Category Archives: Deafness

Summing Up Twenty-Five

Posted on December 29, 2025 by daeja's view

It was a chilly 6°F with a significant covering of snow this morning when I very briefly took the dog out. Now propped up in bed, wearing an old tie-dye sweatshirt from a local store that no longer exists, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Animal Stories, Autumn, Birds, Cooking, Daeja's Garden, Deafness, disability accommodations, Dogs, Earworm of the day, Flashback, Food, Friends, Gardening, Hearing Impaired, Memories, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, Spring, summer, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Wildlife, Winter, Wow! | Tagged 1970's flashbacks, 2025, a blog year, a year of flowers, annual summation, bad hair, barred owl, birding, Birds, CNN Sucks, Earworm of the day, esoteric subjects, Fence Dino, fighting windmills, flora and fauna, glut of panettone, Grateful Dead, hearing loss grief, ice, Muscovy ducks, nature, naughty dog, no politics, papillon, photography, strange skies, sunday dutch baby, unexpected random art, unread books, we don't change that much, Wildlife, worst concert | Leave a comment

Between the Sounds

Posted on November 23, 2025 by daeja's view

This unexpectedly came across my social media feed yesterday. These simple words hold such personal impact that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it – especially the last number of lines. They encompass a different kind of loss … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Aging, Coping, Deafness, disability, grief, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized | Tagged a different kind of loss, Deafness, explaining hearing loss to others, filling in the blanks, grief, hard of hearing, hearing exhaustion, hearing loss, invisibly disability, left out, missed connections, missing sounds, navigating a hearing world, social disconnections, struggling to hear | Leave a comment

Fighting Windmills

Posted on February 4, 2025 by daeja's view

Early on I had a gut feeling where this would be heading and how it would most likely end up, but decided to hold out in the (futile?) hope that there might be some righteousness in all of it. Once … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, disability, disability accommodations, grief, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant, Regrets, senior musings, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged Anthony Bourdain, bad closed captioning, business, CC out of sync, closed caption, closed captioning, CNN, CNN accessibility discrimination, CNN documentary series, CNN out of sync, CNN Sucks, corporate disrespect, deaf discrimination, discrimination, FCC Disability Rights Office, hard of hearing, hearing discrimination, hearing loss, Jake Tepper, left out, Linda Ronstadt, Martha Stewart, news, Stanley Tucci, The New York Times, Tom Hanks | Leave a comment

A String of Senior Moments

Posted on June 16, 2024 by daeja's view

Back over the winter, a woman called out to me as I was walking across the parking lot of a shopping plaza. A friend and I had been out doing a little pre-holiday purchasing together – we had just left … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, disability accommodations, Hearing Impaired, Humor, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized | Tagged can't find my phone, forgetful, forgetfulness, forgetting, getting sidetracked, hearing aids and phone, I forgot, lost phone, memory, memory hacks, memory lapses, senior hacks, senior moment, seriously??, sidetracked, where are my keys?, where is my phone?, why am I here?, why did i walk in this room? | Leave a comment

A Simple Kindness

Posted on February 26, 2024 by daeja's view

Many years ago while on a flight from Istanbul to New York, I settled in to watch an inflight movie, when all of a sudden the headset I had brought stopped working. While the airline had packaged headsets provided for … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, disability, disability accommodations, Flashback, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant, Travel, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged accommodations, airline headsets, airlines, broken headset, disability, disability accommodations, disability awareness, flying while deaf, hard of hearing, headsets, Hearing Impaired, invisible disability, the cheap seats | Leave a comment

In Five Days

Posted on August 22, 2023 by daeja's view

It’s almost astonishing that my credit card has not warped and melted from all the use it has gotten over the past week. The “tap” feature on it suddenly stopped working during the last number of transactions, which may or … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant, senior musings, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged almost deaf, expensive hearing aids, expensive medication, healthcare failure, hearing aids, hearing discriminiation, hearing impairment, inadequate health insurance, insurance company rip offs, lacking health care coveerage, making ends meet, medicare won't cover, Oticon, reverse slope hearing loss, RSHL, senior expenses, surprise bills, uncovered expenses, unexpected expenses | 1 Comment

Nice Socks

Posted on June 11, 2023 by daeja's view

One thing I do every year during The Birthday Week is indulge in a massage. This year that didn’t happen – I missed that window for a number of reasons…. but eventually I decided to just get a very badly … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, Hearing Impaired, Humor, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized | Tagged code words, coping with humor, hearing exhaustion, miscommunication, misunderstandings, what did you say? | 3 Comments

