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Steeldrifter

Really hard time lately

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Under the ADA the court will have to reasonably accommodate your hearing impairment so that you can serve, which is a right. Write in advance to the court to tell them your disability and ask for an interpreter / assistant to be with you in the jury pool room and in the courtroom for jury selection, and in the jury room for deliberations, and for the court to use CART (real time captioning) during the trial if you are selected as a juror.

Explain the details of your disability during voir dire (you can ask the judge to do this in private, outside the hearing of the other jurors) and trust the judge and the lawyers to know what they're doing in deciding whether to use you or send you home. They may decide your other qualities far outweigh your disability, especially when accommodated. If you are selected and then the whole thing messes up and you actually can't function as a juror, the judge can always send you home and replace you with an alternate juror, or even call a mistrial if need be.

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Good to know Chug.  Thank you.  I’m not sure how this will play out after the results of my Dr Visit.  I’m just going to insist that if they won’t exempt me then I must be able to hear the testimony by whatever means they offer.  

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Well, still dealing with it a bit but I "think" it's VERY SLOWLY ☹️ getting a bit better. Been dealing with it for about 5 weeks now. I can't help but think that microsuction ear cleaning I had must have just really aggravated/intensified the slight tinnitus I already had. Because I always had a very slight bit of it which usually only was noticeable in a completely quiet room. But after that loud microsuction they did in my ears  it was just horrible after that. First week it was so loud I honestly could not block it out with anything and just wanted to not live anymore if that's how it was going to be. Then it seemed to have periods where it would quiet down some then come back more. Now the past 10 days, on most days it seems more just like a quieter high pitch hiss in the very far background. Still have some days where it just gets to me and bugs the hell out of me, but I "think" it seems like it might be very slowly getting better than it was (fingers crossed).

The meds they put me on are screwing with my sleep though which sucks. They got me on a beta block, and then Lunesta and a .5 xanax if I need it because I have so much trouble sleeping because of it. Not sure if its the xanax or the lunesta, but one of them is making me have constant dreams all night long. And no matter what I do I wake up at 4am, then 7am, then finally 9am. Probably gonna start tapering off the meds here in the next week and see if I cant get my sleep a bit more back to normal hopefully.

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I guess I am fairly fortunate with my case of tinnitus.  Most of the time I basically tune it out.  It immediately comes to my attention for a while though if someone mentions tinnitus.

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That's called habituation, that's what most people with chronic tinnitus strive for with it. If mine does not go away completely then that's what I will hope to achieve with mine as well. Studies show that 98% of people can/do habituate no matter how loud or bad their tinnitus is, but on average that can take 6-18 months to happen. 

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I had my Dr's appointment yesterday and he wrote me a letter stating that my hearing loss was severe enough that I should not serve on a jury even with the assistance of headphones.  This was mainly because of the results of my word differentiation test where you wear headphones and they ask you to repeat the words you hear.  I scored a solid 63% correct.  The doc did say not to be surprised if the still deny me. 

 

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On 4/19/2021 at 10:12 AM, Steeldrifter said:

That's called habituation, that's what most people with chronic tinnitus strive for with it. If mine does not go away completely then that's what I will hope to achieve with mine as well. Studies show that 98% of people can/do habituate no matter how loud or bad their tinnitus is, but on average that can take 6-18 months to happen. 

Steve for what it's worth my Dr. did tell me that the tinnitus therapy videos on youtube do work well for some people.   Because tinnitus is generated by the brain sometimes the brain can be trained to shut it off.  This can be done by listening to tones in similar frequencies.  He said my best chances are to find a therapy video that plays tones close to what my tinnitus sounds like and then listen to it for a few hours per day.  

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32 minutes ago, DFoster said:

Steve for what it's worth my Dr. did tell me that the tinnitus therapy videos on youtube do work well for some people.   Because tinnitus is generated by the brain sometimes the brain can be trained to shut it off.  This can be done by listening to tones in similar frequencies.  He said my best chances are to find a therapy video that plays tones close to what my tinnitus sounds like and then listen to it for a few hours per day.  

