Dick Kroese
Jennifer Jefferis is a retired counselor, speaker and writer. She spoke for a recent SaddleBrooke Sunrise Rotary Club regarding her personal experience with hearing loss. Jennifer shared how through her own loss she came to understand what others were going through. After thirty years of ear infections and multiple surgeries, she struggled so hard to achieve.
With her background in counseling, she knew this was a topic people have trouble dealing with and talking about. She also knows how difficult it is to find someone who understands your situation and whom you can trust.
Jennifer knows hearing loss is hard to face. She also knows it took her being barely able to hear her grandson laugh or cry before she dealt with it. She got to the point that she didn’t want to go anywhere because other people did not understand what it was like and they treated her differently. It was at that point she began to notice a decline in her own cognitive abilities and realized she needed to ask for help. Through Dick Kroese, a member of Rotary, and his wife Judy, a retired speech language pathologist, Jennifer found out about a class at The University of Arizona Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. It was there where she was able to face her own loss through the encouragement of a group called Living Well with Hearing Loss. From there she took the steps necessary to find out about her own kind of hearing loss and get the help she needed.
SaddleBrooke Sunrise Rotary Club is proud of all our members, who make contributions of time and money to assist those within our community and over the world. Won’t you join us in making a difference? We meet every Thursday at noon in the Catalina Room next to the Mesquite Grill. Please contact Ron Lenz, membership chair, at 262-358-0130.