My Story: A LONG introduction to ME

An Introduction to ME…Here is some of my story. It's long...and I wrote it over 2 months ago when I started the entire Cochlear Implant Voyage. I was going to start a blog then but put it off until now…so here’s my story…

I was born deaf in one ear. At least that's what they say. However, that was never diagnosed until I was in first grade. I was held back that year just to make sure I didn't miss anything. Since I didn't know any better having the hearing loss in that ear wasn't devastating since I had my left ear that worked fine. When I was about 8 years old I went to bed one night and woke up the next day and couldn't hear at all. Turns out I had lost hearing in the left ear. I went to the family doctor and she told my Mom I had "wind in my ear". That cracks me up! I guess the wind is still blowing. :-) After a few days of not being able to hear my Mom took me to another doctor and they said I was faking it. About 6 months prior to losing my hearing I was attacked by a dog. I had over 150 stitches and since it was my face that was attacked I later had plastic surgery to help with the scar. The doctor did a great job because it is hardly noticeable now. So, the doctors thought I wanted some "attention" since I had a lot of it before hand from the dog attack. So, my Mom took me to another doctor. I think they referred me to an Audiologist and they tried every trick in the book to prove I could hear when in fact I really couldn't. They finally realized that after several hours of testing. That was a fun day! I was finally referred to an ENT and he was the best doctor ever. He was mad that he couldn't have seen me sooner b/c by that time a week had passed and my hearing was gone. I was "deaf" for a while... maybe a year? I don’t really remember how long it was. I read a lot during that time since I couldn't really watch T.V or movies. I finally had surgery to restore some hearing in the left ear. I don't know exactly what they did but I was able to wear a hearing aid after the surgery and that helped tremendously. In fact, once I had hearing aids in both ears life went on as normal. The only time I was really different was at school when I had to wear the auditory trainer. Man I hated that thing. Could it be MORE obvious? :-) I went to regular school but I went to a "special" school part of the time. At the end of 4th grade I was mainstreamed and it stayed that way. Thank the Lord! There is NOTHING fun about riding in the little short bus!

As I said...life just went on. The fact that I am hearing impaired just wasn't a huge part of my life. I don't know how else to explain it really. I am a master at speech reading so that helps quite a bit. I guess I just accepted it and moved on. I never felt like I was extremely different from hearing people. I just say “what”? a little more often that others. I graduated from high school...barely. I don't think that was b/c of my hearing problem but more so I hated school. I do believe that I had some self esteem issues and probably didn't think I could be successful. My senior year of high school I became a Christian and I must may my perspective of the world changed for the better. For the first time in my life I had HOPE!

After graduating from high school I took a semester off and went to college. Johnson Bible College...in Knoxville TN. I still live here in TN. In May 2007 I graduated with my Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. I always loved telling people that a HOH person was going to "listen" to people for the rest of her life! :-) Haha. I love it. Sadly I have not been able to find a job in my field here in Knoxville TN. There is not much of a demand for Marriage and Family Therapists. So, I plan on going back to school to become a nurse.

Wow, I've really typed so much and I've barely scratched the surface! No kidding. I can say that in the past year or so I've had some problems with my hearing aid...at least that's what I thought. It wasn't until recently that I've realized it's not the hearing aid that's causing the problem but it's my HEARING. I went to the audiologist on Saturday (March 29th) to tweak my hearing aid for the umpteenth time. I told my audiologist that I have finally decided to be evaluated for implants. She was very happy about that. She really believes I'm a candidate. Without my hearing aids there is no doubt in my mind that I'm a candidate. However, with my hearing aids...I wonder. I don’t know how much they help. It is so hard to distinguish how much the hearing aids are doing and how much speech reading I'm doing. It's just so hard to separate the two! Plus, I'm VERY big on taking conversation topics into consideration and figuring out what people are saying by relating to the topic we are discussing. Is there a name for that? I’m not sure! Well my audiologist was intrigued as well so we were going to do a short test to find out...you know the drill. They put you in the booth and say "Say the Word: Cat, "Say the Word "Dog" etc. Well, I couldn't even hear "say the word"! It was shocking. She had to turn up the volume for me to even believe that the recording was ON! She is convinced I’m a candidate. However, at that time I was wearing the "new" digital hearing aid that I hate. Since then, I have gone back to my "old" hearing aid and I'm doing better now with that. However, I can't really depend on it for too long b/c it's really old and they don't make that kind anymore. If I'm without it then I'm lost. We didn't do a full test that day b/c we know that I'm going to go through some extensive testing for the CI evaluation. So, it will be interesting to see how much hearing I have really lost. My last hearing test was done in 2005 and I'm anxious to compare my new tests with the copy I have from 2005. We'll see what happens! Maybe they will find out what caused the hearing loss to begin with?

The previous info was written over a month ago. As you can see I was really struggling to find out if I was a candidate or how all of the testing would work. Well, I had a hearing test done and I failed it...or passed it depending on which way you look at it. I AM a candidate for the implant. I have about 12-18% speech discrimination WITH the hearing aids. However, my left ear did REALLY well with the hearing aid. It scored 100db without it but with it…it’s not a candidate for the implant. Crazy eh? The right ear was my doctor’s choice from the beginning because it is my worst ear and I don’t have any balance issues in that ear. According to the balance test that was performed the left ear has some issues but not enough to alarm my doctor besides the right ear is going Bionic for now. I do want bilateral implants but I’ll take it one ear at a time. Maybe I will be content with one. I kinda hope I am. We’ll find out!

I know this is long and from what I read I shouldn’t post long blogs b/c people would rather read short blogs. However, I wanted to share some background info. I want people to have an idea of where I’m coming from and how I got to this point. I guess I could explain it all one post at a time….but that’s BORING! Haha.

Well, that's my story...and yes I'm sticking to it.