Saturday, April 20, 2013

Check out Deaf Talks on Facebook



I have opened up a new Facebook Page called Deaf Talks at https://www.facebook.com/DeafTalks2013. In it I put some of my sign language videos that I have made. They are there to help people learn sign language. Other things I add are sign language pictures of single words. You can look at the pictures and learn how to sign some words by following the tips. Anything that has to do with deaf topics I usually add onto this page. Feel free to check it out. If you have anything interesting to add to the page that has to do with the deaf community feel free to do so. You can also find it by scrolling to the bottom right side of this page where it says Find Us On Facebook. Thanks for reading.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Hero is My Mother


My mother gave me a very good life and did a super job of raising me. She taught me from wrong to right and she made sure I got a good education. I can't imagine where I would be without all her help she has given me. My life is so much better because she was very supportive and helpful. She raised me in a ranch house with one floor in Kingston, New Jersey. The picture above was taken when she was pretty young. This is the house I grew up in as a kid. It is not there anymore. They tore it down to build a bigger house instead.

There were a lot of things to do in the backyard when I played with my brother. There was a jungle gym, sandbox and a clubhouse that we played in. The yard was pretty big with woods behind it that lead to a creek. I remember taking walks through the woods to see it. It always fascinated me when I was little and I would look at the minnows swimming in the water. On the side of our house there were tomato plants. So we had fresh vegetables with our salad. My mom was a fantastic cook. She made sure I ate very healthy and she also made sure I didn't eat too much junk food. As I grew up she got me involved in horseback lessons, gymnastics,arts and crafts classes and piano lessons. Each week I had to practice the piano and I became good at playing it.


Those are both pictures of my mother, she liked to travel to different places in the world at times. That's me as a little girl in the red shirt. She was always smiling in her pictures. My mother was always very well dressed also. She took great care of me and my brother. This is a picture of me and my brother who I used to play with. He was a very good and very smart kid.

We had a pretty good life. She took us on a trip to Florida every year to visit her parents. That was always so much fun. I loved going to Florida. We were at the zoo in that picture above. She took us to visit museums, to the zoo, and to plays. She really enjoyed life and educating us on interesting things that life had to offer. The most exciting trip she took us on was the Disney Cruise with our grandmother. I really enjoyed going there, and my daughter went. My mother worked hard to make sure I attended speech therapy after I was 3. A man used to come to our house to make sure my hearing aids worked and everything. Back in those old days, we didn't go to a hearing aid shop back in the 1970's. She was by my side through the most difficult times and helped me through them. She gave me so much support and worked hard with me to help me understand what was going on. I missed out on a lot of things because of my deafness, but my mother always helped me to understand what was happening. I am so grateful for my mother. What would I do without her?


Saturday, April 13, 2013

New Hearing Aids At Last!


Good evening everybody! It's so good to be here tonight. Last summer I had requested for new hearing aids from Beltone. They worked terrible, so I had them returned. Later my regular audiologist ordered a new pair of Phonak hearing aids for me. I had no idea how that would turn out due to my bad experience with the Beltone hearing aids. Believe me, I will never go back to Beltone, their hearing aids were awful. When I went to see my audiologist, he tested these new hearing aids on a machine hooked up to a computer. We had to pick out the level of the sound that I was comfortable with. Then he made new ear molds. This is what they looked like.

A few weeks later, I received a check given to me by my Empire Plan Insurance company. Happily I paid my audiologist the 3,000 dollars from my insurance company. That covered my hearing aids and my new ear molds, plus the batteries. So I didn't have to pay a dime. You could say I got them free. Boy I was lucky. Then I tried them on and they were very comfortable with the ear molds. I was very happy. These are much better than my old ones. I was hearing some sounds I never heard before in my entire life! So that is amazing. These are really good hearing aids.

Friday, April 5, 2013

NFTA Meeting In March


I was really very impressed by the progress being made in the NFTA meeting. There was so much new information at the last one in March. I was glad that the staff has been listening to my ideas and using some of them. They do record everything I say, and then it is written into an agenda for everyone to read. So I just received the meeting agenda for March 28th, 2013 and it was well done.

One of the things the agenda states is that travelers who are deaf can email TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.gov regarding questions when traveling at airports. People with disabilities or who need extra assistance in the Buffalo airport can can call TSA at 1-855-787-2227, 72 hours in advance. At the airport, TSA now has Passenger Support Specialists(PSS).

Towards the end of the meeting we discussed problems for the deaf on the train. I was telling them about how I can't hear the announcements and they are not closed captioned. I was very impressed with Todd describing to the NFTA staff with what the deaf riders goes through not knowing what is going on. He was excellent at explaining to everyone about some of the problems I experienced on the train not being able to hear. It made me feel happy that someone in the meeting understood how I felt when I could not hear or understand the announcements being made. So I'd like to thank Todd, the guy in the wheelchair for helping me at this point. He made it clearer to the people in the meeting what the deaf riders need when traveling on trains. I will be attending the next meeting in April and will keep you updated.