Dorothy, it sounds like time to let some professionals start the hearing exams, and if you can schedule a specialist, get their input. Guessing and diagnosing it yourself can only go so far. And you can scare yourself.

Explosive coughs today, the kind that jolt you out of sleep. Drinking lots of fluids. A friend stopped by today and left me with a fresh box of Puff's super soft super strong tissues. They'll get put to use!

Still finding and removing interesting stuff in the sewing studio, and today I added one thing - a small electric bobbin winder. The winder on my oldest machine stops winding thread at about half-full on the bobbin so I have to change them more often than I like. I haven't been able to trick it into filling more without messing up the tension. This one should give me more thread while at the same time not overfilling because then they can jam. (For any lurkers who sew, the device is called a Sidewinder by Simplicity. There is a DeLuxe version that has a more involved setup, but the basic original does the job for me.)