I just got word that Dr. Larry Fleischer, CSUN professor, passed away yesterday after arriving home, at Burbank Airport. He was very active in Deaf Studies and in deaf affairs.

He was a very nice man, and often stopped to talk to me while I was attending CSUN. I regret that I haven’t seen him for many years though. 

I understand more info will be posted soon when and where a memorial service will be held. 

My condolences to his family.

I’m still working on the book proposal. It’s starting to look really good, and I had to change one chapter a bit.

I’ve already got ideas for a second book. 

I’m still at the House Ear Institute, helping out with lipreading research.

I will be at the Walk4Hearing in Long Beach, CA on November 8th. Hope you can join us. I want to emphasize that you do NOT need to make a donation. If you join the walk, you’ll get a free T-Shirt.

Upcoming event for 2010: I believe I’ll be attending the HLAA National Convention, to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in June 2010. More details later.

Enjoy Halloween this coming Saturday. Hope you have your candy ready by then.

October is National Protect Your Hearing Month and it’s also Audiology Awareness Month. It’s a good month to check out your hearing for the upcoming holidays.

My DHH book proposal went out for review. I won’t hear anything until October 19th. So now I’m reading other hearing loss books and if I see anything I like, I’ll post it here. 

A new neighbor came over to visit us a few days ago. He’s our age. It turns out he knew we (my husband and I) had hearing problems and were fascinated by us. 

Why? Well, he wears two hearing aids and had suffered from hearing loss since childhood. I think he is happy to be friends who understand what he has gone through. He never had DHH friends to share with in the past. That’s good that he has us now. 

Remember, you’ll NEVER be alone, when it comes to having hearing problems. There are parties, organizations, clubs, travel events, conventions, schools, and all sorts of new technology for DHH (deaf and hard of hearing people) available to help you. 

Many DHH events are now live-captioned. This is good for DHH people who can’t sign, are bad at lipreading and signing, and don’t know how to use hearing aids yet.

There are two organizations that exist to help those with hearing loss issues. They are Alexander Graham Bell Association and the Hearing Loss Association of America. (There are others too.) I will talk about these two organizations in the next posting.

My husband and I will stand in solidarity with anyone who is suffering from hearing loss. 

You’ll never ever be alone.

I have to do a bit more tweaking on the proposal, and then it goes out tomorrow.

Let me take this time to tell everyone about the Walk4Hearing fundraiser, which will be in Long Beach, CA on Saturday, November 8th, 2009. It starts at 10 AM, and it’s a simple, beautiful walk right by the ocean. 

My husband is the honcho man for Walk4Hearing people living in Ventura County. Even if you can’t donate, join the walk. Show you care about hearing loss. The money goes to help develop awareness about hearing loss and what we can do about it.

If you want, you can visit the Walk4Hearing website at: www.walk4hearing.com. Our team name will be posted in a few days, and then you can donate to the Simi Valley Chapter or to Ventura Communities.

I’ll post more information about it in a few days.

My DHH book proposal is nearly done. I think maybe in a week or less. I am writing the sample chapter now.

We’re due for a brutal heat wave next week. Darn. But my husband and I believe it’s the last one for 2009, and then October will breeze in.

I love October. It’s my favorite month of the year. 

I will be helping with hearing loss research for the House Ear Institute shortly. I will share my experiences about that later.

If you have any questions about my book project, feel free to email me at: ruth_6572@hotmail.com.

Well, the weather has cooled off significantly, so I’ve been working on the DHH book proposal. It is coming along, and I have a target date of end of September. 

I also will be helping the House Ear Institute in downtown L.A., helping with research purposes. It is in the field of lipreading. It sounds really interesting, and so I’m happy to help out.

I won’t be posting as much, but I’ll still be here. Any questions or comments, email me at: ruth_6572@hotmail.com

This heat is horrible. And when the heat is bad, I don’t write well. 

Although it’s hot and dry, I don’t think Ventura County will have any fires. There’s a few in L.A. County, but we’re not really affected.

I start actual book writing on Monday. Hopefully this darn heat will be gone by then.

If you have questions or comments, please email me at: ruth_6572@hotmail.com.

Work is underway in doing the book. I have to have some case histories, a table of contents, possibly a sample chapter, and think of a title for it. Will be interesting to do all this.

I will also need to update the blogs with my new picture, my certificate, and get my personal website up and running soon.

The real writing grunt work starts this fall.

For you see, I’m waiting for my daughter to start her first year of high school next Wednesday. While she is in school, that’s when the house is peaceful and quiet, and I don’t have to clean up or do much housework. So that’s when I really write.

I’ll quit writing each school day when I go to pick her up at 3 PM. 

Looking forward to it.

It was sent to an editor yesterday and I’m told it is in pretty good shape. But it still needs a bit more work. So I’ll work on it some more and hopefully it will be ready by early fall.

I have another book proposal I want to do. The second book will be more of a comedy type and it will also be for the DHH market. I don’t want to spill the beans at this time.

I am so looking forward to the fall season. That’s when my daughter goes back to school, the weather is cooler and so I’ll be writing more.

I apologize for not blogging as much, but the book proposal and end of summer activities have kept me busy.

In the next week or so, I think the book proposal will be finished. It’s starting to look really nice, and I think I have novel information to offer the DHH reading market. 

Interestingly, here are many, many statistics that have been put out by various DHH agencies and they are all very different about how prevalent hearing loss is.

The reason why is because hearing loss is very difficult to quantify and measure. So all the numbers you will see are just really educated guesses. 

But what I can tell you is that the number of  people with hearing loss will rise in the coming years. The number of people with hearing and eye problems will also rise also. Why is that? Mainly because people are living longer.

Did you know that only 5% of DHH people sign? That about 80% of people who have hearing loss lose it after the age of 19?

Figures also range markedly as to how many of us have hearing loss. I have seen figures given from 10% to 17% of the general population, or about 28 million of us are DHH. That number might even be as high as 31 million. No one really knows.

Many people don’t even realize they have hearing loss, or even accept the idea they have it. So it’s a major problem.

My book proposal goes to an editor shortly, and then after that it goes to publishers for discussion and consideration.

I will keep you posted.