Lounge for Deaf people and their allies

[~Softbutch4U~]

I'm Profoundly Deaf but i can read lips alittle bit. Any of u who asked abt cochear impaired? Im against of that. But if u want to have one. Just be careful w that. Best way to ask alot deaf people to find out abt that. I know its cost alot $$ and some r didnt working right.. and some could died by bacteria cuz of molding grow inside. When I was very younger before I graduate in High School and I told my mother that i didnt want to have CI. They understood.

[DamonK]

Originally Posted by ~Softbutch4U~

I'm Profoundly Deaf but i can read lips alittle bit. Any of u who asked abt cochear impaired? Im against of that. But if u want to have one. Just be careful w that. Best way to ask alot deaf people to find out abt that. I know its cost alot $$ and some r didnt working right.. and some could died by bacteria cuz of molding grow inside. When I was very younger before I graduate in High School and I told my mother that i didnt want to have CI. They understood.

Most Deaf people I know disagree with the CI. But it can be quite controversial.

Me? Uh uh. No way. Too expensive. Too unlikely to succeed.

[femmedyke]

I've had severe hearing issues all my life. Chronic and undiagnosed sinusitis with small Eustachian tubes lent itself to many ear surgeries as a child and into adulthood. When I was 12 I had surgery on my left ear to repair my perforated ear drum and since that surgery I've heard amazing in that ear! However, I have been somewhat screwed with my right ear. I developed mastoiditis several years ago and have had a couple of mastoidectomies. This last one was very expensive and rendered me deaf completely in my right ear as my ENT removed my incus bone with the notion that I would be able to have the second surgery to replace it rather quickly. Crappy insurance did not allow this to happen and two years after that surgery I'm still looking for a way to have this second surgery with implant. I saw someone wrote about cholestotomas -- I had two removed during that surgery as well,that was terribly painful!

I don't sign, I actually will read some lips but mostly depend on my left ear to compensate. Being hard of hearing has often put me in my own world. I get really tired of asking 'huh' or 'what' and kind of just shut down. *shrug*

[nycfem]

Do you know sign language?

Originally Posted by ~Softbutch4U~

I'm Profoundly Deaf but i can read lips alittle bit. Any of u who asked abt cochear impaired? Im against of that. But if u want to have one. Just be careful w that. Best way to ask alot deaf people to find out abt that. I know its cost alot $$ and some r didnt working right.. and some could died by bacteria cuz of molding grow inside. When I was very younger before I graduate in High School and I told my mother that i didnt want to have CI. They understood.

[~Softbutch4U~]

Originally Posted by nycfembbw

Do you know sign language?

Yes, I use PSE. Its part of ASL but i use sign as english for sentence to deaf people. I notices that alot deaf people do not understand my sentences by text msgs. I almost grew up in mainsteam school most of the time. I felt bad for deaf people who couldnt write english well. I dont blame them.

Femmedyke: I know it is VERY expensive to have CI. Last time i heard was $60K but Im sure there r some way to get some help by Vocab Rehabit. I was going to get some help by VR but didnt have time to get a day off and stop by the office to discuison for Hearing Aids. I dont wear hearing aids for almost 4 yrs now. I like to listen the sound but not the words. Alot of my hearing friends said.. You r really lucky that u cant hear. Cuz they cant stand the sound like fire alarm or people get into arguement, etc. For me: I wish i can hear cuz i wanted what the sound of people's accent.. birds sing, waterfall.. many more.

[~Softbutch4U~]

Oops, its for DamonK not femmedyke. lol my bad

[nycfem]

At the school where I work we technically use PSE but I think it ends up being more of a combination of ASL and PSE. I study both and think both are useful.

Originally Posted by ~Softbutch4U~

Yes, I use PSE. Its part of ASL but i use sign as english for sentence to deaf people. I notices that alot deaf people do not understand my sentences by text msgs. I almost grew up in mainsteam school most of the time. I felt bad for deaf people who couldnt write english well. I dont blame them.

Femmedyke: I know it is VERY expensive to have CI. Last time i heard was $60K but Im sure there r some way to get some help by Vocab Rehabit. I was going to get some help by VR but didnt have time to get a day off and stop by the office to discuison for Hearing Aids. I dont wear hearing aids for almost 4 yrs now. I like to listen the sound but not the words. Alot of my hearing friends said.. You r really lucky that u cant hear. Cuz they cant stand the sound like fire alarm or people get into arguement, etc. For me: I wish i can hear cuz i wanted what the sound of people's accent.. birds sing, waterfall.. many more.

