I haven't written on this blog in forever. And some people (friends and loyal readers) have been asking me about it and about the CI. What's new? Yes, I'm still hearing. I'm still progressing. The time is overdue for an update.
Honestly, there are a number of things I've intended to reflect on for several weeks. All those reflections need is time. I'm at the stage in my listening journey where things are a little different. The mood has changed, and no longer am I suspended in tension and rapid-fire auditory discovery. I don't feel like my head spins in astonishment anymore as I walk through the world. All this has become, dare I say it, normalized. Or almost. I still have my moments, but the fact that I'm taking more and more things for granted is a mark of success in itself, isn't it? I don't think my progress has slowed, exactly. It's more that I've reached a place where I no longer have so much novelty to reflect on from day to day. The learning curve seems to have gone underground. Most of what I'm learning is unconscious. It's a much better place to be, really, but it does have its hazards.
More reflection to come soon, but for now I wanted to take the time to recount something more immediate. This past Wednesday I went to the opera! I put an exclamation point there because whenever I do hearing-person things like this I just smirk. Up to San Francisco we went, dressed up and ready to see Bizet's Carmen, and inside my head I kept laughing. Don't you see, I wanted to say to my peers (this was a dorm-organized trip). A deaf person is going to the opera with you! This didn't seem to strike any of them as odd (of course), and when we reached our seats way up in the nosebleed section I was just another one of the group. Now, my thoughts about opera now are less extensive than the first time I experienced it last summer, but here's what I walked away with:
1. Operas are long. Duh. But, more than being long, they draw on in seeming pursuit of the suspension of a moment, the definition of a mood through setting and music. It's an almost nostalgic form, in that you can see the present (and its accompanying cause and effect) slipping away from you even in the course of its happening, and even despite its elongation. Even if, after a few hours, all you want to do is truncate that elongation and have it be over.
2. Following the above observation: I'm an English major in college, which means that on a regular basis I spend too much time thinking about words and verbal narrative. The overall narrative structure of the opera bored me a bit, because honestly its complexity and its pacing seemed pared down. But here's what I wondered: is the operatic format one that seeks to augment this storytelling structure with the presence of music? Is music, and not character or plot or language, the main point of the opera? Probably.
3. I've enjoyed symphonic music in the past, and I still do, but I had a difficult time maintaining my interest in that music while also following a storyline. My mind wanted one or the other: give me a novel or a story or a play, or give me a symphony to listen to. I couldn't seem to find a comfortable place to settle in between. Also troublesome was the fact that of course Carmen was sung in French, but the supertitles were in English. I experience a strange sort of auditory disconnect when what I'm hearing doesn't line up with what I'm seeing. Sight is still by far my dominant sense, and when I don't encounter sound as an affirmation or a reward, that sound tends to become less interesting to me. I oftentimes end up ignoring it, to be honest.
4. I would have seriously loved someone there to explain the mechanics of the operatic sounds/music/singing/etc. to me, or at least to pinpoint its intention and mood. I'm still not very good at understanding the "feel" of a particular piece of music (mostly because, probably illogically, I want to know what it means) and I wondered what I was missing in terms of tone and ambiance. It sounded nice, and some arias sent chills down my spine, but... well, on my own I'm woefully incapable of saying anything else.
Overall, at the end of the night I walked out having enjoyed myself, happy that I'd had the experience, smug that I'd heard it and hadn't been bored out of my mind, but still feeling uncertain of what it was I'd witnessed/heard and its significance. Maybe it's that I was out of my element musically, but I think it bothered me that I couldn't say whether Carmen had been good or not. The story? Not so much, in my opinion. Too little pacing and too little solid character and too long to get through it all. But it had to be more than that; the overall performance wasn't just about what happened on stage. And my judgment, my listening, and my knowledge was way too insufficient to gauge that.
This last point hit home for me yesterday afternoon, when I ran into a friend on campus who asked me if I'd gone to see Carmen on Wednesday. (She'd heard about the dorm trip.) "Well, how was the performance?" she asked. "I was thinking of going."
"It was good," I said. And... that was all. I honestly couldn't say anything else. Going beyond that would have delved into the realm of I-was-hearing-this-for-the-first-time and this-was-my-first-real-opera and it-sounded-good-but-I-don't-really-know and... argh. A typical hearing-person answer, I imagined, would have been something like, "The symphonic accompaniment was really top-notch and the sopranos gave a stellar performance, especially what's-her-name who played so-and-so and has such-and-such kind of voice, although the tenors were a bit creaky, and I really loved so-and-so's expressiveness and vocal power as Don Jose." But what do I know. This was my first moment of being asked to judge something acoustically and totally laughably failing. Which, hey, is to be expected. It just made me feel unsettled and inadequate.
So, the real question: do I like opera? In bits and pieces, yes. The purity and drama (or whatever it is) of the sound appeals to me. But my overwhelming sense of not being able to understand it at all, and wondering if the essence of the performance is beyond my comprehension even with a CI, lingers with me. I'll need to chew this one over.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Do Not Compare
A major part of my CI experience right now is keeping it all in perspective. Within the spaces of my own mind, this is easy enough. I still haven't gotten over my sense of wonder at, well, hearing. When I am alone, and when I use myself as my only marker, I never fail to be pleased - and astonished. The CI is rewarding every moment of every day, and even moments of frustration are tinged with a gentle ironic humor. Isn't this all wonderful?
When my gaze wanders outward, however - when I, like all other human beings tend to do sometimes, start comparing my private progress with the abilities of others - then I do start feeling the true sting of disappointment. I start thinking about what hearing people can do, what they've been able to do all their lives, what they take for granted. What other people (not prelingually deaf) have been able to achieve with CIs. What I've striven to accomplish, but what my brain is not yet able to process. I start feeling restless, agitated, even a little bit self-accusatory. Why haven't I grasped all this yet? Why does sound still sometimes feel garbled, overwhelming, or otherwise make no sense? Why am I back here, still taking these baby steps, while my peers still sprint off toward the horizon?
