that I'm wearing hearing aids, because the whole of my deaf adult life has been about coming to terms with the hearing I don't have, learning to use what I do have and enjoying every little thing as my ears choose to hear it.

And regular readers of Twitter and my blog will know that actually, I've done that very successfully.

However, recently I became frustrated with myself, wondering if I could be doing more when it came to my day job.

I think the reason I got to this point is the same reason I don't blog so much any more – I have an incredibly supportive company.

They do everything possible when it comes to my deafness, while at the same time not making a big deal about it, and I guess they inspired me.

So recently, I went for my first hearing test in more than five years. It showed a death slide shape of an audiogram. One good cross in the lower frequency at about 30 and then a plummet into the land of severe and profound.

My audiologist was amazing. He confidently told me about these new Phonak Nathos hearing aids that move the sounds you don't hear into a frequency you do (called Sound Recover). He confidently told me that he thought it wouldn't affect my recruitment too much -– that sound wouldn't be too unpleasantly loud and make me fall over, which I have always had in the past when trying hearing aids.

He also told me it could be three months' wait, but he would see what he could do.

Gold star to him! I am now in hearing aids in what seems like no time at all.

'Well, you are very deaf and I thought these would help,' he replied graciously when I thanked him yesterday for fast tracking me, and so we set to work.

Now they're not miniature these hearing aids, but they are light. There's no dragging on the ear and they also are barely visible in my blonde hair. Not that I really cared about that yesterday – I was just eager to know about the sound.

When my audiologist switched them on, in the tiny silent room of the audiology clinic, everything became sharper. The shhh, chh, fffff sounds were there in a way they weren't before. I was aware of women chatting outside the closed door, and I could hear the rustle of my jeans when I moved.

'Nothing new here,' I thought, remembering my last foray into the world of hearing aids but I kept schtum and kept smiling, knowing that this was only the beginning, and we continued.

We tuned and tweaked my fancy hearing aids until claps not longer made me wince and my audiologist's voice sounded less tinny. I watched the computer screen as he clicked away and the graph showed the high frequencies migrating into the middle ones and it was hard not to feel excited and intrigued.

And then I left and bought a LOT of sugar from the hospital shop.

On the way to work, I tweeted about how everything sounded so erm... so soundy. The tube rattled and rolled with more clarity than before, I could make out other people chatting across the aisle from me and there was the constant white noise buzz, which will apparently fade over time but is there right now because my brain doesn't know what to do with some of the sound.

I began to feel overwhelmed.

On arrival at work I was greeted by such excitement, joy and enthusiasm from my colleagues that it bolstered me to keep going and remain positive while I marvelled at just how lucky I was to work with such fabulous people.

I was holding it together, and then my boss's phone rang.

I HEARD MY BOSS'S PHONE RING.

I HAVE NEVER HEARD MY BOSS'S PHONE RING... EVER!!

I froze, fingers suspended above the keyboard, eyes fixed straight ahead, before catching the eye of my colleague opposite.

'I just heard that phone ring' I whispered to her, as my eyes filled with tears, and we sat there and grinned at each other like loons for a good few minutes.

After work I went climbing with Art Man. As we left the office and went out into the noisy world, I started to feel a bit claustrophobic in my own head and while waiting for the tube, I cracked and took my hearing aids out. But they went back in for climbing and I had so much fun, I forgot I was wearing them. Better still, their light, neat fitting design meant I didn't catch them once with the rope or when reaching for a hold... Something i had don't with my previous aids years ago.

'I can totally do this,' I thought to myself.

On arrival home, I took them out. I waited for the freak out at the difference in sound, but it didn't come. My genius audiologist appeared to have succeeded in giving me clarity without too much extra volume so the world didn't sound that much quieter.

I ate Ryvita for tea (I don't think I will ever get used to doing this with hearing aids in) and then popped them back in and decided to experiment a bit.

I went through the ringtones of my iPhone – without hearing aids I can only hear the 'Strum' ringtone. I played each one, my phone not on full volume or pressed up against my ear, and I could hear them.

It was so strange. It was like the sound was right there. In my ear. And yet my phone was in my hand, which was resting on my lap.

I wanted to dance, shout, scream or hug someone.

There was sound I'd never heard before... in my ears!!!!!

I didn't stop there, I went through my iTunes library. I tried classical, which sounded more full bodied than before, I tried pop, which sounded good and then I went back to my favourite thing – listening to the iPhone ringtones and I finally allowed myself to get excited.

Maybe, for the first time ever, I'd found some hearing aids that helped me. And if I was noticing stuff after one day, what was it going to be like in 12 weeks when my brain had got used to picking up stuff it hadn't heard in years and the white noise had faded?

Would I be able to hear my flute again? My violin? Would this give me clarity of speech?

In all honesty, it's the last one that I think I'll have to wait for. I think that's the one that is going take the practice... and the 12 weeks.

But for the first time ever in my deaf life, I feel like actually there is something out there that can enhance what I hear. That can help. And because this has made me quite happy – like a child at Christmas listening to iPhone ringtones – I don't seem to be having so much of a crisis about leaving the old deaf me behind.

