Our next meeting is January
13thFor our next meeting, we will be meeting in the first floor meeting room at Knowlton
Hall, 25 Pompey Hollow Rd., Rt. 44, Ashford,
CT. next door to Cumberland Farms. It
is the beautiful stone building that formerly held the Ashford
Town offices. We meet in the first floor meeting room. Babcock Library
is on the second floor. The building is handicapped accessible.Our guest speaker will be Ralph Campagna,
owner of RCI, a Plainfield, CT
that makes hearing aids.
CAN
typist and Newsletter changes
Thank you Dottie Gagnon for
being our CAN typist since Quiet Corner SHHH was created and a thank you to Katie Rivers of Willington for replacing Dottie
as our CAN typist. Trudi Carr will replace Dottie as Newsletter editor. Thanks both of you for helping out.
It's time to pay your annual dues
Dues of $10 per person or $15 per family are due
in January. You may pay your dues at a meeting or send your check to Quiet Corner SHHH, Inc., P.O. Box 314, Ashford, CT 06278. You must be a paid member to vote in elections. February is our annual meeting
and the day we elect officers and directors. If you are a paid member and unable to attend our Feb. 10.2007 annual meeting,
you may vote by completing the attached proxy. Please mail your proxy to Quiet Corner SHHH, Inc, P.O. Box 314, Ashford, CT 06278
Donations are tax deductible. We are a 501c non-profit corporation.
Any donations made to Quiet Corner SHHH, Inc. are tax deductible if you itemize on your income tax return. If you don't itemize,
why not make a donation in the name of your son or daughter, niece or nephew, and let them take the tax deduction? Do you want to be an officer or on our Board
of Directors?Our by-laws require that a person must be a member for a year before they are
eligible to become an officer, Director or on our Board of Advisors. If you have been a member for over a year, please consider
taking office and guiding Quiet Corner SHHH, Inc. into the future. Did you know?
Hearing impaired
persons with partial loss of hearing may find that the quality of their hearing varies from day to day, or from one situation
to another or not at all. They may also, to a greater or lesser extent, depend on both hearing-aids and lip-reading. They
may perhaps not always be aware of it, but they do admit to it being important to see the speaker's face in conversation. Profound
Unilateral Hearing LossProfound unilateral hearing loss is a specific type of hearing impairment
when one ear has no functional hearing ability (91 db or greater hearing loss). People with unilateral hearing loss normally
hear in one ear and have trouble hearing out of the other ear. Causes include physical trauma or mumps. It makes it difficult
to find out where sounds are coming from, gives the heard sounds no depth, sounds are wrongly interpreted, and makes it difficult
to impossible to filter out background noise so you can selectively listen only to the important portion of the noise in the
background.
Senorineural Hearing LossWith sensorineural hearing loss, the lack of input coming from
the damaged sensory apparatus can cause "ghost beeps" or ringing/tinnitus as the brain attempts to interpret the now missing
sensory data. The frequency and the volume of noise can increase according to one's physical condition: stress, fatigue, etc. Tinnitus
Tinnitus
can be described as sound without any external stimulus. Sometimes it's described as a ringing or pounding noise. The sound
can be a quiet background noise or loud enough to drown out all outside sounds. Sometimes it's referred to as "the club disease"
because many people get temporary tinnitus at loud clubs or concerts. Tinnitus that can be heard only by the person is called
subjective; tinnitus that can be heard by someone standing next to the person can be called objective. Imagine how loud it
must be to the person if the person next to him/her can hear the sound. Tone Deaf
A
person who is tone deaf lacks relative pitch and the ability to discriminate between notes so they cannot accurately discriminate
between musical notes and can't produce them because you can't hear them. It appears to be genetically influenced, though
it can also result from brain damage. Although tone deafness affects the ability to hear pitch changes produced by a musical
instrument and/or the human voice, tone deaf people seem to be only unable to differentiate musical notes and can fully interpret
the intonation of human speech. It has been observed that in societies with tonal languages such as Cantonese or Vietnamese,
there are almost no tone deaf people. Tone deaf people often lack a sense of musical aesthetics similar to a color blind person
not fully able to appreciate colorful visual art. Some tone deaf people cannot appreciate music because they can't hear the
rhythm and usually have no ability to remember or even recognize a song. While these disabilities can appear separately, research
shows that they are more likely to appear in tone deaf people. Tone deafness is also known as amusia, tune deafness, dysmolodia
and dysmusia. Can
a person without a working ear drum read lips? Some experts say that if your ear drum is not in working condition you cannot
read lips. After surgery to repair their ear drums, many people who were formerly unable to read lips could once again read
lips. If anyone knows why, or has experience in this, please share your experience with us. When you can't hear well...
When
you can't hear what has been said, or can't understand what you've heard (called speech discrimination), it's very hard to
pay attention to the conversation and participate in it. It's hard work and can cause stress and headaches. It's easy to get
irritable. Sometimes it's easier to just stay home. That's why it's said that hearing problems cause social isolation. Come to a meeting and share with us...
Come
to a meeting and share with us what has worked for you, and learn what has worked for us. That's what a self help group is
all about. Soon you will find you have new friends who understand what you're experiencing.
From our mailbox
Author's name withheld by request
I
wish to thank you for making me feel "normal". The hearing difficulties I experience are foreign to my family and friends,
and I felt very alone until I attended the wonderful, enlightening Quiet Corner SHHH meetings. You gave me the push I needed
to get hearing aids, and although as we all know, they aren't perfect, at least I no longer feel like the odd man out. Thanks
again for all your support.