Stop. I have no right to do this. It's my journey, not theirs - and, if I can't take pride in this, knowing full well where I'm starting from, what is there that I can feel accomplished about? Do not compare. In hearing as in life. It can be hard, watching my hearing friends do things so effortlessly, and then feeling like those things should be closer within my grasp. But should be, according to whose standards? Maybe not mine. And so I try to reserve judgment on myself. That won't do anyone any good. I try, instead, to think of things like this.
I discovered the other day the sound that even finely grained salt makes when it rolls out of its bag to refill the shaker. Simply beautiful.
I went to a meeting at work this past week, in which I sat across from someone's desk and was able to understand him despite terrible lighting, and was simultaneously able to catch the "okays" or "that sounds goods" of another person sitting to my left.
I braved a public event last weekend without an interpreter (gulp) and found that, although I was exhausted by the end, I was able to listen to and watch an incredibly fast-talking speaker and walk away having understood 80-85% of what he said. Score.
In calling my parents on the phone, even despite saying "what?" or "say that again" dozens of times, the instances in which a word sequence rolled out and I understood, perfectly, felt like reaching across a thousand miles to hold a familiar hand.
Earlier this week, I rode a horse and was able to catch some coaching from the ground, listening and processing at the same time as I directed a living, breathing thousand-pound animal. Talk about multitasking.
These are the things I try to focus on. The things that give me pure, honest, undivided pleasure. Looking at my life through my eyes, judging it by my standards. It's not any harder than that, is it, really?
When my gaze wanders outward, however - when I, like all other human beings tend to do sometimes, start comparing my private progress with the abilities of others - then I do start feeling the true sting of disappointment. I start thinking about what hearing people can do, what they've been able to do all their lives, what they take for granted. What other people (not prelingually deaf) have been able to achieve with CIs. What I've striven to accomplish, but what my brain is not yet able to process. I start feeling restless, agitated, even a little bit self-accusatory. Why haven't I grasped all this yet? Why does sound still sometimes feel garbled, overwhelming, or otherwise make no sense? Why am I back here, still taking these baby steps, while my peers still sprint off toward the horizon?
Stop. I have no right to do this. It's my journey, not theirs - and, if I can't take pride in this, knowing full well where I'm starting from, what is there that I can feel accomplished about? Do not compare. In hearing as in life. It can be hard, watching my hearing friends do things so effortlessly, and then feeling like those things should be closer within my grasp. But should be, according to whose standards? Maybe not mine. And so I try to reserve judgment on myself. That won't do anyone any good. I try, instead, to think of things like this.
I discovered the other day the sound that even finely grained salt makes when it rolls out of its bag to refill the shaker. Simply beautiful.
I went to a meeting at work this past week, in which I sat across from someone's desk and was able to understand him despite terrible lighting, and was simultaneously able to catch the "okays" or "that sounds goods" of another person sitting to my left.
I braved a public event last weekend without an interpreter (gulp) and found that, although I was exhausted by the end, I was able to listen to and watch an incredibly fast-talking speaker and walk away having understood 80-85% of what he said. Score.
In calling my parents on the phone, even despite saying "what?" or "say that again" dozens of times, the instances in which a word sequence rolled out and I understood, perfectly, felt like reaching across a thousand miles to hold a familiar hand.
Earlier this week, I rode a horse and was able to catch some coaching from the ground, listening and processing at the same time as I directed a living, breathing thousand-pound animal. Talk about multitasking.
These are the things I try to focus on. The things that give me pure, honest, undivided pleasure. Looking at my life through my eyes, judging it by my standards. It's not any harder than that, is it, really?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
And the Horizons Creep Outward
Ahhh, there's nothing like a remapping to push one's boundaries. During the last week and a half, I've felt like someone who's been knocked slightly off balance, or who has found that the ground beneath her feet is shifting and undulating. But as I reorient myself to the changes in my auditory input, I find that my current sound quality is better than before. Sounds that had been driving me bonkers for months, or growing steadily more annoying, are much more manageable. And I've noticed new sounds, or continued to progress with new auditory developments that have emerged only in the past few weeks. Here are a couple:
When riding my bicycle or riding a horse or driving with the car window down or otherwise traveling at speed, I'm no longer distracted by the ROAR WHOOSH GRAWWLL ROAR RUSHHH of air blowing past. That sound is still there, but it's not as harsh or grating, and it doesn't drown out everything else. Thank goodness. I was starting to tilt my head when I rode my bike if only to avoid my ear facing directly into the jetstream!
In the absence of those air-blowing-past noises, I've noticed new sounds when I'm active or on the go. My bicycle chain clicks (okay, I should probably oil it). My brakes squeal. My backpack groans on my back, ice rattles in my water bottle in my bag. The car makes finer and more unique acceleration noises than I ever knew. My saddle creaks so, so loudly, and creaks in different ways and at different tempos depending on what gait my horse is traveling at - how did I never notice that before?
A few of my friends have car GPS navigation systems, and I've been amusing myself to no end listening to the robotic voices speak as we drive. "I recognized that street name!" I'll say, or "Turn left, turn left! It said turn left!" Earlier today I found it funny when the GPS kept crying, "Wrong turn. Wrong turn." Having that disembodied voice suddenly take on meaning was, for me, wondrous.
