"Have a Blasted Day!" and other misadventures of the Hearing Impaired

I'm assuming most of you reading this know me....and if you know me, you must know my Wife, Sherry. Since a very young age, Sherry has been hearing impaired. This has been a source of struggle and pain for her for most of her life, and yet at times we have been able to find humor in the things that have been mis-heard or misunderstood.

Tonight we were shopping at the dreadful WAL-MART and as we were leaving the cashier said "Have a Blessed day." I said thanks and Sherry and I continued walking out of the store. As we were walking outside Sherry turned to me and asked "What did she say?" And I replied "Have a blessed day." Sherry looked at me and asked "Have a blasted day?" Of course, we both laughed about this even after we got into the van and were pulling out of the lot.

This leads me to think about all of the ways we can help the hard-of-hearing to "hear" us better.
Of course, sometimes if you're walking and talking, just being visible to the person with the hearing loss is a problem. In Sherry's case, she reads lips a lot to get by, so if we're walking and talking, she's probably getting about a fourth of what is being said.

Sometimes when people find out she's hard of hearing they shout at her or they over enunciate which makes them look like they're playing charades or speaking like a puppet. Shouting at her raises the volume, but not the clarity of the conversation and can actually distort what the person is saying.

I try to give her clues whenever possible, but even I fall into the habit of repeating the same words over again...this doesn't help very much because if she didn't hear it once, it's likely that she won't hear it again....so rephrasing really helps, especially on the phone.

Talking one on one with her is best...background noises and distractions are....DISTRACTIONS! Imagine that?!!! If something is misunderstood, keep trying and rephrasing if you have to.
If she misunderstands something, correct her politely...try not to laugh...although, as I mentioned earlier...if you know her well and are comfortable together, sometimes the things that are misunderstood are really very funny...

My kids favorite one is the time that there was a woodpecker outside our bedroom window pecking away at the guttering. It was pretty loud and of course had a metallic "clang" to it, but she couldn't tell what it was. Jared, Dustin and I each tried to explain that it was a woodpecker, but she wasn't catching it...finally she said "How can there be a dishwasher on the side of the house???" The kids nearly fell in the floor laughing.

She used to get really upset with people not being very sensitive to her hearing loss. Mostly people would pick up on the tonality of her voice and say "Oh, I love your accent, are you from Boston?" or they'd ask where she was from. She used to ignore some people, but as you know...as well meaning as people are...some people would persist and then she'd get red-faced and try to explain that she was hard of hearing. It was awkward for her and the person involved.

We once had a very pushy car salesman who was being as obnoxious as possible in trying to hard sell us a car. We were really wanting to buy this car, but not from this particular guy... he was such a stereotype with his gold chains and shirt unbuttoned to expose his chubby, hairy chest. He just kept saying and doing everything wrong and then, in the middle of everything he says to Sherry "Hey, I like your accent...it's kinda funny...like you're from the East Coast or something."

At that point I didn't know if I should duck, run or just scoot way back in my chair. I half expected Sherry to dive over the desk and pummel the guy. For a minute I almost felt bad for him. I asked him if we could be excused while we stepped out of the room to talk. We went up to the service desk and told the manager that we'd like to buy a car, but we wouldn't buy one from them if "Stan" the obnoxious salesman was involved in any way. I'm guessing Stan got talked to a bit after we left.

Sherry asked me early on when we were first dating if her "handicap" bothered me... I answered "What Handicap?" She had grown up looking at herself as a hard of hearing person, while I looked at her as someone who just happened to be hard of hearing. I wasn't about to let her hearing loss define her because she was so much more than that to me.

Since then, she's come out of her shell a lot. She's stuck up for herself in situations where she used to just sit back and simmer about it....she was always kind of shy, but she went on to be the President of the Kansas City Self Help for the Hard of Hearing, and began to see her hearing loss as just a part of who she is....albeit a BIG part, but not the ONLY part.

I teasingly told her once that I loved her so much that I "Loved her guts" (which I thought would be the opposite of hating some one's guts.) She gave me a weird look and asked "You love my Ducks?"

-David

I've got something to say

Recently my friend Gail posted a great blog in which she questioned whether Conservatism was dying (read here http://impoliteconversationwithgail.blogspot.com).

After reading it I thought I agreed with her on about 85% of her topic...but after re-reading it I'm dropping my number down to about 50%. While I do feel that the Conservative movement suffered a great blow during this last election. (Not so much because they lost out to Obama, but more because John McCain was their candidate, and as much as he tried, he never really swayed the hardcore Conservatives to believe in him).

Conservatives are not dying...they're just on a break (and no, I don't mean a "time out.") They have to regroup and decide where they want to go, what they want to do and how they wish to say it. They have an agenda and a system of core beliefs...they just didn't get it out there well enough this time... But elections cycles are just that...cyclical. We'll have 8 good years or 8 bad years, followed by 4 or 8 bad years and so on. These things always seem to work themselves out.