Tankini Hellscape

Posted on May 16, 2023 by daeja's view

Admittedly being a lousy swimmer, it stands to reason that I’m not much of a fan when it comes to being in the water, or even on the water. I would say I’m more of the type who likes to … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, Fashion, Hearing Impaired, Rant, senior musings, Shopping, Spring, summer, Uncategorized, Vent, Weight | Tagged bathing suits, buying a bathing suit, chat option for hearing impaired, hearing loss, mature bathing suits, senior beachwear, swimsuit hell, women over fifty, women over seventy, women over sixty | Leave a comment

Out of Focus

Posted on March 31, 2023 by daeja's view

Everything feels out of focus this week. Making order of the thoughts in my head has been almost impossible – an inability to hone in and complete most things without becoming distracted. Events occurring in the news are probably a … Continue reading →

Posted in Birds, Cooking, Deafness, Food, Hearing Impaired, nature, Perspective, Spring, The Urban Porch, Uncategorized, Wildlife | Tagged cooking fail, disconnecting, distraction, external reactions, internal feelings, low-end hearing loss, RSHL | 2 Comments

Fakers

Posted on May 8, 2018 by daeja's view

There are individuals and organizations that sell service animal certification or registration documents online. These documents do not convey any rights under the ADA and the Department of Justice does not recognize them as proof that the dog is a … Continue reading →

Posted in Deafness, Dogs, Hearing Impaired, Rant, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged assistance dog, emotional support dogs, ESA, fake ESA dogs, fake service animal certification, fake support dogs, hearing dog, service dog | 4 Comments

The Telekinesis of Grief

Posted on August 17, 2015 by daeja's view

This is an odd thing that I have only shared with a very small handful of people because it is so weird. I have often wondered if anyone else has had the same experiences, and after giving it some serious … Continue reading →

Posted in Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, grief | Tagged electrical charge, gaining a sense, grief, hearing loss, loss, loss of sense | 12 Comments

I’m Not That Old

Posted on January 13, 2014 by daeja's view

Today was the first time I have been in a movie theater to see a feature film in longer than I can remember. With the exception of attending foreign films with subtitles, I have pretty much given up on going … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Coping, Deafness, Hearing Impaired, Uncategorized, Wow! | Tagged captioning glasses, hard of hearing, I'm not old, mid-life, movie captioning, Regal Cinemas, theater captioning | 6 Comments

E

Posted on January 4, 2014 by daeja's view

My right ear rings all the time. One day, about twenty years ago, it just started buzzing and it has never shut off since. As the hearing loss has progressed in that ear, the noise has seemed to get louder … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Coping, Deafness, Hearing Impaired, Uncategorized | Tagged hearing loss, ringing in ears, tinnitus | 5 Comments

The Art of Napping

Posted on June 1, 2013 by daeja's view

Why can’t I nap? Taking a nap is probably a very healthy thing to do. There is actually a study out there stating that people who nap may have a lower incidence of coronary disease. Sounds like a lovely way … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Deafness, Hearing Impaired, Uncategorized, Weather | Tagged a woman's space, baby boomer, boomers, cozy room, napping, naps, resting, siesta, sleep | 2 Comments

Hacked

Posted on October 11, 2012 by daeja's view

My credit card bill came in the mail today. Usually this particular card is only used for online purchases that use secure sites, and there were only a few purchases made this month, so the anomalies jumped out at me … Continue reading →

Posted in Are you kidding me?, Deafness, Hearing Impaired, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged bogus charges, credit card fraud, credit card security, hacking, identity theft, unauthorized charges | 3 Comments

That Snooty Woman With All the Fancy Instruments

Posted on October 8, 2012 by daeja's view

One of the things I like to do for leisure and sometimes passion is to play percussive instruments. I like to drum, especially on drums played with the hands – a djembe, a doumbek, a frame drum or riqq. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Deafness, Friends, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged aloofness, Drumming, group dynamics, perspective, possessions, unfriendliness | 4 Comments

A Matter of Interpretation

Posted on February 28, 2012 by daeja's view

As someone who writes essays and blog posts, you would think that there would be a corresponding adeptness to creating written correspondence that would clearly translate my thoughts to the recipient. It is not as if I am writing in … Continue reading →

Posted in Coping, Deafness, Friends, Perspective, Regrets, Uncategorized | Tagged hearts, hurt, hurt feelings, insults, miscommunication, misinterpretation, misunderstandings, translation, Valentine card | 6 Comments

Never Mind – I’ll Tell You Later

Posted on April 26, 2011 by daeja's view

The group is bantering witticisms back and forth and raucous laughter ensues. I am standing among them, nodding and smiling, and my brain is working hard and at double time. I am trying to string together the words I missed with … Continue reading →

Posted in Coping, Deafness, Friends, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant | Tagged hard of hearing, hearing, hearing loss, socialization | 13 Comments