I've had the chance to visit the ocean twice in the last few weeks. While sitting on the shore, I've realized that this is the first time I've heard waves. I knew from reading books that they were supposed to roar, or crash, and admittedly I associated unpleasant things with those noises (or adjectives). But, in reality, when I looked out at the blue plain of the sea and saw the cresting foam and the receding swells, the accompanying sound was one of the most rhythmic and peaceful that I have heard. I could have listened to it all day, and I suddenly realized why people record the sound of the sea to play in their houses, or to lull themselves to sleep (that always seemed weird and fetish-like to me before). A friend and I jumped up and down, looking at each other and grinning, when we both realized that that sound I had been wondering about was the sea, and that it was completely unexpected and completely new.
People's voices seem louder than ever, even from far away. I keep noticing more often, with my back turned, when people whistle or grunt or exhale or sigh. It's startlingly invasive, startlingly intimate. And pretty awesome to note: I've been picking up, more regularly, greetings called to me when my back is turned. "Have a good day" or "see you later" - when people say these things to me as I'm walking out the door, without thinking that I'm not looking at them, I'm able to understand and reply, without looking over my shoulder. Every time I smother a grin and bask in a private sense of triumph. How much of this was lost on me before? Now, in such situations, how normal I must seem. Whoa. And while my speech comprehension skills continue to progress in quiet controlled situations, these sorts of real-world breakthroughs give me the hope that, someday, I will be able to broaden and apply those skills in a more general way.
Old sounds: these aren't quite unexpected or new, but they're different. When I inhale and exhale, it sounds gentler and smoother than before. Typing is more crisply defined (but not the dice-rolling-Las-Vegas-gambling-casino-annoying noise it was last summer). When I brush my teeth, I can hear the sound change based on which angle I'm directing my toothbrush - it's very dynamic. I can hear when I shift about in my chair, or when fabric slides against fabric, but again more gently and - I don't know - subtly. Plus there have been a few unidentified noises that have jumped out in my apartment in the last few weeks. Clicking and weird popping and such. I've tried to hunt them down, but to no avail. I need a hearing person with me at all times!
Finally, I feel like clarifying something that has been a common misconception among friends and other people who ask me about the CI. At this stage of my listening progress, when I go in for a remapping, I'm not just getting the volume turned up. Not exactly. The volume input I'm receiving right now is right around where we want it to be. It's stabilized. While I would theoretically be able to tolerate more, turning it up would interfere with clarity. So, when I go in for a remapping, it's literally giving my neurons a different "map," or balance, or picture of sound to work with. My brain is adjusting itself all the time, becoming gradually more familiar with noises and frequencies it never heard before. To keep this learning curve stabilized, it's necessary to go in and rebalance the frequencies my brain gets from the CI. That way, sound perception remains more accurate. It's not necessarily louder.
That's a rough layman's description, but it should do. I'm still learning about this entire process myself. Now, on to more noises and more practice!
When riding my bicycle or riding a horse or driving with the car window down or otherwise traveling at speed, I'm no longer distracted by the ROAR WHOOSH GRAWWLL ROAR RUSHHH of air blowing past. That sound is still there, but it's not as harsh or grating, and it doesn't drown out everything else. Thank goodness. I was starting to tilt my head when I rode my bike if only to avoid my ear facing directly into the jetstream!
In the absence of those air-blowing-past noises, I've noticed new sounds when I'm active or on the go. My bicycle chain clicks (okay, I should probably oil it). My brakes squeal. My backpack groans on my back, ice rattles in my water bottle in my bag. The car makes finer and more unique acceleration noises than I ever knew. My saddle creaks so, so loudly, and creaks in different ways and at different tempos depending on what gait my horse is traveling at - how did I never notice that before?
A few of my friends have car GPS navigation systems, and I've been amusing myself to no end listening to the robotic voices speak as we drive. "I recognized that street name!" I'll say, or "Turn left, turn left! It said turn left!" Earlier today I found it funny when the GPS kept crying, "Wrong turn. Wrong turn." Having that disembodied voice suddenly take on meaning was, for me, wondrous.
I've had the chance to visit the ocean twice in the last few weeks. While sitting on the shore, I've realized that this is the first time I've heard waves. I knew from reading books that they were supposed to roar, or crash, and admittedly I associated unpleasant things with those noises (or adjectives). But, in reality, when I looked out at the blue plain of the sea and saw the cresting foam and the receding swells, the accompanying sound was one of the most rhythmic and peaceful that I have heard. I could have listened to it all day, and I suddenly realized why people record the sound of the sea to play in their houses, or to lull themselves to sleep (that always seemed weird and fetish-like to me before). A friend and I jumped up and down, looking at each other and grinning, when we both realized that that sound I had been wondering about was the sea, and that it was completely unexpected and completely new.
People's voices seem louder than ever, even from far away. I keep noticing more often, with my back turned, when people whistle or grunt or exhale or sigh. It's startlingly invasive, startlingly intimate. And pretty awesome to note: I've been picking up, more regularly, greetings called to me when my back is turned. "Have a good day" or "see you later" - when people say these things to me as I'm walking out the door, without thinking that I'm not looking at them, I'm able to understand and reply, without looking over my shoulder. Every time I smother a grin and bask in a private sense of triumph. How much of this was lost on me before? Now, in such situations, how normal I must seem. Whoa. And while my speech comprehension skills continue to progress in quiet controlled situations, these sorts of real-world breakthroughs give me the hope that, someday, I will be able to broaden and apply those skills in a more general way.
Old sounds: these aren't quite unexpected or new, but they're different. When I inhale and exhale, it sounds gentler and smoother than before. Typing is more crisply defined (but not the dice-rolling-Las-Vegas-gambling-casino-annoying noise it was last summer). When I brush my teeth, I can hear the sound change based on which angle I'm directing my toothbrush - it's very dynamic. I can hear when I shift about in my chair, or when fabric slides against fabric, but again more gently and - I don't know - subtly. Plus there have been a few unidentified noises that have jumped out in my apartment in the last few weeks. Clicking and weird popping and such. I've tried to hunt them down, but to no avail. I need a hearing person with me at all times!
