MattB
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2014
- Messages
- 218
- Reaction score
- 3
I finally decided to join up and say hi. My name's Matt, I'm 35 years old and am currently living in Interlachen, FL, but Jacksonville is my birth city and where most of my family live at. I was born with a skin condition called KID Syndrome that has affected my skin (naturally), my eyes, and my hearing. I was 2 years old when I was diagnosed as being hard-of-hearing. Originally my mom thought I was just ignoring her and would spank me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that even when I did hear her, I'd still ignore her commands. Men are masters of selective hearing!
I've worn hearing aids in both ears, and am categorized as having severe-to-profound hearing loss. I have to wear BTE aids because the smaller ones just aren't powerful enough. I actually, somehow, managed to go through high school without wearing any aids at all. At first I did well enough, but the more self-conscious I became, the worse my grades became. I cannot imagine the amount of times I didn't hear someone or said "what?" to someone.
Because I don't do too well with jobs, I am mostly self-employed and have taught myself both web design and repairing computers. I live with two roommates in a house in front of a lake. I love cooking, gaming on the computer, following the Florida Gators college football team, and going broke collecting gadgets of all kinds (yes, yes, boys and their toys, etc ...)
The past 5 years my vision started going really bad and I became legally blind, with my vision well over 20/200. However, earlier this year I was diagnosed a new medication called Soriatane that, amazingly enough for the first time in my life, cleared up my skin issues significantly. As an added bonus, much to the dismay and delight of my dermatologist, it fixed up my vision to where I can now see 20/40 with contact lenses. The optometrist is so happy, she's doing a case study to see if others can benefit from what I went through.
As a result, I've gotten a bit more out of my shell (I tend to be shy, you know, with bad hearing, speech impediment, vision ... it's difficult to be social with those challenges.) Probably why I decided to join this community, have been getting out more, talking to people more, getting in shape, etc. Quality of life improvements has an amazing effect on people!
So there you go, a brief introduction about me. Questions? Advice? Suggestions? I'm all ears!
I've worn hearing aids in both ears, and am categorized as having severe-to-profound hearing loss. I have to wear BTE aids because the smaller ones just aren't powerful enough. I actually, somehow, managed to go through high school without wearing any aids at all. At first I did well enough, but the more self-conscious I became, the worse my grades became. I cannot imagine the amount of times I didn't hear someone or said "what?" to someone.
Because I don't do too well with jobs, I am mostly self-employed and have taught myself both web design and repairing computers. I live with two roommates in a house in front of a lake. I love cooking, gaming on the computer, following the Florida Gators college football team, and going broke collecting gadgets of all kinds (yes, yes, boys and their toys, etc ...)
The past 5 years my vision started going really bad and I became legally blind, with my vision well over 20/200. However, earlier this year I was diagnosed a new medication called Soriatane that, amazingly enough for the first time in my life, cleared up my skin issues significantly. As an added bonus, much to the dismay and delight of my dermatologist, it fixed up my vision to where I can now see 20/40 with contact lenses. The optometrist is so happy, she's doing a case study to see if others can benefit from what I went through.
As a result, I've gotten a bit more out of my shell (I tend to be shy, you know, with bad hearing, speech impediment, vision ... it's difficult to be social with those challenges.) Probably why I decided to join this community, have been getting out more, talking to people more, getting in shape, etc. Quality of life improvements has an amazing effect on people!
So there you go, a brief introduction about me. Questions? Advice? Suggestions? I'm all ears!
