Just me

[Loonie]

I am a fairly insignificant person living in Oklahoma. I was deafened due to Spinal Meningites when I was 16. I'm 35 now. I had a 100% loss in my right ear and 90% in my left. Struggled with a HA in my left ear for about 10 years. My primary crutch was lipreading. I did not ever attempt to learn ASL in depth. My mindset at that time was "I don't need it".
I was implanted with a CI on the right side on 04.17.00. There was a learning curve, but it opened worlds for me. The internal components failed in mid-2005, so I was re-implanted on 12.12.05. It is currently still operational.
I do and I don't get the CI controversy... I don't think i'll ever fully understand because I was born hearing. Pre-implantation my reason was "I want to get back what I lost", which was extremely naive and does not work that way at all.

As for the present, I like that I have both worlds. As I write this, I'm having my quiet time at the end of the day. Tomorrow I'll put my ear back on and go back in the hearing world. I love music... that's a huge perk the CI gives me.

Thanks for reading!

 

[sallylou]

Welcome, Loonie! You're user names and avatar make me laugh!

 

[Loghead]

to Alldeaf, Loonie. You have the same name as the Canadian dollar. :P

 

[Bebonang]

to Alldeaf, Loonie. You have the same name as the Canadian dollar. :P

Exactly right about that loonie for a Canadian dollar coin.

to AllDeaf forum, Loonie. As for being late deafened, you will explore a lot of good things about deafness, Deaf Culture and ASL if you can learn how to use it. ASL is great to communicate better than lipreading. But if you like lipreading and you are good at it, then by all means you can still lipread as long as you are comfortable with it. I hope you have fun reading and posting all the threads here. See you around here.