Finally, I feel like clarifying something that has been a common misconception among friends and other people who ask me about the CI. At this stage of my listening progress, when I go in for a remapping, I'm not just getting the volume turned up. Not exactly. The volume input I'm receiving right now is right around where we want it to be. It's stabilized. While I would theoretically be able to tolerate more, turning it up would interfere with clarity. So, when I go in for a remapping, it's literally giving my neurons a different "map," or balance, or picture of sound to work with. My brain is adjusting itself all the time, becoming gradually more familiar with noises and frequencies it never heard before. To keep this learning curve stabilized, it's necessary to go in and rebalance the frequencies my brain gets from the CI. That way, sound perception remains more accurate. It's not necessarily louder.
That's a rough layman's description, but it should do. I'm still learning about this entire process myself. Now, on to more noises and more practice!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Year One
Well. I've survived my first year with the CI. I can't quite believe it. When I went in for my one-year follow-up appointments yesterday, my surgeon walked into the room and marveled, looking at my chart, that time had passed so quickly. Sitting in that chair where I had sat, both when anxiously considering getting a CI and when anxiously wondering what would happen when it came on, I had to agree wholeheartedly.
So, one-year remapping with my audiologist: check. Speech recognition had improved since last time, and I felt more confidence in what I was hearing. Progress. At this point, the goal isn't necessarily giving me more volume - I've stabilized at roughly the point I was at six months ago - but optimizing the balance and input of the BTE to the electrode array. We stayed with similar settings to those I already had (same IDR and similar levels of stimulation), but already the changes have left me startled by the sound quality in my environment. Sounds that I'd thought were familiar (myself typing, myself swallowing, chairs scraping across the floor) seem to have shifted. They're different, more prominent, more raw. They feel new all over again. I'm wondering if this process is one that will never end - shaking things up, then stabilizing, then shaking them up again.
Perhaps so, because the learning curve continues. It might not rub my nerves as raw as it did last summer, but neuroplasticity doesn't come without breaking old ways and old molds over and over. If anything, that's what the last year has taught me, irrespective of hearing. I've experienced the world in new and astonishing ways, ways that had previously lay outside my realm of imagination, and I've discovered a flexibility and a strength and a curiosity that I didn't know I had. It's been quite a ride from that first day one year ago, that seemed so chaotic and that I remember so clearly. I'd like to reflect on it more fully at some point. But for now - a thumbs-up for hearing!
So, one-year remapping with my audiologist: check. Speech recognition had improved since last time, and I felt more confidence in what I was hearing. Progress. At this point, the goal isn't necessarily giving me more volume - I've stabilized at roughly the point I was at six months ago - but optimizing the balance and input of the BTE to the electrode array. We stayed with similar settings to those I already had (same IDR and similar levels of stimulation), but already the changes have left me startled by the sound quality in my environment. Sounds that I'd thought were familiar (myself typing, myself swallowing, chairs scraping across the floor) seem to have shifted. They're different, more prominent, more raw. They feel new all over again. I'm wondering if this process is one that will never end - shaking things up, then stabilizing, then shaking them up again.
Perhaps so, because the learning curve continues. It might not rub my nerves as raw as it did last summer, but neuroplasticity doesn't come without breaking old ways and old molds over and over. If anything, that's what the last year has taught me, irrespective of hearing. I've experienced the world in new and astonishing ways, ways that had previously lay outside my realm of imagination, and I've discovered a flexibility and a strength and a curiosity that I didn't know I had. It's been quite a ride from that first day one year ago, that seemed so chaotic and that I remember so clearly. I'd like to reflect on it more fully at some point. But for now - a thumbs-up for hearing!
Monday, June 27, 2011
BEA Social
Yesterday I did something that's been on my agenda for a while: attended a local social gathering for Advanced Bionics' Bionic Ear Association (BEA), which seeks to connect and provide information to a network of CI users and candidates. In my area, these meetings take place every three months or so, and now the beginning of summer (read: a time in which I'm no longer tied down with being a full-time student! hooray!) has provided me with the perfect opportunity to branch out and meet other people with CIs.
In a way, what happened when I walked into that room wasn't entirely unexpected. I was the youngest person at the gathering by far (several decades at least), and one of the only ones who was prelingually, congenitally deaf. I was the only one who had gotten her CI after twenty years of deafness. Most of the other BEA attendees were fifty or older, people who had lost their hearing gradually or suddenly over the course of their lives. As such, of course, their CI stories were far more successful than mine. Having an established auditory memory, having prior experience with hearing, having been assimilated into the hearing world (rather than feeling like they had always hovered about its boundaries, as I have felt) - all of these factors had made a world of difference for their lives post-implantation. I had a bit of a sinking feeling as one older gentleman, looking and sounding and behaving almost entirely hearing save for the bilateral magnets on the side of his head, told me about using the phone perfectly by the third day after activation. The third day? The third day after my activation, I was about ready to put a bullet through my head! It was a rocky uphill trek through territory I had never before known or experienced. It was not, by any means, a gratifying return to skills long since lost. The gratification has only emerged slowly.
Still, there was a small - very small - subset of other early- or congenitally-deafened people at this BEA gathering, including one who currently wears hearing aids but was considering a CI. These people signed (whereas the later-deafened people did not), and I sat with them and chatted for a bit. Of course, as often inevitably seems to happen in groups like this, the conversation turned to the question of identity. Groan. One woman (who, I could tell immediately, was strongly culturally Deaf) turned to me and asked me which group I identify with, post-CI. Other people had said, "Oh, definitely still Deaf" or "Hearing!", but I sat frozen for a second before tossing up my hands and signing, "I don't know." I certainly did not consider myself Deaf a year ago, and do even less so now. But I'm still far from identifying with hearing people sometimes. I'm just happy with resisting categorizations, however much other people seem to like them. They make introductions easier, but otherwise they don't come to much good. Still, I was a bit haunted by the recurrence of that question, one year later (or twenty-one, depending on how you look at it). Who cares, I suppose.