Gail goes on to say that Rush Limbaugh was out of line in spending his showtime on Inauguration Day going after Obama. He may have been over-the-top, but I feel he was well within his rights to espouse whatever he was feeling at that time...after all, it is his show and those who live or die with Rush were probably right there in the trenches with him.

Do I think he could have pulled back a bit? Yes... I too feel that the process of transferring power from one President to the next is a solemn spectacle and should be viewed with a certain reverence. (Although I think swipes at Aretha Franklin's hat were more than deserved...I mean, really...she had SKYLAB on her head!).

Rush Limbaugh's opinions were no more offensive than the parade of onlookers that pelted President Bush's car with eggs or held signs reading "Commander in Thief" or "Not my President" along the parade route for the past two Inauguration days. Seeing those people do that in the name of "free speech" sickened me. While Limbaugh's diatribe was again, "a bit much," I don't think the two even compare.

Limbaugh is being Limbaugh...and if you don't like it, don't listen. Sometimes I find him entertaining and other times he seems (to put it nicely) to be a bit of a pompous jerk. I think he could have set aside or toned down his rhetoric for the day at least, but then again, did the Bush critics ever give #43 that chance?

The historic (and dare I say "Hysteric") events of this week have now been documented for all time. Will we look back on them fondly or will we look back with trepidation? I have "hope" that President Obama really does want to do right for America. I never thought that Bush had anything other than that in mind as well. But of course, we live in a big world and one President, even the leader of the free world, can make mistakes.

I say give Obama a chance...wish the best for him...if he fails, don't we as Americans all fail?
I remember one of my Democrat friends saying after Bush was elected the first time. "I hope he falls on his *butt. That will show all of the idiots that voted for him that they made a stupid choice." I told my friend that what was stupid was her statement... why would you want our Leader to fail? Of course this never changed her mind, but it changed mine... I would never want a President to fail...even if it is one I didn't vote for.

So let Rush vent... let him cool off a bit. He may end up thanking Obama the way that he thanked Clinton when Clinton left office...or, it may challenge him to look at things differently...perhaps even more constructively.

In the meantime I hope that Aretha Franklin buys a different hat in case she's ever called upon to sing in public again.

David

Royals Fanfest 2009

Greinke signing autographs
Jared pitching while Kyle Davies watches
David catching a fly ball and winning the big game
and below is a picture of Jared with his new best friend, Mike Aviles, who he got to play ball with

Having attended last year's Fanfest, I was eager to return and take my baseball fanatic Son, Jared along with me. This year was bigger and better than last year with a lot of new events and things to participate in.

With growth and change comes some growing pains however, the biggest being the invasion of the autograph hounds. Now I, along with Jared, am an avid baseball autograph collector...but, not so much that I will run full speed through an entertainment venue to get one. Not only did I see kids running haphazardly through the place, but there was more than one adult willing to do so as well.

The other bad thing about the autograph hounds, is that they made it virtually impossible to visit any of the autograph stages. The only autographs we obtained this weekend, were out on the floor. We got several that way, and had a near autograph encounter with Billy Butler and Shane Costa while walking through the convention center.

Jared had the rare occasion to play ball with Kila Kaaihue and Mike Aviles, and also got some pitching advice and laudatory comments from Pitchers John Bale, Neal Musser, Ron Mahay and Kyle Davies. Jared was throwing perfect strikes at about 37-45 Miles per hour, which is good for an 8 year old. (at least that's what the pitchers were telling him.)

Fanfest was an opportunity to get a lot of free things...hats, T-Shirts, little rubber MLB baseballs. Royals flags and duffel bags, and bobble heads too. (The night of the Tony Pena, Jr. Bobble head give-away last summer must have been the most sparsely attended game of the year, as they seemed to have an unlimited supply of those to give away!)

The best thing for me, was the dollar table at the Royals store. There you could find TONS of Mike Sweeney items for a buck, along with a 4 piece set of Drinking glasses that had been originally priced at 36.00 dollars for...guess what? A DOLLAR!
We also snagged some nifty baseballs and some Mike Sweeney wall posters. What a deal!
They had other player items too, but Sweeney was a big draw for us.

Nicest surprise of the day was the sight of Greinke, formerly reclusive, now inclusive Royals pitcher, who stayed after one of the Q and A sessions to sign autographs for the kids. GOOD JOB GREINKE!

Jared got to shag fly balls, bat, pitch, run and win prizes... so how can that not be a good thing? I even got up onstage in front of thousands of people to show how I can dislocate my fingers as part of "KC ROYALS GOT TALENT." Hey, I would rather have sang, but they asked specifically for double-jointed people, so I took the offer... I got a Tony Pena, Jr. Bobble head for it too!

-David