Demons

Scapegoat

Mercury is in retrograde. The Old World Farmers' Almanac says we are all affected by the retrograde. What's normal becomes the opposite. Mercury's retrograde periods can cause our plans to go awry. It is often attributed to a time of loss. However, it can be an excellent time to reflect on our past. Intuition is high during retrograde, and coincidences can be extraordinary. When Mercury is in retrograde, we must remain flexible, but avoid making decisions until it is over.

Damn Mercury.

As my implant surgery draws near, past reflection is useless. My mind is forward set. And my emotions are high. My demons lie just below -- in the darkness -- where Mercury rises.

To submit myself to cochlear implant surgery feels like a resignation of the inevitable. There will be no miracle for me. The surgery will render my cochlea permanently and irrevocably damaged. I am not a hearing person anymore, and I never will be again. As "good" as current hearing aid technology is, it will never be as good as God-given hearing is. Or was. I am and will forever be  -- deaf.

Some people would say to me, "But a cochlear implant will be your miracle." I'm not sure I can agree with that. In some ways, I think it will be like a gift -- a restitution of sorts --  a reparation of something lost; equivalent, but not equal. It's a matter of "perspective" -- a term I've heard thrown around a lot lately. That perspective depends on which side of the line you stand on, however. And I stand on the deaf side.

There are well-meaning friends who try to encourage and understand what I am going through. But they have no idea what it's like from my perspective. I hate advice from people who don't know, especially when they're telling me how I should feel. But I hate the "my [insert any name of any random acquaintance here] who [wears hearing aids/has a cochlear implant] and they LOVE it" people more than anything else.

I usually just smile and nod, but I really want to punt them out the window.

It's Mercury, I know. When Mercury is in retrograde the human psyche is dark, so other senses are heightened. We feel extra sensitive here. We notice things overlooked before. We slip-up, make mistakes, and misread others' words.  And we shine a light on our demons.

Mercury retrograde is a scapegoat, I think, for our human frailty.

I don't believe in astrology. But I sure am glad my surgery is scheduled when retrograde is over.

I Ordered My Cochlear Kit Today

...and it felt a little like Christmas.

"You can pick six things to go in your kit." My audiologist was explaining the procedure and recommending the things I should probably get -- a good thing since I have no clue whatsoever.

"You will get a second processor, so you will have a back-up -- one will have the accessory port and one won't." The N6 has wireless capability, but it is still under development and hasn't been released to the public yet, so having a port to plug in the sundry cables is important right now, even if I don't think I'll use it -- I may change my mind later. The processor with the port will be wireless, too, when the technology is ready, but the one without the port is a little bit smaller and lighter. I might prefer wearing it when I am not using the accessories. It's important to have a back-up processor, too, in case one fails or gets damaged or lost. I won't have to walk around deaf while waiting for it to be repaired or replaced.

"You will get two remote controls. The full capacity one and the pocket-sized one." Both make changing programs and settings convenient and simple. They're also important for doing something called "synching." (I have sooooo much to learn!)

"You should get the accessory cable" to listen to things like my phone and iPod though my processor.

"And snug fits" for times when I am doing things that could cause my processor to fall off. Like hiking. Or dancing. Or bending over to tie first graders' shoelaces.

"And I think the lapel mic is important for those one-on-one listening times with your students." I will be able to hear my students directly in my processor while I am testing them or when they are reading to me. Could be cool, I think. I can use it on dinner dates, too, if I can talk my husband into wearing it. Hearing his voice in noisy restaurants has become quite a challenge.

"That's six," she finished. Other things can be nice and fun to have (like the colorful processor covers if I want to pimp my CI), but they are usually less expensive and I can purchase them through the Cochlear Store if I want them. So many things. So many, many things.

Then she adjusted my hearing aids for the higher frequencies of 6- and 7-year old voices that have been giving me grief, and added, "When I turn on your implant, I'll make your BiCROS hearing aid just a regular, old hearing aid for your right ear." I got a screeching feedback in my right hearing aid at that exact moment.

I think its feelings were hurt at the prospect of being regular. And old.

Thank Goodness for Little Ears

"Here, Mrs. Stone," a student said nonchalantly as she handed me the telephone handset. (It was the office calling.)

