Category Archives: Hearing Impaired

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

Home Invasion

Posted on August 8, 2025 by daeja's view

It was a little over a week ago, time approximately 3:30 am, when I was awakened by the sounds of crashing and muffled yelling coming from somewhere downstairs. Actually, in my ever-increasing deafness, I felt, more than heard, what appeared … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Animal Stories, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Dogs, Hearing Impaired, nature, Perspective, senior musings, summer, Uncategorized, Wildlife | Tagged Bats, bats in the house, Deafness, feeling unsafe, Hearing Impaired, middle of the night, papillon alert, safety, safety preparedness, safety weapon, unwanted visitors, useless broom, weapon | 4 Comments

Sploot

Posted on April 23, 2025 by daeja's view

There appeared to be a dead squirrel on the back deck yesterday afternoon. It was sprawled flat out, looking rather like a small, worn out old rug; on closer observation it resembled a flying superhero, sans cape. Upon approaching further … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Stories, Daeja's Garden, disability accommodations, Earworm of the day, Gardening, Hearing Impaired, nature, Perspective, Photography, Seasons, senior musings, Spring, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weather, Wildlife, Wow! | Tagged April, Earworm of the day, eastern flowers, eastern flowers of april, Fence Dino, Fence Dinosaur, garden, Gardening, magnolias, rando tulips, second spring, splooting, splooting squirrel, spring flowers of the East, springtime naps, Squirrels, sugar magnolia, the neighborhood | 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

You Can’t Get There From Here

Posted on October 26, 2023 by daeja's view

Has anybody else experienced the dead-end adventure of trying to navigate through an AI generated automated maze, where you cannot contact a real human being, and felt OK with that? The tipping point came when I was required to have … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant, senior musings, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged AI answering systems, automated answering systems, breakdown of the human experience, can't make an appointment, caring physicians, depersonalization of medical practice, giant medical mergers, impersonal medical mergers, lack of connection, screaming at phone menu, social degradation | 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

Acceptance (I’m Not a Guitar Player)

Posted on June 1, 2023 by daeja's view

I’m not exactly sure of its origin, but one day my father came home from work with a Stella six-string acoustic guitar that someone had given to him, and he gave it to me. Up until that time, my experience … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Divorce, Flashback, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Regrets, senior musings, Uncategorized | Tagged acceptance, insecurities, intimidation, letting go, my guitar, not a musician, regrets, rock and roll fantasies | Leave a comment

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 | 1 Comment

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

Blessings Amid the Depression

Posted on August 10, 2016 by daeja's view

Breakfast this morning consisted of a handful of foraged chanterelle mushrooms sautéed in butter and garlic, then scrambled into two fresh eggs from a neighbor’s chickens and sprinkled with ground Himalayan pink salt and fresh peppercorn. The mushroom eggs were … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Coping, grief, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged appreciation, blessings, depressed, depression, dysthymia, feeling blue, gratefulness, loss, moods, people judging depression | 4 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

Slowly I Turned……

Posted on August 20, 2013 by daeja's view

“Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch….” I realize I am dating myself here, because about half the people I have said this to know what I am talking about and the other half don’t. The line is … Continue reading →

Posted in Bucket List, Friends, Hearing Impaired, Humor, Travel, Uncategorized, Wow! | Tagged Bucket List, Canadian Border, chick travel, Niagra Falls, road trip, vacation, women friends | 4 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

A Change of Status

Posted on May 29, 2013 by daeja's view

I am unemployed. Or “retired”, as some people have congratulated me on, although that word doesn’t seem to quite fit. I feel like I am actually a “retirement imposter” in a sense, because this “retirement” was mostly unplanned, not affordable, … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged baby boomer, boomers, disability, growing older, identity crisis, now what?, retirement, the autumn years, unemployed, who am i now? | 3 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

Same Time Next Year

Posted on January 4, 2012 by daeja's view

For about the last seventeen years or so, my family and I have been invited to a New Year’s Day brunch at the home of a wonderful couple. They tend to invite a core of their same friends year after … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Hearing Impaired, Uncategorized, Winter | Tagged aging, annual brunch, annual party, capuchin monkey, connections, friendships, Kindness, new year's day | 6 Comments

Who Are These People?

Posted on December 6, 2011 by daeja's view

We still have a land line. It seems they are becoming obsolete, but there is one attached to our cable television and internet access, a package deal. We gave up our old phone number in order to get this “great deal”. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Are you kidding me?, Hearing Impaired, Uncategorized, Vent | Tagged collection agencies, land line, old phone numbers, Wrong number | 5 Comments

Crumbling Under the Weight of Technology

Posted on November 29, 2011 by daeja's view

They say you can never go back. After having this new Droid Charge for a few days, I ended up sitting there with it, close to tears. I am having a rough time managing my new Smart Phone. I feel too dumb for a Smart Phone. … Continue reading →

Posted in Aging, Hearing Impaired, Uncategorized | Tagged bluetooth problems with Droid Charge, Motorola Razr, Samsung Droid Charge, technology, Verizon store | 9 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