CAN YOU HEAR ME??

This is a picture of a Monarch Butterfly, sent to me by my Best Friend J. I have been promised the loan of a fancy camera for my trip, & so I am hoping I might be able to take some nice pics. I would love to be able to take beautiful photos such as Anty Evil has on her blog!!
This was taken in New Zealand, & I am not sure what the flowers are, but they look a bit like something that is considered a weed over here?

But my photo envy has nothing to do with today's post, really.

When GOM started to go deaf, he just totally refused to acknowledge it. He would pretend to have heard what was said, & make idiotic responses. It got to the stage where the neighbours on the opposite side of the street would wince, from the sound of our TV. You could see the walls shakiing from the sound impact!

I would find excuses to cower in the next room, to bear the volume.

I suspect hours of noisy bars, & loud bands in the Australian Hotel, had done the damage. GOM never minded the loud music, & sounds that would make me cringe in pain, seemed not to bother him at all.

I finally convinced him he needed to have his hearing checked. He had tried for months to deny he was going deaf, & he infuriated me by telling me it was I who was deaf, and that I mumbled, & that other people had bad manners- they wouldnt face him when talking to him. Apparently, all common denial tactics. He felt admitting to a problem was admitting aging!

When he first went to have the tests, he was given some literature to take home, to read & try, while the assessments of his hearing were being made.

This paper included such ludicrous suggestions, as 'Try to work out what has been said, by using the words you think you have heard, & then if you find you cant work it out, ask politely if they could repeat what was said.' Thereby making yourself look a complete, slow witted F***wit- (which they did not say, of course)!! Other such nonsense was suggested as a means to 'hear'.

Finally the assessments were done, & sure enough GOM was quite deaf, & he did need hearing aids. The imrpovement in our relationship was amazing, once I convinced him he needed to actually wear them! He said the resultant sounds were quite startling, & he couldnt believe that the sound of his footsteps was so loud. Apparently this is common, as people usually go deaf slowly, & they dont realise how much sound they have lost. We could at last have the television at a level of comfort.

As he was still working at that stage, he found the sound of machinery too loud with the aids in, so he wouldnt wear them to work. I asked him if he had told his boss, & co workers that he was in fact deaf. NO he said. I suggested it might be a good idea. And I laughed when he told me his boss had told him he just thought he was a grumpy old man who didnt want to listen!!

Now my brother tells me he has deafness, industrially caused, & he is to have assessments done for hearing aids. I am sure he will not be so stubborn, about not wanting to wear them.

When I was first trying to get GOM to go for tests, he told a neighbour's mother that he was far too young for hearing aids- she lifted her hair & showed him she had aids, & had worn them since she was 50!! I think it shocked him.

I dont know why men seem so reluctant to acknowledge they are aging.. Perhaps not all men do??