All in all, meeting and talking to such people was a breath of fresh air in the sense of sharing common hearing experiences, but it also emphasized to me how very different each individual's journey with the CI can be. Personal history and intrinsic factors figure into the equation more than some people think. But chin up. I survived those chaotic first months. I am not hearing, nor will I ever be, but I'm doing so much better than I was one year ago. Yes, a cloud of doubt about my ultimate future limitations still hovers over my head - a cloud that seemed to loom a little bit closer after yesterday. But comparison to others is never the way to go for anything. This is my journey, and I'm going to make it on my terms and to the best of my ability.
Enough internally-conflicted talk. My one-year remapping is tomorrow, and that's a cause for celebration. From electric shocks to hearing and learning and experiencing and (!!) understanding, I think I'm going to walk around with a grin on my face all day.
In a way, what happened when I walked into that room wasn't entirely unexpected. I was the youngest person at the gathering by far (several decades at least), and one of the only ones who was prelingually, congenitally deaf. I was the only one who had gotten her CI after twenty years of deafness. Most of the other BEA attendees were fifty or older, people who had lost their hearing gradually or suddenly over the course of their lives. As such, of course, their CI stories were far more successful than mine. Having an established auditory memory, having prior experience with hearing, having been assimilated into the hearing world (rather than feeling like they had always hovered about its boundaries, as I have felt) - all of these factors had made a world of difference for their lives post-implantation. I had a bit of a sinking feeling as one older gentleman, looking and sounding and behaving almost entirely hearing save for the bilateral magnets on the side of his head, told me about using the phone perfectly by the third day after activation. The third day? The third day after my activation, I was about ready to put a bullet through my head! It was a rocky uphill trek through territory I had never before known or experienced. It was not, by any means, a gratifying return to skills long since lost. The gratification has only emerged slowly.
Still, there was a small - very small - subset of other early- or congenitally-deafened people at this BEA gathering, including one who currently wears hearing aids but was considering a CI. These people signed (whereas the later-deafened people did not), and I sat with them and chatted for a bit. Of course, as often inevitably seems to happen in groups like this, the conversation turned to the question of identity. Groan. One woman (who, I could tell immediately, was strongly culturally Deaf) turned to me and asked me which group I identify with, post-CI. Other people had said, "Oh, definitely still Deaf" or "Hearing!", but I sat frozen for a second before tossing up my hands and signing, "I don't know." I certainly did not consider myself Deaf a year ago, and do even less so now. But I'm still far from identifying with hearing people sometimes. I'm just happy with resisting categorizations, however much other people seem to like them. They make introductions easier, but otherwise they don't come to much good. Still, I was a bit haunted by the recurrence of that question, one year later (or twenty-one, depending on how you look at it). Who cares, I suppose.
All in all, meeting and talking to such people was a breath of fresh air in the sense of sharing common hearing experiences, but it also emphasized to me how very different each individual's journey with the CI can be. Personal history and intrinsic factors figure into the equation more than some people think. But chin up. I survived those chaotic first months. I am not hearing, nor will I ever be, but I'm doing so much better than I was one year ago. Yes, a cloud of doubt about my ultimate future limitations still hovers over my head - a cloud that seemed to loom a little bit closer after yesterday. But comparison to others is never the way to go for anything. This is my journey, and I'm going to make it on my terms and to the best of my ability.
Enough internally-conflicted talk. My one-year remapping is tomorrow, and that's a cause for celebration. From electric shocks to hearing and learning and experiencing and (!!) understanding, I think I'm going to walk around with a grin on my face all day.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
One Year of Bionic
On this same Wednesday one year ago, I went through my last pre-op appointments, then sat and waited for the CI surgery that would take place the following morning. Killed time and waited. Went to dinner and waited. Made some nervous conversation. Went to bed and lay awake and waited. Couldn't sleep because of my mixed excitement and anxiety and dread. What was I getting myself into?
Today, after meeting with my auditory therapist, I walked out grinning. My one-year CI remapping will be in a few weeks, and although I've reached the point where I'm continually cranking the volume up on my processor, itching once again for more sound and more range, what I have to work with is pretty remarkable.
First exercise: open set of random sentences that I wasn't allowed to look at or study beforehand. I got half of them completely correct on the first try, and got large chunks of the rest (with some missed words or slight flubs on phonemes). My score: 75%, give or take, maybe even 80%.
Second exercise: minimal-pair drills with monosyllabic words, probably one of the hardest tasks for me since I'm literally listening for a difference of a single phoneme, while listening without any context. My score: 90%. Ninety freaking percent.
And the best part: while I felt confident enough throughout, I had one of those head-spinning moments afterwards when I saw the numbers. Why, hadn't I been guessing most of the time? Doesn't seem like it. My conscious mind keeps chugging along, but beneath the surface my brain is putting two and two together, all by itself.
I couldn't have asked for a better feeling compared to that nauseous sensation I had one year ago, while sitting in those hospital waiting rooms. It's been a steep learning curve, but with the CI my brain is clicking. It's starting to sprint along instead of stumbling. It's hearing!
Today, after meeting with my auditory therapist, I walked out grinning. My one-year CI remapping will be in a few weeks, and although I've reached the point where I'm continually cranking the volume up on my processor, itching once again for more sound and more range, what I have to work with is pretty remarkable.
