My problem, aside from the usual inability to hear electronic voices, like automated checkouts or drive-up windows, is meetings. I'm involved in a big pilot project about local water supply, as well as being curriculum director for a lecture series, plus fisheries and trail meetings. I've been deaf in my right ear for decades, but didn't have anything but age-related HOH in my left ear until recently, when Meniere's went bilateral, bring distortion and recruitment plus, of course, tinnitus. Pairing my new IPhone with my aid and utilizing our own WiFi setup has solved the phone problem for the time being, but groups remain difficult.

I got a clip mic just before a water meeting last Thursday, knowing that it probably wouldn't help much in such a large room with a high ceiling...speakers would be way too far away for it to work, but I had hoped it would work for smaller breakout groups. There were close to a hundred people in the room, often all talking at the same time. I tried putting the mic on the table in the center of the small group, but there were so many voices all around us that it was impossible for the mic to pick up the closest folks in our breakout group. It also didn't work while we were eating dinner...too many people, too much noise. The people in my immediate workgroup of the project are all aware that I can't hear well, but only one of them really makes an attempt to situate himself so that I can hear--and over half of those folks are at least 60-plus!

Some people "get it" while others just don't. Every week, I load donated bread and then distribute it to local charities the next day. Of all the people I interact with while doing that, only one makes an effort to face me while speaking. Two of the people are close friends...in spite of reminders that I need to see what they're saying, they talk while they're loading freezers or moving around, in and out of the room. The person I must interact with the most fortunately uses e-mail a lot and I can now hear her soft voice via the phone...some of the time.

The bright spot is the lecture series. As long as I sit in the front row on the right side so that my "sorta" hearing ear and aid are facing the speaker, I've been able to follow reasonably well, given that most use PowerPoints (which I enable if need be). This is a group of older folks learning about a variety of topics, lots of whom wear aids. I asked the pres. to give the mic to guests so that everyone can hear who they are; that's been working about half the time, a big improvement. Since I work with all the speakers before their programs, I've added a request to repeat questions from the audience, and that works well with most. Being able to use phones again is huge, as I contact speakers before their programs to discuss tech details.

Big groups remain a big problem. After Thursday's four-hour water meeting, I came away with virtually no new information, except what I saw when there was some sort of visual display. However, this is perhaps the most difficult room we've met in to date. It will be interesting to see if any future meetings are held in a room with a loop--possible if it's a major hotel here on the sparsley-settled coast. My requests for minutes (imagine that!) of meetings have been unsuccessful so far; before this downturn, I took minutes for my workgroup and circulated them, but no one else is willing to make the effort, nor do all of them share their PowerPoints (if they use one!) with the group on the project's website. I've skipped two trail meetings, as they were always difficult in the past: the dozen or more directors sit on three sides of four tables arranged in a "U" facing each other rather than the audience of 50 or so folks. Anyone who testifies sits in a chair facing the directors. No mic, ever. This typical agency setup for a meeting has always been difficult for me; now it's flat impossible.

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