I was at a wedding, and the music cranked…. little did I know I was much more prepared for this than my relatives.

The music was SO LOUD that everyone had a hard time hearing everyone else. We wanted to visit and catch up, but it came down to a lot of simple correspondence and a lot of “Whats??” and “Whos??” and whole lot more smiling and nodding.

One thing that I didn’t realize was that the speechreading tools I had developed was MADE for this. Everyone was having difficulty, so I felt everyone was in the same boat as me. I soon found myself grasping more of the conversation than many relatives through my cochlear implant…  far supassing the ability to hear than any of my relatives that had a few too many to drink.

Either way, I felt empowered. It is a skill that was slow and painful to develop, but now I have it to use during such meaningful occasions!