what?
I am almost fifty-one years old.
When I was a child, my uncle taught me fingerspelling and some rudimentary signs. (I grew-up hearing.) As most children are, I was entranced with the notion of learning a "secret" language...
Fast-forward...I worked hard to master ASL, PSE, ESE to where I was an instructor for community sign classes, I interpreted for several hours a day while going to college, sign-language club in the afternoons and evenings, signing all day long such that my hands would curl and cramp violently in the evening. If I worked on a paper after a long day, I had to proof-read it the next day b/c I was "thinking in sign" when I wrote it, dropping articles, pronouns, tenses, etc.
I left the deaf community when I moved to California in 1994 and haven't signed since. Starting almost two years ago, I began to have balance problems and went to my doctor. She ordered an audiogram and I took that and was told that, yup, you have hearing loss - you need to go buy HAs. (Insurance doesn't cover - costs of same threaten cardiac health.)
As an illustration about how I didn't realize how I didn't have a hearing loss, or it's impact, my step-daughter comes home with my wife -- I was watching the baby who was about 2 mos old at the time -- and they start yelling at me: can't you hear her crying? (The baby was in the next room, about 20' away, no closed doors between us.) I couldn't. From that day forward, I couldn't watch her b/c I couldn't accept the risk of not being able to hear if something bad happened.
During all of this, I was unemployed but after several months, got work and enrolled in the gov't pre-tax medical spending plan. I put myself down for the max amount and when I got my "credit card", I made an appt with an audiologist.
The Dr. gave me a new audiogram and I learned that me right ear is pretty much profound in several freqs ... coupled with the tinnitus, it's very difficult to hear anything in that ear. My left is only profound in a couple freqs and is clearly in better shape. (When I sleep on my left side, nothing wakes me.)
Doc told me I'd eventually lose all my hearing and fitted me with two bte HAs. When he first put them in, he warned me that the configs were out-of-the-box and not tuned to me. I shushed him because I could hear something out of my left side that was weird. He started to speak and, again, I shushed him (which left him quite nonplussed - I don't think in our culture, doctors are used to getting shushed...)
I looked out the window to my left and, as we were on the 3rd floor, I could see the fronds of a palm tree blowing in the rain storm. I was hearing the sound the wind made through the fronds. I was hearing the rain. I realized in that moment that I couldn't remember the last time I had heard rain. (My wife always comes in and tells me when it's raining.) Omg - I was hearing the rain! I looked back at the Doc and I was struggling not to cry. He was pretty decent about it and just smiled and gave me a moment to collect.
My HAs were tuned and we left and drove all-day back to San Jose. I was amazed at all the things I could hear. Luckily, it rained all the way back!
Seven months later, I'm a lot more sensitive to the limitations of the HA's and to the changes in my hearing. With them in, I can hear the beep-beep signals in my left ear, but I can barely hear the tones in my right. If I'm in a meeting at work, and there's "stuff" happening, like the air-conditioner is blasting in the building (open area), more than one person is talking, car's driving by the building, etc., then forget hearing anything. I hate not getting the joke in team meetings, everyone's laughing and they look at me to share, and I'm just like: what? Argh.
People here are really cool about it, for the most part and my boss is really supportive. A couple times, he forgets and talks to me when his back is turned and I just hear charley-brown's-mom noise. He's happy to repeat himself when I ask, tho, so, yay!
Folks at work scare the bejeesus outta me when then approach my desk (I sit in a cube, facing the corner) and I can't hear them coming. That's quite the party for some of them, seeing how high I can jump.
I think I put them off when I 1:1 with them because I stare so hard at them, trying to hear everything, trying to understand. I imagine that, were our situation reversed, it would be an intensive, draining experience.
I want to re-immerse myself back into the deaf culture - and pick-up my sign-language skills but I don't know anyone here in Cali. I'd be starting over from scratch (which is ok). There's part of me that thinks I don't/shouldn't go back to the deaf community - that's like "suck it up - you can still hear!" and there's the other part of me that's still blaming everything else except my hearing. "This headphone is going out - I can't hear my music as well as I could last month on it." It's like having a foot in each world but not belonging in either.
My wife finally told me that I've been keeping the sound on my computer "godawful loud" but she's not said anything about it because she doesn't want to exacerbate the problem.
My grandbaby constantly mumbles (to me) and I can't understand when she comes and asks me for stuff. She's only three - she doen't understand that Paw-paw lost his hearing - she's adorable in that she's willing to help me go look for it tho.
I'm way more sensitive to non-verbals and looks I get from others, especially at work. I spend more time thinking I'm in trouble, or that I'm screwing-up somehow.
At the end of a long day, when I get home, I just want to take out my HAs and relax -- my ears are physically sore after wearing them for 14 hours or so -- and when my wife talks to me and doesn't face me, or is in another room, or walks out of the room talking, I don't even try to understand or capture what she was talking about because I'm just (mentally) exhausted from another day of struggling to keep-up.
When I first discovered this site, it's because I was looking for a #deaf irc chat -- old dog, old solutions...I read hundreds of posts before deciding that I needed to sign-up. Even if I never post again, myself, the act of posting is therapeutical.
I'm not looking for answers, or even commiseration. I think I'm "preaching to the choir" in that everyone here understands what's happening to me and mine. I just think that "it is what it is" and I just have to deal.
I'll be attentive to your advice and thoughts. You already have my respects.
Thanks for listening.
--mike
(ps: my nom-de-guerre is my gaming handle.)
Forgive me if my sleep deprivation is evident in my post.
You are not brainless!
I never said you asked for selfish reasons!!!!
