Thursday, October 23, 2014

Seeing: An Addendum

That feeling you get when the school district's audiologist sends you an email confirming your concerns about your student -- he has severe to profound hearing loss. It's that feeling of knowing you were right all along and being thankful and happy and grateful that you took a chance -- that even if you'd been wrong, your gut had pushed you to do something to help this child. And you followed those instincts even when it meant seeking an override on a decision made about this child before you even knew him. It's that kind of feeling: a feeling that is satisfying. Deep and full. And frightful.

My heart aches only because he has lived for seven years in a world of virtual silence. Undiagnosed and misunderstood.

And he has survived.

Now, it's time he thrives.

Monday, October 20, 2014

If You Give a Girl a CI...

If you give a girl a CI, she will need rechargeable batteries to keep her processor conveniently working. So she will need a charger.

If she gets a charger, she will need an outlet to plug it into the wall near her bed. But since she has a lamp and her phone plugged in there, she will probably ask for an adapter with extra outlets to accommodate her new charger. So she will go to the store and buy an adapter.

Once she has bought an adapter and sees the extra outlets, she will want to fill it up. So she will probably move her Dry-and-Store box to her bedside so she can dry her processor and hearing aid each night without getting up from her bed.

Now that she has her Dry-and-Store box near her bed, she will notice that she cannot hear her alarm since she sleeps with her hearing devices off, and she will decide to get a Sonic Boom alarm clock with a bed shaker to wake her in the morning.

The Sonic Boom alarm clock with a bed shaker takes up too much space on her bedside table -- along with the Dry-and-Store box and battery charger, so she will need to move her lamp and cool-mist vaporizer to the floor.

When she moves her lamp to the floor, it no longer illuminates her bedside while she is reading, so she will need to get a floor lamp instead. She will steal the one out of her daughter's room and hope she doesn't notice.

Now that she can see to read again, she will probably notice that her nose is stuffy because the cool mist is too far away to help her breathe well, so she will need to move her cool-mist vaporizer back to the table.

If she moves the cool-mist vaporizer back to the table, she will have to make room by moving something off the table and onto the window sill. The Sonic Boom alarm clock with a bed shaker will fit nicely on the window sill.

When she moves the Sonic Boom alarm clock with a bed shaker to the window sill, she will notice how dusty the curtains are, and she will decide to take them down and wash them.

After the curtains are in the washing machine, she will see that the blinds are just as dirty as the curtains, and she will decide she must clean them, too. She will like the look of her windows without the curtains, so she will decide to leave them off.

If she leaves the curtains off, she will notice that she needs to vacuum the carpet behind the curtains, so she will go downstairs to get the vacuum. While she is vacuuming the carpet, she will accidentally sweep up the cord to her phone and ruin it.

Since her cord is ruined, she will need to go to the store to get a new one.

When she gets home, she will plug the new cord into her new adapter and notice that one outlet remains empty, so she will decide to recharge her CI's remote control.

Since she is recharging her remote control by her bedside table, she will need a little basket to store it in. So she will go back to the store to buy one.

While she is at the store, she will spend $55 getting other things she needs, too.

When she is putting away the other things she bought, she will notice the space between her table and the wall, and she will begin to think how nice it would be to have a bigger table.

But if she gets a bigger table, she will want to get more stuff to fill it up.

And if she fills it up with more stuff, she will need another adapter to plug them all in!


Thursday, October 16, 2014

Seeing

"Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes good things need to fall apart before better things can fall together."

I really, really, really hate this sentiment. It seems like a cliche phrase that attempts to make people who experience misfortune feel better about their unfortunate circumstance. I don't believe that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes things just happen.

I have searched long and hard for that proverbial "silver lining" in my sudden hearing loss.
  • I sleep through thunderstorms. I sleep through pretty much everything now. That can be good. Unless you cannot hear the tornado sirens because you are sleeping so soundly without your hearing devices.
  • I can take a hearing break anytime the noisy humdrum of the world becomes too much. Discreetly turning the volume of my cochlear implant down to one or slipping the magnet completely off my head are two of my secret guilts. I can turn the world off if I want to.
  • I can even admit that I've purposely ignored the call of my name from the end of the school corridor when I was busily attending to tasks that needed my attention more -- pretty certain that the caller dismisses it because I have a hearing loss.
Honestly, though, these things aren't a silver lining. They are merely consequences of my hearing loss. And consequences can be good, as well as bad. Sometimes, I'm acutely aware of how my hearing loss affects my perception of events and my decisions and actions. And I believe that at times, I may be appointed by a higher power to be in a certain place and time.

I found such an appointment recently while working with a child in my first grade classroom. He came to me from a kindergarten classroom where he had spent two years. His kindergarten teacher had referred him for psychological testing for a learning disability. One of the concerns listed on his paperwork was his poor listening ability and inability to follow simple directions. Because he came from a Spanish-speaking family, his learning problems were attributed to his lack of English understanding. It didn't take me long to notice that he didn't speak in Spanish, either. Clearly, this child was nonverbal in either language. This raised all sorts of red flags for me. I spoke to his father and learned that he had been born prematurely and had a lot of problems at birth. His father confirmed my observation that his son's learning problems were not related to his English learning because he couldn't communicate in Spanish either.