I had divided my students into reading partners to reread this week's story selection together while I sat with 3 students to provide extra help and instruction. The indistinct murmuring of 23 little reading voices easily drowned out the telephone's ring. And even the satellite handset which I placed near my reading table was inaudible to me.

My first instinct was to ask her why she had brought the telephone to me. Then I heard it ring. I've no idea how long the caller had waited.

Teaching is full of challenges every day -- under any circumstance. To those of us with hearing loss, those challenges can seem larger-than-life. But sometimes, they're hardly noticeable, if at all -- like the telephone.

It used to be so simple.

Thank goodness for little ears whose perfect hearing can hear when my ears cannot.

You Can't Lip Read a Puppet

No matter how hard you try. No matter how hard you concentrate. You can't lip read a puppet.

That's the truth.

My first graders watched a puppet show about bullying today. They laughed and giggled and yelled, "STOP! I don't like that!" Their smiles and laughter were unrestrained and enthusiastic. To say they enjoyed the show would be an understatement. They drank it in. It was intoxicating.

But I discovered that puppets are poor subjects for lip reading. To my weary, hard-of-hearing ears, the voices of the puppeteers were not only muffled, they were pretty near impossible to comprehend at all through the backdrop of children's laughter, the puppet stage, and the black hoods the puppeteers wore to hide themselves while they acted in their puppet persona. You can't lip read a puppet. It's impossible. They don't have lips.

So I chose to watch my students instead. What joy it must be to be 6. And to hear. And to watch a puppet show.

Resistance is Futile

I have come to the realization that my life revolves around a little zinc air battery. Size 312 to be specific. No bigger than a chocolate chip.

It's true. I count the little fuel cells in my battery pack nearly every day. I check and double check my battery stash before I leave for school each day. I have stashes everywhere, too. I keep a pack in my wallet. I keep a pack in my desk  at school. I have spares in my car's console. I have more on my nightstand. I buy them in bulk.

It's an obsession, I think. I live in fear that the low battery tones will sound in my hearing aids and there will be nary a cell to be found.

Oh, the dreaded tones that startle me from my daily business and routine with their long, descending "bing, bing, bing" that alert me to change my batteries. It's a tenacious beast, it is. If I don't drop everything I am doing and change them, it will continue to nag me every half hour until I do, or until they die from neglect. And the beast rears its head every other day.

But it's not the batteries that are most annoying. It's the little orange stickers that must be peeled away to activate them. Somehow, some way, they manage to stick themselves to everything but the inside of my trash can liner. It's rather like those little orthodontic rubber bands that used to shoot out of your mouth at the most inopportune times as a braces-wearing teen and got lost in the neverlands of your room, only to resurface stuck to the bottom of your foot as you were dressing for school.

I find those pesky little orange tabs everywhere. On my car seat. Stuck to my bed pillow. On the seat of my pants. On the cat's tail. Seriously. How DO those little buggers bug me so much?

They are winning, I can tell. And they are consuming my time and attention. We, the hearing-aided, are battery-operated people. Yes, we are Borg. Resistance is futile.

If I Had a Dollar

Still not funny to me.

If I had a dollar for every person who said, "You don't sound deaf" to me, I'd be in a financially sound position whereby I could enjoy an early retirement without having to change my champagne tastes.

In pondering this all-to-common occurrence, I am astonished at the number of people who would expect that just because I have profound deafness, that my half century as a "normal" hearing person would be negated as suddenly as my hearing loss, or that my speech would even be affected.

It's an interesting, if perplexing, commentary on our perception of what a "deaf" person should sound like. Or act like. I think the television and movie industry have done a great injustice in perpetuating the less-than-favorable stereotypes of deaf people. And it's even more interesting to me since I've learned that many people with hearing loss are actually late-deafened, like me, and don't fit this stereotype of what we think a deaf person should be at all. Not all of us can sign, or read lips. And most of us have no problems with articulation. We don't "sound deaf."

I have secretly begun to respond to comments like these in my mind... Well, I was going to stop off in the phone booth and don my blue tights, red cape, and super D (for deaf) shirt before I came over, but I was running a little late because of the traffic. You know, I only sound deaf when I'm wearing my superhero costume. The rest of the time, I'm incognito as a normal-hearing person.

Of course, before my hearing loss, I, too, carried the same stereotypes of people with hearing loss deep inside the recesses of my own cultural ignorance.

