Can't you speechread French? When I was a teen I went to an all girls camp with a very high percentage of Qubecoisi (French-Canadian) girls and I'd taken French in school so I could speechread them very well! By the time I left I could have a soundless conversation(speechreading with NO sound) in French with a lot of them!
sorry for the drift.....anyway I don't mind being deaf. I was destined to be deaf from the moment of conception (my deafness is denovo genetic) Hey...I was never scared of thunder, I could always turn my hearing aids off on people, I can have conversations (both "spoken" and signed) without even making a sound.