I began to notice that there were distinct patterns in this child's communication. Having taken a beginning sign language class, I had incorporated simple hand signs for bathroom, water, and teacher help in my classroom. He readily learned and used them. While reading, he watched my mouth instead of the printed words, even when I turned his head to the book. He responded to directions when he faced me, but if I was behind him, he was unresponsive. He didn't respond to calls to move from place to place in the classroom or to change activities. He missed verbal cues, but he could follow visual cues. He mimicked speech, but didn't produce his own words. I believed his learning problems were not cognitive. I believed he wasn't learning because he couldn't hear.

The defining moment occurred when I expressed my concern to his speech-language therapist that he might have a hearing loss. She said that she had suspected the same thing, but that he had passed his hearing screening. She told me that he was doing a lot better, however, and proceeded to have him repeat words she spoke, which he did very well. But I told her I believed he was speech-reading her, and I went behind him and repeated the same words she said, "Say, 'apple.'" Nothing. "Say, 'yellow.'" Nothing. Again.

Since this time, we have been able to contact our school district's audiologist and express our concern about this child's hearing. We have requested a full hearing evaluation. I am anxiously awaiting the appointment.

Some people are calling me a hero. "You saved that boy's life," they say. They are saying I noticed because I am deaf, and I am more aware of hearing problems. "Why, of course the deaf lady would notice a hearing problem." Some say it's the reason for my hearing loss. The "better thing" that has come from my misfortune. They say it's God's hand. My silver lining. To be in this time and in this place. My divine appointment.

I like to think they're right, in a way. But maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's just what happens when a teacher's love and experience connects her with her students in ways others cannot understand. And she notices what others miss. Not because she's special or different or even --- deaf. But because she has learned to see.

**You can read more in another post that tells what became of my student following his diagnosis of profound hearing loss: http://bonniestone.blogspot.com/2015/02/monday.html

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Whoa


There are times when I almost feel normal in my hearing life. This cochlear implant and hearing aid can be pretty good. And then there are times the sobering realization of just how bad my hearing has gotten slaps me across the face.

My head has been aching where the magnet pulls on my scalp as it connects my external parts to the internal parts. I'd hoped the ingrown hair the doctor removed last week would have taken care of the problem, but it's continued this week. I've been worried the headache might morph into one of those chronic migraines I've had in the past. They're hard to lick. Extra strength Tylenol and ice packs have helped. So last night, as I was watching TV, I decided to take a Tylenol and lay back in the recliner with an ice pack against the side of my head. I'd already retired my hearing aid to its dry box for the night. All I had was the little hearing I have left

Whoa.

My ears suck.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

And The Oscar Goes To...

I had my six-month check up with my otologist last week. Because my right ear has hearing loss, too, I've earned a biannual appointment so he can keep tabs on it. It also gives him the opportunity to look at my implanted ear and gloat on his prowess as a cochlear implant surgeon. Some people have called him arrogant. Maybe he is. I like him. If I listen carefully and jump in with questions when he stops to take a breath, I can learn a lot from him. We pack a lot of conversation into those few minutes he schedules for me.

"Your audiogram is stable," he informs me.

That means that my range of hearing loss is unchanged. Within the realm of decibels and frequencies, I remain in the severe hearing loss domain. Though my hearing has slid a bit further down the scale, it remains above the dreaded "profound" range where my hearing aid will no longer be a viable option for hearing.

"It's a typical cookie bite hearing loss," he says, referring to the scoop in the middle of my audiogram that looks as if someone took a little bite right out of it. "It's usually hereditary, you know."

Actually, this is the first I've heard of that. I remind him that no one in my family has hearing loss except me. "But have any of them been checked?" he asks nonchalantly as he looks into my ear. Hmm, not that I know of, I think. "Is my sudden deafness in my other ear related to this cookie bite?" I ask.

"No. That's a completely different thing," he continues as he plucks another infected ingrown hair from my cochlear implant scar. I can't believe I'm still getting these impacted hairs almost 10 months after my surgery. 

"You might not have even noticed a hearing loss for a long while if it [the sudden hearing loss] hadn't happened. There. I think I got them all," he says, putting down his tools.

"Is that what's been making my head ache?" I ask him as he dabs my head. "I thought I needed a lighter magnet."

He takes my processor and proceeds to unscrew the magnet. "You have a lot of play with the magnet," he says. "See, I can unscrew the magnet so it's not so tight against your head. Try that." I reattach the magnet. I'll have to use it a few days before I know if it helps. He explains that the ache usually comes at the end of the day because the skin flap is thinner and less hydrated. It's kind of like how feet and fingers are fuller and puffier in the mornings, but shrink a bit by days end. That's why my scalp aches. I need to remember to turn the magnet as the day goes on.

"It's an amazing piece of technology, isn't it?" he asks, mostly rhetorical. He doesn't really expect an answer. "A few years ago, I'd be holding your hand singing Kum Ba Yah. There'd be nothing I could do for you," he says. "But now you can hear. You have your life back."

He asks if I'm still teaching or if I've retired yet. He remembers that I told him if this cochlear implant wasn't a miracle then I'd have to leave teaching. "It's not a miracle," I confess. "But it is amazing." And I thank him for everything he's done. He smiles smugly. It's a bit awkward for me. I wonder if he knows I'm not as thrilled about it as he is. But then I remember what a great actress I am. His ego is intact.

He shakes my hand and tells me he wants to see me again in six months unless I need him sooner.

I deserve an Oscar.