Because really, she's not being left behind, she's being given a new lease of life. A new, absolutely free, chance to hear the things she's pretended that she doesn't mind not hearing for the last 30 years. Better still, I know that she's still there underneath and at any time, I can go back. Take off the aids. Get used to my old world again, which I do really really not mind at all.

In some ways, I now have two liveable worlds to choose from.

Most importantly however, Deafinitely Girly's not going anywhere. I'm just on a bit of a new journey. In hearing aids. With all my amazing Twitter followers cheering me on, cheering me up, making me laugh and just being generally wonderful. And for that I thank them and my friends in the real world who Facebook-liked every single little thing about my journey yesterday.

But now for the most deal-breaking question of all...

Do my new hearing aids come in pink?!

The end of NHS hearing aids?

This morning, as I was trying to stop a snoring woman on the bus from dribbling on my shoulder, I saw a tweet from @ActionOnHearing saying:

Help us keep hearing aids free on the NHS by joining our online protest!

and I was immediately filled with horror that such a service might be cut. First I responded, tweeting:

@ActionOnHearing if hearing aids weren't free I wouldn't be
wearing them right now. It's an amazing privilege

Then I started to research the story more. And, with the help of Action On Hearing Loss, here's what I found out: 

• The cuts are proposed for North Staffordshire by the North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). 
• They would affect adults who are considered to have a mild to moderate age-related hearing loss – known as presbyacusis.
• NHS hearing tests will still be free for these people.
• People who already have hearing aids will not have them taken away.
• If a person's hearing loss deteriorates further, they will become eligible for hearing aids.
• The savings will be around £1.2 million.

I do not have an age-related hearing loss. I have a severe to profound hearing loss. I do not live in North Staffordshire. This does not affect me.

And yet, it does.

Because hearing loss – whether mild, moderate or severe – can change people's lives forever. Especially if they've spent most of their adult lives being able to hear.

A couple of years ago, I wrote quite a few blogs about my Ma. She was losing her hearing (in part, age related) and struggling enormously to come to terms with it. But it wasn't just that. She was struggling to function in a world that suddenly seemed unfamiliar.

She was given hearing aids on the NHS and I watched her go through the same process of frustration and hatred for them that my 10-year-old self had gone through. You see, not all hearing aids help all people.

According to an Action On Hearing Aid fact sheet, private hearing aids cost between £300 and £3,000. 

As a deaf person I am on my seventh pair of hearing aids. In the 20 years that I have had hearings aids, these are the only pair that have helped me. That I have worn. The rest have lived in drawers, coat pockets and handbags and have eventually been returned to my audiologist, except for one pair, which may have ended up down the loo. 

*whistles innocently

So if people like my Ma are asked to stump up the cash to buy their hearing aids, how do they know that the pair they are spending up to £3,000 on will actually help? Is there a try- before-you-buy service? Is there a satisfaction guarantee? 

I understand that the NHS cannot fund the entire country's healthcare needs. I understand that postcode lotteries cannot be prevented and that sometimes the people in charge of the money have to say, 'You know what? Your needs are not as important as that person's needs.' But if you are the person they are saying that to, and you're isolated by hearing loss, it will probably feel very unfair.

And I don't know what the answer is.

What I do know is that, if the cuts do happen, there's a good chance that people with age-related hearing losses are going to stay that way. In fact. the website Patient.co.uk goes as far as to say:

'Untreated presbyacusis leads to social isolation, and depression, and
may cause or worsen cognitive impairment and dementia.'

And you have to wonder about the financial implications of that...

As a deaf person I feel incredibly isolated sometimes. I feel incredibly stupid sometimes too, when I mishear, mispronounce or misunderstand.

My hearing aids help prevent more of that than I probably realise.

I also feel incredibly lucky to be sat here wearing my Phonak Nathos hearing aids with Sound Recover. The hearing aids that have given me back sounds like phone ring tones, cats meowing, London Aunt's doorbell and the very smallest hint of office chitchat. They are absolutely the best hearing aids I could have. Or at least they were when I got them nearly two years ago. And I love them.

Maybe there are other solutions. Perhaps, if cuts are really unavoidable, NHS hearing aids for age-related hearing loss could be leased for a small (manageable and interest-free) monthly payment. Perhaps they could be like a mobile phone contract. And actually, hearing aids are not the only thing that helps age-related hearing loss. But is there is funding to explore the other options listed in this article on Patient.co.uk?
 
But my fear is, what if the cuts don't stop there? What is the future of free hearing aids?

If I had to stump up £3,000 for my hearing aids, would I bother? Or would I make do?

Would I go back to no cats, no ringtones, no doorbells and not a hint of office chitchat?

And the sad thing is, I probably would.

I will always try and support any campaigns about free hearing aids. But I also want to know, if free hearing aids are saved, what will be cut instead? Who will lose out to make the neccessary savings?

When I find out, I'll let you know.

DGx