My Cochlear Implantiversary

I cannot let this day end without taking a moment to mark this milestone date.

At this moment, one year ago, I was sleeping off the effects of four hours of anesthesia from my cochlear implant surgery. The surgery took a bit longer than expected, but otherwise, it was a mostly routine operation, according to my surgeon.

I awoke from the surgery groggy and nauseated, but the pain and dizziness were minimal. Nothing a few hours (or days) of sleep wouldn't resolve. I nuzzled up with my comfy chenille-covered travel pillow, fuzzy blankets, and pain medications in the upstairs recliner and slept in a semi-upright position until I felt well enough to move about more.

One year later, it's still quite vivid in my mind. It was that impressive. And it's been a year of pretty impressive events as I've learned to adjust and hear with my cochlear implant. It's not perfect, by any standard. But I continue to be amazed at the little and the big hearing accomplishments I have worked so hard to achieve. And I know there are many more milestones to come.

I can hear. Happy Cochlear Implantiversary to me.

People Who Whisper

There is a colleague in my school who is always bending my ear. He has so much to say. I don't know if he talks to everyone like he does to me. But he never misses the opportunity to tell me some pressing news.

The problem isn't so much that he wants to tell me things. The problem lies in the way he tells me.

He whispers in my ear.

Whispers are one of the sounds that evade my cochlear implant. It just sounds like noise in my ear. I don't know the science of whispering, or why I can't perceive them. I'm sure the answer lies somewhere in the frequencies or decibels of speech. It doesn't really matter. I just know that whispered words aren't comprehensible to me. It's that proverbial mosquito buzzing in my ear.

"I'm deaf, you know," I remind him often. But it doesn't make much difference. He continues to pull me aside and speak imperceptible words to me.

I've learned to smile and nod. Mostly out of kindness. And a little sympathy. It's not so much that he needs me to respond back, I suppose, as it is his need to just say what is on his mind. And he has found a safe venue in me for sharing his secrets.

I mean, who better to vent to than a person who is guaranteed not to share and spread those secrets beyond those whispered words? The deaf lady, of course. She never heard a word.

Alliteration

I have noticed that there is a preponderance of bloggers and writers and storytellers today. There's a plethora of blogs available online for our perusal. And for each one, there are as many reasons and purposes for why they write and for whom they write. The sheer volume of self-publishing sites and the progeny of self-proclaimed authors is a bit pretentious to this pragmatic mind of mine.

As a teacher and specialist of reading and language arts, I have learned to be proficient in and perceptive of our written language. I am practiced in reading and writing prose and poetry, essays that teach and inform, stories that entertain, and even the pith of self-reflection.  I dare not pretend that my writing is perfect, nor am I presumptuous that what I write is profound and proper -- or even paramount for most people.

But it is practical for my purpose. 

I am pleased that some follow my story and participate in my professed self-indulgence. I possess a bit of pride for my prowess with the written word -- my love affair with the sounds and words that make our language rich and profound.

I write for myself. I write to purge. I write to practice. I write for pretense. And patience and perseverance and peace. It is my panacea.

I write because it doesn't matter that I am deaf when the words pour from my thoughts. For the written word isn't heard in my ears. It is heard in the promise of my heart.

"STOP HUMMING!!!"

I'd had quite enough of the near constant drone of student voices while trying to finish individual sight word assessments. The noisy buzz of my busy classroom was wreaking havoc on my already frazzled patience as I had continually quieted the children over and over.

It spilled into the very important assessment time. Students were supposed to be writing "My Yesterday Story" in their journals. It wasn't to be. Several students couldn't even remain in their seats for a full minute. And the talking was both excessive and loud.

I couldn't hear the student I was testing. I 'd been interrupted too often, and I was still on the first student!

"Stop talking," I said in a loud voice. (I'm certain I'd said that at least a million times that day.)

But the utterances continued. I could see the culprit, and I stopped the assessment yet again to redirect the student, this time by name.

"Stop talking now, David!"

I continued with the assessment for less than a minute when the monotonous drone resumed.

"I don't know who's humming, but it better stop NOW!" (I think my own voice was at glass-shattering decibels.) "STOP HUMMING!"

It wasn't exactly pin-drop quiet, but it was remarkably improved. Yet the hummer continued to hum  -- softly and steadily.

It was only after I'd dismissed my students and safely put them into their parents' cars or hands that I returned to the room.  I proceeded to the table where I'd left the microphone transmitter of the FM system that I'd used while assessing students today. The district audiologist had only delivered this new FM system for me to try out the day before. The telecoil in my cochlear implant processor activated automatically when the neckloop I was wearing came back into range of the transmitter.

And there it was. The hum. And not a student to be found.

Apparently, the telecoil picks up the hum of the overhead fluorescent lighting. I didn't know.

I owe my students a big apology tomorrow. 

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.

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!

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