First exercise: open set of random sentences that I wasn't allowed to look at or study beforehand. I got half of them completely correct on the first try, and got large chunks of the rest (with some missed words or slight flubs on phonemes). My score: 75%, give or take, maybe even 80%.
Second exercise: minimal-pair drills with monosyllabic words, probably one of the hardest tasks for me since I'm literally listening for a difference of a single phoneme, while listening without any context. My score: 90%. Ninety freaking percent.
And the best part: while I felt confident enough throughout, I had one of those head-spinning moments afterwards when I saw the numbers. Why, hadn't I been guessing most of the time? Doesn't seem like it. My conscious mind keeps chugging along, but beneath the surface my brain is putting two and two together, all by itself.
I couldn't have asked for a better feeling compared to that nauseous sensation I had one year ago, while sitting in those hospital waiting rooms. It's been a steep learning curve, but with the CI my brain is clicking. It's starting to sprint along instead of stumbling. It's hearing!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
What's in a Word?
Semantics. Connotations. Linguistic accuracy. What's in a name, anyway?
As someone who lives with a hearing loss, I've long struggled with how to label myself. Granted, when I was young, it was simple: I was deaf. (Disclaimer: little-d, not big-D. The divide, which occurs over culture and identity, is something that I won't go into too much here. Suffice it to say that I view myself as having always been removed from the Deaf community.) And, as someone who had that distinction clear inside her own mind, I became annoyed with the occasional insistence that hearing people had at calling me "hearing impaired." I always preferred the term "deaf" to that clunky, overly-politically-correct, disability-focused word. To an extent, the term can still make me bristle.
However, since my cochlear implant things have grown even less simple. I've discovered problems with calling myself "deaf." Is it really fair to use that term, when at this point I am hearing at almost a normal-range threshold? (Hearing, mind you, not necessarily understanding.) In a way, saying that I am deaf denies the progress I've made in learning how to hear. Moreover, it embraces a binary that hearing people, all too often, are too quick to embrace. That is, they have a difficult time conceptualizing what it's like to live with a hearing loss: they tend to think that it's all or nothing. Either you can hear, and understand everything, or you can't hear at all. The word "deaf" locks me at the far end of that spectrum - the end of the spectrum that I've spent the last 11 months trying to escape. Granted, without my CI I am literally walking in silence. I am still deaf. But, in the context of living in the world and talking and interacting and - whoo-hoo! - hearing, it hardly seems accurate to describe myself that way. "Deaf" doesn't acknowledge my everyday reality, and it gives other people misconceptions besides.
If I don't personally use "deaf" as a cultural term, and if I don't use it as a descriptive term, then what should I call myself? In the days right after the CI, when my whole life seemed chaotic and new, this question was the least of my troubles. But now, as I settle more into this hearing life and start to take it for granted, I've started feeling more conflicted.
First of all, I refuse to say that I am "hearing impaired." Besides the history that I associate with the term, I feel that it's not entirely accurate. I am hearing so well, and the CI has worked out so positively, that I can't call what I hear "impaired." The sounds entering my brain are there - they're just different from what hearing people hear, and I'm still en route to figuring them out myself.
Moving on. Deaf: feels habitual, feels comfortable, but is off the mark. Hearing: pshaw, no. Hearing-impaired: certainly not. How about "differently hearing"? Sounds awkward, and verges on euphemism. Atypically hearing, alternative hearing, hearing through a processor, hearing more than you think but understanding less than you think, hearing disrupted, hearing-but-interpretatively-challenged, in my own hearing world, en-route-to-alternate-hearing-universe...
In the end, I'm going to throw up my hands and call myself cyborg-hearing! (Kidding.) Or, at least, someone for whom the deconstructing effect of the CI has contributed to an increased resistance of classifications. Even if I still need a word with which to describe myself to all of those typically-hearing people.
As someone who lives with a hearing loss, I've long struggled with how to label myself. Granted, when I was young, it was simple: I was deaf. (Disclaimer: little-d, not big-D. The divide, which occurs over culture and identity, is something that I won't go into too much here. Suffice it to say that I view myself as having always been removed from the Deaf community.) And, as someone who had that distinction clear inside her own mind, I became annoyed with the occasional insistence that hearing people had at calling me "hearing impaired." I always preferred the term "deaf" to that clunky, overly-politically-correct, disability-focused word. To an extent, the term can still make me bristle.
However, since my cochlear implant things have grown even less simple. I've discovered problems with calling myself "deaf." Is it really fair to use that term, when at this point I am hearing at almost a normal-range threshold? (Hearing, mind you, not necessarily understanding.) In a way, saying that I am deaf denies the progress I've made in learning how to hear. Moreover, it embraces a binary that hearing people, all too often, are too quick to embrace. That is, they have a difficult time conceptualizing what it's like to live with a hearing loss: they tend to think that it's all or nothing. Either you can hear, and understand everything, or you can't hear at all. The word "deaf" locks me at the far end of that spectrum - the end of the spectrum that I've spent the last 11 months trying to escape. Granted, without my CI I am literally walking in silence. I am still deaf. But, in the context of living in the world and talking and interacting and - whoo-hoo! - hearing, it hardly seems accurate to describe myself that way. "Deaf" doesn't acknowledge my everyday reality, and it gives other people misconceptions besides.
If I don't personally use "deaf" as a cultural term, and if I don't use it as a descriptive term, then what should I call myself? In the days right after the CI, when my whole life seemed chaotic and new, this question was the least of my troubles. But now, as I settle more into this hearing life and start to take it for granted, I've started feeling more conflicted.
First of all, I refuse to say that I am "hearing impaired." Besides the history that I associate with the term, I feel that it's not entirely accurate. I am hearing so well, and the CI has worked out so positively, that I can't call what I hear "impaired." The sounds entering my brain are there - they're just different from what hearing people hear, and I'm still en route to figuring them out myself.
