When I left school

When I left school, I found employment as a laboratory assistant at Robinson and Sons Ltd, a local firm that specialized in surgical dressings and boxes.  I enrolled as a day release student at the local Technical College where I found it very tough going.  During the lectures, I found that I could not hear or understand what the lecturers were saying and often did not know what I had to do. I realised that like it or not deafness was a disability and one that is not visible and I felt cut off, unhappy and isolated. Thankfully, a few of the students began to talk to me but I was certainly the odd one out and  I found that I could not depend wholly on lip-reading and my hearing aid and that it was so easy to lose the thread of what the other students were talking about. There was one lecturer who did go out of his way to help me by giving me notes at the end of the lectures explaining what he would be talking about in the next lesson and a list of books that I should get from the library; his help was very much appreciated.  I had to spend many hours studying and making notes in order to keep up with the other students but did complete the course successfully.

 I was very happy living in the Deaf World but on entering the Hearing World, it was not long before I realised that I was not as well prepared as I would liked to have been but I do believe that it was up to me to make a success of the final transition into the hearing World though the ideal situation for me would have been to have deaf and hearing friends. I can say in all honesty that the years at the two deaf schools that I attended was a time that I felt that I really belonged to a “group” as it was and for a long time afterwards very difficult for me to really fit in with the Hearing World.  There were many times when I felt left out of group conversations and it is easy to feel lonely and isolated and I found communication and mixing in the hearing world the most difficult obstacles that I had to face. I realised that using a hearing aid alone was not enough to allow me to understand everything a hearing person was saying but by using a hearing aid and lip-reading at the same time on a one to one basis, I was able to understand most of what was being said to me providing that that they did not put their hand over their mouth making it impossible for me to lip-read them.

My hearing aids

Every morning, I reach for my hearing aids and put them on, they are always in the same place in front of my alarm clock  so that I know where they are should I need them during the night. The first one was an analogue hearing aid that I was fitted with when I became a pupil at the Maud Maxfield School in Sheffield, now I wear digital hearing aids.  Without my hearing aids I would not be able to hear the everyday sounds that most hearing people would probably take for granted, such as the alarm clock, the click of the kettle when the water has boiled, the bleeps on the microwave and the knock on the door. Yes, there are many challenges that I have to face ranging from using the telephone and even watching the television and thankfully, there are many devices that can help to overcome these difficulties.  I regularly look at the Royal National  Institute for the Deaf and the Royal National Institute for the Blind catalogues or visit their online shop to look at their problem solving products and I have found both organisations to be very helpful and useful.

 I have an alarm clock that is loud and has a vibrating pad that is put under my pillow. When the alarm goes off the pad will vibrate and wake me up, it is brilliant. A representative from Camtad demonstrated some doorbells at my home and I am delighted with the chosen one which has an excellent door chime and a flashing blue light which are activated when the push button on the front door is pressed. I purchased a large button telephone with pictures which is very easy to use from the RNID. The phone contain direct dial buttons into which I have inserted photographs of family members that I contact regularly so all I have to do is press the photograph  of  the  person that I want to contact. The phone has a volume control to increase the sound but with being a hearing aid user I use the “T” setting when using the phone.

 I do not particular enjoy watching television programmes as much as I did at one time because of the background noise as it makes it difficult to understand what is being said by the main characters. If I cannot hear or understand what is being said then I cannot see any point in watching the programme as I would not be able to follow it. I love to watch shows on the television but even then there is a lot of background noise and flashing lights.

 A few years ago when Ronald and I were on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales, I heard a thrush singing, it was beautiful. Ronald called me over to the large bedroom window at the Bed & Breakfast place where we were staying , it was a beautiful day and the windows were open, he told me to sit by the window and listen carefully and that was when I heard the thrush singing. I was so excited and I asked Ronald if he knew where the thrush was and he pointed out where it was. Some weeks before the holiday, I was given two digital hearing aids and I am sure that was the reason why I could hear the thrush singing: I will always treasure that moment.

When I had my new digital hearing aids, I found that I could hear much more. There were many sounds that I did not recognise, sounds that I have never heard before or probably not have noticed them. It took a while for my brain to recognise and remember these sounds that I was now hearing such as the sounds of the birds singing.

What is it like to be hearing? I do not know but I can imagine that some hearing people must sometimes wish that they were deaf! I do not mean it literally but I have heard people say that they wished that they were deaf like me especially when the children are making so much noise and driving them up the wall.  There are certainly some pros in being deaf, for example I do not wake up because my husband is snoring but when I am snoring he wakes up and then cannot get to sleep again. I sleep through thunderstorms and any outside noise such as rain, it does not disturb me. When people phone our home and ask if they can do a market survey and that it would only take a few minutes, or explain that they would be in the neighbourhood in the near future and ask if they can call or if we want some new windows or whatever, it is usually someone with a strong accent that I cannot follow or someone talking very quickly as if they are in a hurry. I start telling them that I am deaf and that I do not understand what they are talking about then suddenly, they hang up on me