[~Softbutch4U~]

Originally Posted by nycfembbw

At the school where I work we technically use PSE but I think it ends up being more of a combination of ASL and PSE. I study both and think both are useful.

I think PSE is better for all deaf people cuz of communicate thur VRS or their jobs, courts, cops ..etc. For ASL, Rare i dont understand what they say cuz alot states have diff sign languages. We r almost not the same signs.

[The JD]

I started a blog a few years back called The Further Adventures of the Hard of Hearing. The blog is mostly defunct (I suck at blogging regularly), but here's one of the posts from it- thought the folks on this thread might get a laugh or two from it. Got a story about the awkward clash of hearing meets the deaf/hoh? I'd love to "hear" it!

----

Three or four years ago, there was a rash of car break-ins in my neighborhood, which prompted me to buy and install a $30 car alarm. I was disappointed to find the alarm wasn't loud, at least not to my ears. I had hoped my new alarm would carry the authoritative urgency of an emergency vehicle, but instead, it was tiny and shrill, like a pissed-off House Wren.

Still, with the hood open, I could hear the alarm clearly, and decided that someone with no high-end frequency hearing loss might describe it as "piercing" or perhaps "painful", or even "oh my god, my ears are bleeding." When I closed the hood of the car, I could still hear it, but it became more of an insistent clicking sound, as if a tiny mallet was striking a tiny bell, but without the tones that ring out between the strikes. I knew it was loud enough to wake the neighborhood, even if it would never wake me.

So I left the alarm connected. And for a few weeks, I activated it at night. But then the neighborhood reports of car break-ins stopped, and I began to feel guilty about activating an alarm that I couldn't even hear. I meant to disconnect the alarm, but I never got around to it, and I meant to take the remote control alarm activator off my keychain, but I never got around to that either.

Fast forward to this morning:

In the rush to get out of my house, I dropped my keys, and I dropped a heavy textbook on top of the keys. Cursing and stumbling, I scooped both of them up, got in my car and cranked it up.

I bet you're way ahead of me.

I'd like to say that I noticed the concerned looks of the drivers around me, as I drove for 6 miles with my car alarm blaring. But I didn't. I was late to work, and thinking only of shaving off enough driving time to justify a visit to Starbucks.

As I pulled up to the drive-thru window, I heard a strange sound coming from the passenger seat. Later, I realized this was the point at which I rolled down my window and finally heard the alarm, but at the time, I was sure the sound was inside my car. It was vaguely musical, but it also sounded like a mechanical problem. It was faint, yet insistent. I leaned my face toward the radio, then toward the seat, noticing that the sound seemed to disappear even as I was moving toward it.

When the Starbucks greeter began to talk, I turned my attention to the menu, with its built-in speaker, and listened for the peppy-but-endless greeting, where the voice from the menu board spends 20 seconds telling me all about the latest dessert offering or specialty drink before finally asking me what I'd like to order. Except today, it didn't quite go like that.

"Welcome to Starbucks, er....uh....uh...." I leaned my head out of the window and glared at the menu board, impatient with the stammering voice that had yet to ask me what I want. And then I heard the strange sound inside my car again. I whirled back to the passenger seat and pawed through the textbooks and papers to retrieve my cell phone underneath. I held the phone to my right ear, the ear that kept hearing the sound, but the cell phone, or whatever was making the noise, had gone silent again.

So had the Starbucks guy. "Hello??" I asked the menu board.

"Uh... can I help you?" the menu board answered.

I realize now that he was probably offering to call 911, not take my coffee order.

"Yes! I want a venti breve latte!" I had leaned my head completely out of my window, my right ear toward the car hood. When I heard the sound again, I knew it was coming from outside of my window, not inside. And I knew exactly what it was.

In a wild panic, I grabbed for my keys, which were still in the ignition. I identified the remote control for the car alarm, but could not identify the "off" button. During the three years or so that I've been carrying the activator on my keychain, the print had rubbed off all the keys. I took my best guess, and launched my head and shoulders back out of the window, turning my right ear like a telescoping antenna toward my car hood, and listened for the sound of an angry song bird. Satisfied that the alarm was turned off, I sank back down in my seat.