Moving on. Deaf: feels habitual, feels comfortable, but is off the mark. Hearing: pshaw, no. Hearing-impaired: certainly not. How about "differently hearing"? Sounds awkward, and verges on euphemism. Atypically hearing, alternative hearing, hearing through a processor, hearing more than you think but understanding less than you think, hearing disrupted, hearing-but-interpretatively-challenged, in my own hearing world, en-route-to-alternate-hearing-universe...
In the end, I'm going to throw up my hands and call myself cyborg-hearing! (Kidding.) Or, at least, someone for whom the deconstructing effect of the CI has contributed to an increased resistance of classifications. Even if I still need a word with which to describe myself to all of those typically-hearing people.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
A Meeting With Mahler
Last night I went on a grant-funded trip to the San Francisco Symphony - something I couldn't have imagined myself doing a year ago, much less enjoying. This was the first time I'd ever been to a symphony or to a large concert hall, although I think I once might have been dragged to a orchestral performance when I was little. (In which I sat, bored and frustrated and fidgety. Nothing about the actual orchestra stands out in my mind, only that sense of interior confinement and angst.)
Needless to say, this time was different. It's now been almost eleven months since I got my cochlear implant (how does the time go so fast?), and the sense of curiosity and bravery that I now have about trying new sound-oriented events is, I think, one of the best outcomes of that journey. Walking into the symphony, I did not worry about what artistic impression I would grasp or how I would sit through it for an hour and a half. I did not worry about being excluded. I just went, feeling eager and admittedly a little bit proud to be able to experience it with everybody else. When the music started, I leaned forward and watched - and, more importantly, listened - for a span of time that seemed to fly by but also hang suspended in the eternal expansion of a moment.
I regret to say that what I heard, I lack the vocabulary to describe. The language of music lies beyond every form of language that I've learned to use. All I can say is that I liked it, was borne aloft by it, even, although I cannot say why. The symphony in San Francisco was playing Mahler's Symphony No. 6, and as the first movement started I felt the usual sensations that I feel when trying to settle into a piece of complex music. I twiddled my CI volume, trying to get it exactly right as the notes settled into a whisper and then swelled, almost knocking me back into my seat with their sudden energy.
Volume set, I listened. Or tried to. My mind, as usual, got fidgety. My gaze roved about. I studied the people sitting in front of me, looked at the architecture and the patterns on the ceiling. I tried to count how many symphony players there were, to see when their instruments were coming in and out. I thought of the most off-topic, improbable things. It wasn't that I was bored, or that the symphony failed to hold my attention. It was that, once again, I'm simply not used to surrendering my thoughts to listening. My mind clings too strongly to the visual and the imaginative. It is too used to amusing itself when the auditory information of the world goes whizzing by. Anything to do with sound still feels foreign.
But, finally, about an hour into the symphony, I felt those old habits starting to loosen their grip. (I shake my head that it took that long.) The mental fidgeting stopped, and I relaxed into the music. It struck me that I was being transported to the fringes of a different state of consciousness, or of thinking, which was the same state of consciousness that the conductor and all the players must have existed in. The symphony seemed to draw collective breaths before my eyes (or ears!), to flow from one section to the next like a giant living thing. It exhausted me to think of playing an instrument for as long as they did; I thought of the physical precision, the mental sharpness of timing each note to merge with the rest. Yet the players kept going, tirelessly, the conductor breathing energy into their efforts like a bellows. I did not want it to end. It seemed that it never would or could.
When I stood up to applaud like the rest, I only wished I'd been able to summarize what I'd heard. But the symphony had taught me more about music than I'd known walking in the door: I now could pick out when various instruments came in, or slightly anticipate the feeling that linked one section to the next. I'd learned to have my interest piqued by auditory surprises (such as when someone rang a drum that looked like a large sledgehammer and made me jump). Most of all, I realized how much I enjoyed the (for lack of a better word) organic feel of this kind of performance. Not only did I enjoy listening - I also enjoyed watching, soaking in the atmosphere, being there. On the way back from San Francisco, when the people I was with turned on rock music in the car, it just wasn't the same.
Needless to say, this time was different. It's now been almost eleven months since I got my cochlear implant (how does the time go so fast?), and the sense of curiosity and bravery that I now have about trying new sound-oriented events is, I think, one of the best outcomes of that journey. Walking into the symphony, I did not worry about what artistic impression I would grasp or how I would sit through it for an hour and a half. I did not worry about being excluded. I just went, feeling eager and admittedly a little bit proud to be able to experience it with everybody else. When the music started, I leaned forward and watched - and, more importantly, listened - for a span of time that seemed to fly by but also hang suspended in the eternal expansion of a moment.
I regret to say that what I heard, I lack the vocabulary to describe. The language of music lies beyond every form of language that I've learned to use. All I can say is that I liked it, was borne aloft by it, even, although I cannot say why. The symphony in San Francisco was playing Mahler's Symphony No. 6, and as the first movement started I felt the usual sensations that I feel when trying to settle into a piece of complex music. I twiddled my CI volume, trying to get it exactly right as the notes settled into a whisper and then swelled, almost knocking me back into my seat with their sudden energy.
Volume set, I listened. Or tried to. My mind, as usual, got fidgety. My gaze roved about. I studied the people sitting in front of me, looked at the architecture and the patterns on the ceiling. I tried to count how many symphony players there were, to see when their instruments were coming in and out. I thought of the most off-topic, improbable things. It wasn't that I was bored, or that the symphony failed to hold my attention. It was that, once again, I'm simply not used to surrendering my thoughts to listening. My mind clings too strongly to the visual and the imaginative. It is too used to amusing itself when the auditory information of the world goes whizzing by. Anything to do with sound still feels foreign.
