Sabiya
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- Joined
- Mar 21, 2015
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I'm 27, and live in AZ, USA.
I was born a hearing person but I was premature. I had to have heart surgery at 18 months old to save my life, doctors back then weren't that familiar with the surgery since it was still kind of new (I think). They pumped me with a buttload of antibiotics, and that caused sensorineural hearing loss.
It wasn't my hearing being affected per se, but it caused nerve damage. According to my audiologists over the years, I can wear hearing aids but I can't have cochlear implants since it's my nerves that were damaged not my ears. Makes sense, my left side is weaker and parts of my body is numb, so yeah it is indeed nerve damage.
My family thought I was mentally slow, they didn't find out until I was 5 years old that I was hearing impaired.
I have moderate to severe hearing loss, I was brought up orally so I need to lip-read, I can't sign unless it's the alphabet. I took speech therapy from 1st grade to 6th grade in NYC, I dropped it in 7th grade because the first 6 years while I took both ESL and Speech Therapy, kids were making fun of me... so I didn't want to be made fun of again and didn't go back to Speech Therapy from 7th grade onwards.
I never asked for any accommodations or assistance with anything (you can imagine how high school was with no CC on videos -- the few times I asked for CC, my classmates looked at me all annoyed so I stopped asking for CC out of embarrassment), until I graduated and went out in the real world.
I wasn't part of deaf culture nor hung out with other deafies, until now. I'm so behind on this whole thing, I was raised to be "normal" like my family said, to act as if nothing's wrong with me, but I'm at the point where I really NEED to acknowledge that I do have limitations. My husband is loving and understanding to me, and even though I sometimes skip words or stutter in my speech (thanks to my not taking speech therapy or talking to others for a long time), he understands me.
I came on these forums because I need someone to talk to, I needed a sense of community. Hearing people do not understand what I've been through, and I just needed a helping hand so to speak. Being isolated all these years without anyone that understood me completely (asides from my hearing husband and some of my well-meaning hearing friends) caused me some deep depression and anxiety. It even damaged my self-esteem if I want to delve deeper.
I hope I can come out of this a strong woman. Thanks for reading.
I was born a hearing person but I was premature. I had to have heart surgery at 18 months old to save my life, doctors back then weren't that familiar with the surgery since it was still kind of new (I think). They pumped me with a buttload of antibiotics, and that caused sensorineural hearing loss.
It wasn't my hearing being affected per se, but it caused nerve damage. According to my audiologists over the years, I can wear hearing aids but I can't have cochlear implants since it's my nerves that were damaged not my ears. Makes sense, my left side is weaker and parts of my body is numb, so yeah it is indeed nerve damage.
My family thought I was mentally slow, they didn't find out until I was 5 years old that I was hearing impaired.
I have moderate to severe hearing loss, I was brought up orally so I need to lip-read, I can't sign unless it's the alphabet. I took speech therapy from 1st grade to 6th grade in NYC, I dropped it in 7th grade because the first 6 years while I took both ESL and Speech Therapy, kids were making fun of me... so I didn't want to be made fun of again and didn't go back to Speech Therapy from 7th grade onwards.I never asked for any accommodations or assistance with anything (you can imagine how high school was with no CC on videos -- the few times I asked for CC, my classmates looked at me all annoyed so I stopped asking for CC out of embarrassment), until I graduated and went out in the real world.
I wasn't part of deaf culture nor hung out with other deafies, until now. I'm so behind on this whole thing, I was raised to be "normal" like my family said, to act as if nothing's wrong with me, but I'm at the point where I really NEED to acknowledge that I do have limitations. My husband is loving and understanding to me, and even though I sometimes skip words or stutter in my speech (thanks to my not taking speech therapy or talking to others for a long time), he understands me.
I came on these forums because I need someone to talk to, I needed a sense of community. Hearing people do not understand what I've been through, and I just needed a helping hand so to speak. Being isolated all these years without anyone that understood me completely (asides from my hearing husband and some of my well-meaning hearing friends) caused me some deep depression and anxiety. It even damaged my self-esteem if I want to delve deeper.
I hope I can come out of this a strong woman. Thanks for reading.
I have nerve damage hearing lost and my audi said I am a good candidate for an implant . I can't believe that doctors still can't tell when a person is hoh by their defect. I love the way people say to be " normal" just what does a normal person act like ? I was 8 yo when my parents knew I was hoh and this was 60 years ago. People thought I was slow too , do you think people will ever think to see if a person is deaf or hoh before writing them off as being 'slow'?? I personally feel the doctors are the that are slow .