Been actually trying that for awhile now with some retraining videos online. Can't really say for sure if they are helping or not though. Mine now has changed a bit to where it's mostly a really, and I mean REALLY high pitch sound. I'd say probably up around 14000 hz or there abouts. It's not as loud as it was 7 weeks ago by any means, but still annoying as hell at times. Past 2 weeks were pretty decent where it's just a background sound that I notice but not terrible. But then there are still bad days like yesterday. Dunno why, guess just some days it piles up on my mind, but just really drove me nuts yesterday. Thankfully this morning I feel a bit better and bit more like I have for the past couple weeks where I can push it to the back of my mind again for a bit.

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5 hours ago, Steeldrifter said:

Been actually trying that for awhile now with some retraining videos online. Can't really say for sure if they are helping or not though. Mine now has changed a bit to where it's mostly a really, and I mean REALLY high pitch sound. I'd say probably up around 14000 hz or there abouts. It's not as loud as it was 7 weeks ago by any means, but still annoying as hell at times. Past 2 weeks were pretty decent where it's just a background sound that I notice but not terrible. But then there are still bad days like yesterday. Dunno why, guess just some days it piles up on my mind, but just really drove me nuts yesterday. Thankfully this morning I feel a bit better and bit more like I have for the past couple weeks where I can push it to the back of my mind again for a bit.

I hope the good days are more of a trend than an exception. All the best.

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OT.   Have you ever Bonsai’d trees that bloom?   We have lots of Azaleas down here in Dixie.   Some have been bred to bloom spring and fall.  They’re “Encore” and are evergreen.  Regular ones are deciduous.  Ran across this on FB...... Hope you get better...🤗Does Smalliehunter visit here anymore?

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Hang in there Steve, habituation happens, impossible as it may seem. Your condition is very different from what I experienced with tinnitus and hearing loss, you still have your hearing I don't know if that makes the noise more or less consistent. I would be concerned about the sleep / dream patterns changing, everyone needs rest.

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12 hours ago, denduke said:

OT.   Have you ever Bonsai’d trees that bloom?   We have lots of Azaleas down here in Dixie.   Some have been bred to bloom spring and fall.  They’re “Encore” and are evergreen.  Regular ones are deciduous.  Ran across this on FB...... Hope you get better...🤗Does Smalliehunter visit here anymore?

Yup, I have a Bougainvillia that blooms usually mid summer. It gets real nice bright purple colors to it. Technically bougainvillias don't actually "bloom" because the bracts of the leaves is what actually turns the color, but I still call it blooming though. I also use to have an Azalea bonsai that would bloom out real nice every spring. Not sure what happened to it but it ended up dying about 2 years ago and lost that one.

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12 hours ago, cphubert said:

Hang in there Steve, habituation happens, impossible as it may seem. Your condition is very different from what I experienced with tinnitus and hearing loss, you still have your hearing I don't know if that makes the noise more or less consistent. I would be concerned about the sleep / dream patterns changing, everyone needs rest.

Sleep has been a lot better the past 10-14 days now. I managed to stop taking the Lunesta about 10 days ago, and I started decreasing the xanax last week and now have been off that for a few days now. Been trying to get up earlier as well as go to bed earlier too so able to go to sleep now about 1am and get up about 8am. Had a real good day yesterday and had a good part of the day where I didn't really notice the sound for probably 40-50% of the day. I think because my hearing is still so good it does make mine a bit more weird than others. Because I notice some sounds that seem to make the tinnitus worse, and its sounds that I use to like for years. For instance the sound of a fan. I have slept with a fan on high for most of my life, the white noise always helped me sleep. But for some reason since all this happened, I can't turn the fan past low because the sound of the fan actually makes the high pitch tinnitus sound worse. I have no idea why, but that just seems weird to me.

This morning seems pretty decent again as well so hoping things are going in the right direction maybe. Been feeling a lot more like myself lately. Actually starting to plan my yearly 2 week alone trip North maybe in June, which I couldn't even think about doing just a month ago with the way I was feeling. So just trying to stay positive and keep doing things and hopefully get past this.

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