Are you the only or the first deaf person in ur entire family?

PowerON said:
Marry me and we shall have nice deaf children to create our first deaf-gen family.

Is that too much to ask? :eek3:
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Do not forgot invite me to your wedding. :P
 
Probably the first but currently the only deaf person in my entire family of 3 grandparents (who are still alive and the oldest being 91) all can hear pin drop, 7 uncles/aunts, my parents, 13 cousins, my brother are all hearing. My grandparents cannot recall anyone in their older generations that are deaf.
 
I am the oldest child in the family and all my siblings (one brother and one sister) are deaf. Pretty weird considering no one else in our family (as far as we know) are deaf :P
 
I'm the only one (sorry, just noticed I double-posted).
 
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In my family...

I have two great uncles who were partially deaf and then it skipped my mother's generation. I am the only partially deaf person in my generation and there are no partially deaf in my children's generation. Now I have a grand-daughter who is partially deaf.

(What interesting is they are teaching her to sign and speak and lip read. I was just taught aurally.)
 
Yes and no. While I may be the only deaf person in my immediate family, but I do have a deaf relative (my mom's 2nd cousin). I strongly feel that there may be a trace of a deaf (or two) person way back in my family history that cannot be traced.
 
Wirelessly posted

I'm the only person on both sides of the family to have a severe hearing loss (spinal meningitis at 8 months old). There was on relative who had hearing loss due to old age, but she passed away years ago...other than that, nothing.
 
I come from a family of mutants. I'm still trying to get a specific diagnosis. I don't know if genetic testing will be practical. Maybe for my kids?
 
I am the only deaf person in my family. It can get tough sometimes. Do you agree or disagree?
 
Anij said:
I'm the only Hoh/Deaf in my family - or at least the only one that is naturally HohDeaf ... ie not age related (or from working around loud machinery without wearing hearing protection, but even that person was 50 when they started being Hoh ... so I don't think that "counts")

I was born with SSD (single sided deafness) profoundly deaf on my right side, and then due to lots of ear infections etc my left side went from hearing to mild Hoh now to mild/moderate hoh with fluctuating amounts of HL.

My Audies also think I likely have mild APD, but I can't be bothered to go through all the testing (and they say the tests wouldn't be accurate for me anyway).

I haven't looked into if my hearing loss is genetic or just "luck". I was 14days early and quite jaundice but the doctors don't think either had anything to do with being born with SSD.

My parents wouldn't let me learn ASL when I was younger (I asked all the time!!) so I had to wait until I was an adult to learn. Finally once I was an adult my parents started to understand a bit more that I was "really Hoh" (I think they thought I was faking it as a kid...even though the Audiograms and Audies said I was really Hoh/deaf). My dad took an intro ASL class (doesn't use it ...) and my mum took a lot of ASL classes - however she prefers to speak to me ... even though she knows I prefer ASL (kinda frustrating).

The biggest challenge that I face daily is that I have 99% hearing speech so EVERYONE constantly forgets that I'm Hoh/Deaf ... it's very very frustrating. I know that a lot of people (hearing, hoh and some deaf) think that it would be great to having a "hearing voice" but honestly - I hate it! People don't understand that my HL is as extensive as it is, they think I'm "not trying hard enough" or "not paying attention" etc. Even my family constantly talks when I can't see their faces, tries to carry on conversations for other rooms etc ... it's very very frustrating and a lot of time I wish I could just turn my voice off completely and just use ASL.
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I empathize with you, Anij, just want you to know you are not alone there. I too have experienced the same frustrations as you have. I too, often 'wish I could just turn my voice off completely' and just use sign language. :deaf:
 
Nope. I have two relatives mother and daughter who are both deaf with my same cause. My eldest son is HOH.
 
Hrmm....There is only me and my first cousin who are deaf and we both wear CI. We are related through that our fathers are brothers.

It is not sure how I went deaf, but my cousin's grandmother (not mine) was deaf, so his might be a genetic case while mine wasn't? Well, I"ll never know unless I have children and grandchildren?
 
sheila022 said:
Hrmm....There is only me and my first cousin who are deaf and we both wear CI. We are related through that our fathers are brothers.

It is not sure how I went deaf, but my cousin's grandmother (not mine) was deaf, so his might be a genetic case while mine wasn't? Well, I"ll never know unless I have children and grandchildren?
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Or go for Connexin26 testing which might reveal whether if you have deaf gene or not.
 
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