"Um.... okay." the menu board tentatively said.

When I reached the window, I searched the faces of the employees for signs of confusion, hesitation, concern, for any visual indication that my car alarm was still on. I'm quite adept at using visual cues to supplement my limited access to audio cues, but there was no indication that anything was unusual in their world. I had indeed managed to turn off my car alarm.

When I got to work, I told my coworker about my morning. For nine years now, this coworker has insisted on talking to me behind her cubical wall, then gets mad when I can't understand her. "Your hearing is selective," she growls on a weekly basis.

So I told her about my car alarm adventure, mostly because it's funny, but also because it shows I Really Can't Hear. I explained that the hearing aid in my right ear is newer than the hearing aid in my left ear, and was picking up the sound of the car alarm better, which is why I thought the sound was inside my car. We laughed about how the Starbucks guy must have thought there was a car-jacking in progress, and if the camera was working, it must have been even more startling to see me sitting there calmly.

But in the end, it was only an anecdote, not a learning opportunity. Anyone who can look at me and my hearing aids every week for 9 years and insist that my hearing is selective is not going to change her opinion based on a funny story about a Starbucks drive-thru. Too bad I can't just bring the car alarm into my office and set it off every time she talks to me from the other side of the cubical wall.

[DamonK]

@JD....that was funny
On Friday, the bear asked me if I wanted ice cream. I was staring at my phone entirely confused. I heard the music from ice cream truck, thought it was my phone. The bear found it hilarious. Me, not so much.

So, we just came home from camping on Mon. I'm still paying for being on the airplane. Most times, I fall down less, but I'm still very dizzy.

I get to go to the doc in about a week. Anyone wanna bet this will end with an ent referral?

[PhotoButch24]

Hey all I'm glad we have a deaf thread! I'm excited to get to know every one of you in some way, and to make new friends.

I'm 26 years old I grew up with progressive hearing loss and didn't become fully deaf until six years ago. I got my Cochlear implant 5 years ago and I'm fluent in ASL.

Ask me anything!

[DamonK]

I've been thinking about deafness a lot lately.

I blame Jennifer. I was going through signs in my head, prompting new thoughts in preparation for a Skype date, so to speak. That still hasn't happened because things can't seem to slow down here long enough. But I digress...

Back to deafness.

I get frustrated more easily than ever right now. All because of hearing. I can't hear like I once could. That's ok. I could cope with that. The silence is staring me down. That part is a bit harder. There will come a day...seems to be coming faster and faster...where I won't hear MBE's voice, high and light. I won't hear the Bear's voice, low and deep. I won't hear them laughing, I won't hear them make that damned dog of MBE's baroo.

And, you know, it really kinda pisses me off.

The Bear signs. More and more often I sign rather than speak. Then I remember I have to speak.

And get frustrated again. Why must *I* speak? I get that the Deaf population is only 3% or something like that. I don't mind having to use the standard language 99% of the time. It's that 1% that's incredibly silencing. I speak 2 languages. ASL and English. I speak them both very well. I ensure others around me are comfortable. I make sure to repeat what ever I've said in ASL in English.

I think....just once....since it happens so rarely, I want someone to speak my language... And me to not have to translate to English.

I think 5 days camping and having someone signing to me everytime she spoke to me, simply to adhere to my comfort level set off random thoughts in my brain.

Rant over.

[Angeltoes]

Several years ago I attended a New Years party with a friend who was dating a deaf guy who was also afro-american. This was in Portland where people are generally liberal and sane about social issues, but what struck me was that even the most liberal people seemed to have deep biases about deaf individuals. It was bizarre to see how uncomfortable hearing people were with this deaf guy and how at liberty they seemed to feel with making rude comments such as 'oh, you can dance? how is that possible' or making up their own sign language as is if he wouldn't know the difference... embarrassing. My hearing friend shrugged it off, because it really is the way of hearing people, unfortunately. After knowing deaf individuals and that they think, love, know and dance like everyone else, I can't help but wonder why we treat the hearing community as if they belong to a different species. It's no barrier to me. My ASL skills are not strong but I plan on learning.