Article published in the Norwich Bulletin
by Patricia Reilly-Rock
From
the newsroom of the Norwich Bulletin, Norwich, Connecticut,
Monday, November 27, 2006. Also published in Deaf Times sponsored by USA-L_News@comcast.net
First person: Local group supports me after partial hearing loss
By the REV. DR. PATRICIA REILLY-ROCK
I've
suffered from Meniere's disease, which affects inner ear balance, since 1998. By 2001, I had to have surgery on my right inner
ear, otherwise, I would not be able to stand or walk. Having this surgery made me deaf in my right ear and affected some of
my hearing for my left ear.At first it was embarrassing. After all, I had never been around
people with this sort of hearing problem and I felt isolated. I never thought I would have a problem with hearing.Thankfully
I found a wonderful group called QuietCorner Self-Help for the Hard-of-Hearing. The group is a wonderful support to anyone
who suffers from hearing losses.Through this organization, I was able to get a grant for a
hearing aid and many tips on coping with hearing loss.I still need the closed-captioning on
my TV, but I am learning to ask people to "please repeat" what I cannot understand.I always
took it for granted that I could hear clearly. But, as with everything else that comes at you in life, you learn to accept
what you cannot change.My granddaughter Jocelyn has helped me to laugh at myself. When she
first noticed that I couldn't hear words correctly, she noticed I would say "Wait a minute I can't hear you."She
started to pick up this phrase as young children will do. Then she would tell people to face me when they talk so I could
hear them. She and I learned why people become deaf.Sometimes it is from prescription drug
side effects, sometimes hearing loss comes from Meniere's disease or loud noises that destroy the delicate hairs that vibrate
in order for us to hear sounds. But I'll leave the medical jargon the professionals.The Rev.
Dr. Patricia Reilly-Rock, 62, lives in Ashford. Though she's retired, she is still the national director of the Christian
Life Ministries of America Inc., which serves prisons. To contact QC SHHH, call 923-0171 or use a TTY phone and dial 711-860-429-0405.
Group meetings are at 10:30 a.m., the second Saturday each month at the Ashford Senior Housing Community Room.Copyright
© 2006 Norwich Bulletin. All rights reserved.
To subscribe to Deaf Times...Please go to http://www.deaftimes.com/sub/signup.php to sign up for Deaf Times. There is no charge for the subscription and you will usually get one email a day about deaf and
hard of hearing news.
Join us as we begin a new year of meetingsJoin us as we begin a new year of meetings.
We meet the second Saturday of every month, except July and August. We are changing our meeting location back to Knowlton
Hall, 25 Pompey Hollow Rd., Route 44, Ashford, CT, next door to Cumberland Farms. It is the beautiful stone building that formerly held the Ashford
Town offices. We meet in the first floor meeting room. Babcock Library
is on the second floor. The building is handicapped accessible. Another website resource http://www.k12academics.com/deaf.htm
Younger people are having hearing loss. From the newsroom of the KING-TV, Channel 5 News, Seattle, Washington, Tuesday, November 28, 2006.....Hearing
loss now hits younger crowd>by Jean Enersen
"We
think we can hear better when we push it deeper, and that's just a misconception," said audiologistClayton
Blakeney. Blakeney says positioning the ear bud deep inside the canal can lead to early hearing loss. That's why his clients
are no longer just the Medicare crowd.Believe it or not, an innocent iPod can pump out 120
deafening decibels and a Bluetooth headset 100 decibels. Not just because the user cranks up the volume. But because of how
the ear piece is worn. In fact, Apple was sued after claims the earphones caused permanent hearing loss. A lawsuit just filed
in Chicago against Motorola, claims the Bluetooth cell phone
headset does the same thing."They'll come in saying they have a ringing in the ears," said
Blakeney. One gadget can make listening safer. "We can protect their hearing with custom-made ear molds," said Blakeney.
Like
a fingerprint, the inside of everyone's ears are different. A custom-fit ear-piece is made specifically for each individual.
Wearers may not know it, but ordinary ear buds can be pushed perilously close to the eardrum. The custom ear mold doesn't
even get close. It also cuts out t background noise. "They think they're getting better volume out of their iPod because it's
cutting out background sound," said Blakeney.
Fourteen-year
old Jane Gilmore is having her hearing tested, at her parents' request. "They didn't want me going deaf before I was supposed
to," she said. Gilmore was afraid her custom earpiece might look like her grandparents' hearing aids. But these days, they
come in a rainbow of colors and she loves what they've done to her music. "I can hear what I'm listening to a lot better.
I don't have to turn my music up as loud," she said. Blakeney says custom ear pieces cost about $45 each. Nearly any audiologist
can help mold and fit one.
Advertise in our Newsletter
This
newsletter is sent to members and posted on our website, www.quietcornershhh.org. If you would like to advertise, please send
your ad and check to Quiet Corner SHHH, Inc., P.O. Box 314, Ashford, CT 06278.
Full
page plus website
$500.00Full page
$360.001/2 page
$200.001/4 page
$100.00Business card size
$ 50.00
Hearing Loss Association of America Convention 2007 Oklahoma City, OK • June 21 - 24Convention
2007 information will be updated as it becomes available.
Location: Cox Business/Services Convention Center
Hotel Room Block: Renaissance Oklahoma
City Convention Center
Hotel:
Sheraton Oklahoma City Hotel
2007 BOARD MEMBERS