I didn't have a clue.

When I lost my hearing, I worried about so many things unknown to me. I worried that I would forget what things sound like, or that I would somehow forget how to talk, or that my perception of what "normal" speech sounds like would dissipate and I would regress into sounding "deaf." I worried that my hearing aids would be a visible sign of my aged and decrepit incompetence, and I was fearful that when people knew of my hearing loss, I would become a victim of ageism. I cried when I saw pictures of people wearing cochlear implants because I didn't want to look deaf, and I was fearful and overly sensitive of comments and jokes about getting old and going deaf. I worried that, in the eyes of those around me, my hearing loss would be equated with a loss of intelligence, and I would be relegated to a drooling fool.  I even put the question to my audie. "Will I still be able to talk?" (Hear the angst in my voice?)

She choked back a giggle, much like I do when my first graders say something cute and endearing. Then she reassured me that "at my age" I wouldn't have any speech regression. "You know how to form sounds and words and your knowledge of semantics and syntax are fully developed and ingrained in your speech," she patiently explained. "It won't change."

Whew. In all the things lost with my hearing, at least my speech will remain the same. The problem is that I remember all too well how things sound. And I miss the sounds I can no longer hear.

But I found that my perceptions of the deaf and hard-of-hearing have changed. Those I have met are multi-aged and they are multi-faceted. I am learning to look and hear beyond the stereotype I had formed before I knew better. And I hope that in some simple way, I am helping others to do the same.

It's a daunting task.

So this afternoon, after hearing my dermatologist ask about how things were going with my hearing loss, his nurse said to me, "I would've never guessed that you had any hearing loss. You don't act any different than anyone else" I quietly smiled and secretly calculated another dollar into my early retirement fund. Ka-ching... Maybe I should open another bank account.

Didn't You Hear Me?

"I was ringing the doorbell. I left my house key in the house. Didn't you hear me?"

No. No, I didn't.

The doorbell is in the upstairs hallway. It's a terrible design for a house since most of our waking time is spent in the family room, which is downstairs AND at the back of the house, far removed from the doorbell. The dishwasher was running and the TV was on. I probably would've had a difficult time hearing anyone at my door under those circumstances, even if I weren't almost deaf. But considering I wasn't wearing my hearing aids while I was having my morning coffee, hearing the doorbell has become an impossibility for me.

It was a simple question, and innocent enough in it's intention.  But, I really can't hear you. That's the reality that is so difficult to get used to for those who know me. I have lost that much hearing. I have a German Shepherd dog who does a good job of alerting me to these things when she's inside with me, but she isn't a constant companion. She likes to run in the yard -- she may need to run less and stay in the house more.

I worry a lot about whether I will be able to hear the doorbell. Or the telephone. Or the smoke alarm. Or even an intruder in my house. I am aware that there are many technological and electronic devices that I could wire my house with that would alert me when these things occur, but they are costly to purchase and install, and they tend to be rather institutional in design. Not necessarily what I want in my home decor. And I'm afraid it would serve as a constant, depressing reminder of what I will never have again.

...another thing lost along with my hearing: a certain amount of my sense of security and well-being. And my list continues to grow.

I can't hear the fire alarm at school, and I'm not sure if I am hearing the telephone or being alerted by my students that it is ringing. The intercom is difficult to hear and even harder to understand. I have no directionality, and I cannot tell from where sounds or voices are emanating. (The disorientation can be fierce at times.) I have lost much of the comprehension of my husband's speech, as well as my parents' voices over the phone, and television without captioning is a frustrating experience. I never listen to the radio or CDs. I don't even like to sing anymore. I've noticed I turn my "better" ear towards people who are talking to me now, and I am continually apologizing for asking them to repeat themselves. Last night at dinner, I finally told the waitress that I had no idea what she'd just said, so she said sympathetically, "Let me just point to it on the menu." I don't know if I was embarrassed, angry, or hurt by her response. All I know is that I didn't like how it made me feel.

"You're really sad, Mom," my daughter confided tonight. "You just shake your head and smile and say 'thank you' like you don't know what she is asking."

It's because I don't know what she's asking, I thought to myself. And it's getting harder to pretend that I do. I'm trying to be polite, but people are shaking their heads at me.

Maybe I should wear a sign on my forehead.