New! frustrated lip reader

Mary-Anne

Mary-Anne

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Aug 15, 2017
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Hello everyone. I'm so glad to have found this forum!

I have been HoH since birth but raised in an unaware family. Was finally fitted with quality aids at 40 and my career took off! As good as this all may be, my age is robbing me of what little hearing I have. I'm finding greater difficulty hearing with aids and with compromised sight, my ability to lipread is creating near impossible work situations.

I am contemplating leaving a successful career as a lobbyist not because I don't enjoy the work, but I simply cannot hear the discussion in the House or Senate chambers and can't focus in on their faces to capture what my ears cannot.

Mom of five, gram of 7. I live in central Maine. I am too young to retire and need an income to survive.

I am looking forward to hearing all of your stories!
 
Welcome! You're going through a rough time. You being in Maine, you're not too far from Boston. There are Deaf meets in Boston and whatnot. I can't really help with your job situation, but hopefully others here can. Is there no closed captioning in the chambers? If not, ask? (It would likely have to be in the form of CART if these are live meetings, but ....)
 
Thank you for this reply! I've tried to use CART in legislative discussions but it's incredibly difficult as bill language and references noted are not easy to capture. I joined this community because I'm at the "I give up!" stage and need to find alternatives. Very challenged right now. Thanks again, AlleyCat!
 
Mary-Anne said:
Thank you for this reply! I've tried to use CART in legislative discussions but it's incredibly difficult as bill language and references noted are not easy to capture. I joined this community because I'm at the "I give up!" stage and need to find alternatives. Very challenged right now. Thanks again, AlleyCat!
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You're welcome. Any chance for a paid note taker? Would that help? I'm kinda stumped after this so I hope someone else chimes in! :)
 
None. My client is a non-profit - they have extremely limited resources. I will be okay. Today is day one of accepting that I need to find an alternative way to earn a living. I'm meeting with audiologist next week to see if my new aids can be adjusted or replaced. Thank you again.
 
I'm working with them! Just found them recently. So grateful for them! Do you have CI?
 
Mary-Anne said:
I'm working with them! Just found them recently. So grateful for them! Do you have CI?
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No. Hearing aids, yes. I have the new ReSound Enzo's. I love them like crazy. They don't help with speech discrimination as I have a very profound loss, but it's fun to hear sounds I never heard before.
 
Mary-Anne said:
Hello everyone. I'm so glad to have found this forum!

I have been HoH since birth but raised in an unaware family. Was finally fitted with quality aids at 40 and my career took off! As good as this all may be, my age is robbing me of what little hearing I have. I'm finding greater difficulty hearing with aids and with compromised sight, my ability to lipread is creating near impossible work situations.

I am contemplating leaving a successful career as a lobbyist not because I don't enjoy the work, but I simply cannot hear the discussion in the House or Senate chambers and can't focus in on their faces to capture what my ears cannot.

Mom of five, gram of 7. I live in central Maine. I am too young to retire and need an income to survive.

I am looking forward to hearing all of your stories!
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Hi Mary-Anne...I understand totally what you are going through as I am experiencing the same problems with my job as an internal auditor. Accommodations don't really apply as 90 percent of my job involves listening..and understanding what is being presented so that I can identify control gaps and improvements..etc. long story short..real worried about my future as I have more and more problems understanding folks even with hearing aids...and still too young to retire..I try to stay positive..but worry just the same.
Hope things work out for those that have similar worries.
Jeff
 
Have you tried more powerful aids? If you truely are maxing out on HA perhaps CI might be a good idea? Are you in DC or the Maine State House?
 
habs93 said:
Hi Mary-Anne...I understand totally what you are going through as I am experiencing the same problems with my job as an internal auditor. Accommodations don't really apply as 90 percent of my job involves listening..and understanding what is being presented so that I can identify control gaps and improvements..etc. long story short..real worried about my future as I have more and more problems understanding folks even with hearing aids...and still too young to retire..I try to stay positive..but worry just the same.
Hope things work out for those that have similar worries.
Jeff
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Hi, and feel for you. Are you using a Roger Pen and/or a table microphone to assist with work conversations?
 
Hi mary-anne how are you? I also wanted to tell you that in your pic you look to young and to good looking to be 53 lol
 
librarylady said:
Hi, and feel for you. Are you using a Roger Pen and/or a table microphone to assist with work conversations?
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I have tried them and although they do make voices louder I still have problems comprehending what is being said...typical hear but don't understand what is being said sort of thing..some tone of voices are better than others and therefore easier to understand but it seams I am running into less and less of voices I can hear clearly. That make sense?
 
I would think the legislative sessions are required to be accessible for you. Could you get them to provide a note-taker for you, rather than the org you work for? The government is generally pretty progressive about providing accomodations.
 
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