But, finally, about an hour into the symphony, I felt those old habits starting to loosen their grip. (I shake my head that it took that long.) The mental fidgeting stopped, and I relaxed into the music. It struck me that I was being transported to the fringes of a different state of consciousness, or of thinking, which was the same state of consciousness that the conductor and all the players must have existed in. The symphony seemed to draw collective breaths before my eyes (or ears!), to flow from one section to the next like a giant living thing. It exhausted me to think of playing an instrument for as long as they did; I thought of the physical precision, the mental sharpness of timing each note to merge with the rest. Yet the players kept going, tirelessly, the conductor breathing energy into their efforts like a bellows. I did not want it to end. It seemed that it never would or could.
When I stood up to applaud like the rest, I only wished I'd been able to summarize what I'd heard. But the symphony had taught me more about music than I'd known walking in the door: I now could pick out when various instruments came in, or slightly anticipate the feeling that linked one section to the next. I'd learned to have my interest piqued by auditory surprises (such as when someone rang a drum that looked like a large sledgehammer and made me jump). Most of all, I realized how much I enjoyed the (for lack of a better word) organic feel of this kind of performance. Not only did I enjoy listening - I also enjoyed watching, soaking in the atmosphere, being there. On the way back from San Francisco, when the people I was with turned on rock music in the car, it just wasn't the same.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Black Box, Revisited
This brain business is freaking me out. I’m wondering how much more complex my mind is than I consciously realize. Today I had another auditory therapy appointment, my first since last quarter, and while I walked away feeling excited, I also walked away feeling unsettled. What exactly is going on inside that black box that I don’t understand?
To offer a quick recap: my therapist and I sat down and discussed my progress over the last month or so, then proceeded to listening exercises that I’ve done a few times before. Throughout, she commented on my growing confidence and poise with listening, or at least my growing willingness to persevere with deciphering what I hear. To paraphrase her words, she told me: “Your entire life, you’ve had to hang back, to resign yourself and say, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t understand this.’ You’ve felt constantly unsure and you’ve grown used to being cautious as a result. Now you have this wonderful new tool that helps you engage better, and you’re learning how to overcome that hesitation that you’ve grown used to.”
How true, not only for me but for anyone else with a hearing loss. And how nice to have this perspective articulated so clearly. Disengagement has been a survival mechanism for me for so long that it’s hard for me to commit my brain to listening, to trying to piece the sounds together despite having less than ten months’ experience with this auditory mess. The words streak by, not making any sense at first, that old response kicks in and I think “I can’t do this! For heaven's sake, I’m deaf!” and then I get overwhelmed and implode and my mind switches off. I don’t do this intentionally, I don’t think. It’s not that I mean to give up. It’s that habit (by now, almost instinct) tells me that my efforts will be futile and that trying isn’t even an option. Spoken word gibberish soup, again. So much for that.
But when I do try, strange things happen. One of today’s exercises dealt with listening to a simple sentence involving two words: “Please pick up (food item) and (food item) from the store.” Old hat, this exercise, even while the words to engrain in my auditory memory seem limitless! Some of the food words, I’d heard often enough to get right away, such as hamburgers and French fries. Others were more unexpected, and when my auditory therapist saw that I wasn’t getting them she would switch to verbally describing them to give me clues, instead of either 1) repeating the word over and over again while I got progressively more frustrated, or 2) throwing in the towel and telling me the word outright. This backroads strategy is one that she’s used from the beginning, to force me to listen in the context of language. It’s also very hard for me right now. Remember, I’m listening to full-bodied descriptive sentences without lipreading. Talk about a jump up!
So, today I sat and listened to her describing this unknown word using other unknown words, the sounds piling up and toppling over and burying me in their rush, and while I couldn’t have told you what I was hearing I also wasn’t completely overwhelmed. This time was different. The words going by sounded like English words, they sounded like language. They sounded comfy, like they could have been my friends. Even if it was impossible for me to say exactly what they were, at least after the fact – I felt more like I was brushing each one of them as they passed, but not strongly enough to sink in my hook and reel them in. Once in a while, one or two would jump up and I would grasp a fleeting phrase, but then struggle to hold on as the stream continued. “This is a… breakfast… You use it to… and it… green…” Other times, I would rustle against individual sounds but couldn’t think fast enough to assemble them into words.
Yet, out of this ghostly, translucent chaos, some sort of picture emerged. The first time this happened, I listened to my therapist’s stream of speech, sat there subconsciously ruminating, and then said, “Yogurt.”
“Very good!” she told me.
“That’s really what it was? Yogurt?”
“Yes.”
How did I ever get that? All I’d heard, at least consciously, was something about flavors and strawberries. Impossible, for my brain to make the leap from that to “yogurt.”
But then it happened again. The word in question: zucchini. I listened, gathered that my therapist was talking about a long and green vegetable, but instead of searching through my mental food vocabulary to find something that fit the bill, the word popped up and came to me right then. I knew. It had been there all along, beneath the surface of my brain, but hesitating and not knowing how to fight its way into conscious articulation.
And again. Something about cutting and breakfast and sugar, only half-grasped and feeling like a murky dream: without a doubt, it must be grapefruit. I wasn’t assembling clues, because the clues themselves hardly made sense. Unless they were assembling subconsciously, just like everything else?
Whoa whoa whoa, wait. What the eff is going on? I don’t get this. How can I so definitively say something, based on so little (read: almost nonexistent) proof? Unless the proof is there in abundance, somewhere deep within that black box, and I’m not capable of realizing it? What determines whether the sounds click together to make a word or whether they don’t? How can all this be happening without the conscious input of my work ethic or deductive reasoning or problem-solving skills, but based only on my willingness to sit there and listen to and accept what seems like chaos? How can my brain be so resourceful, all by itself and seemingly without me?
And, at the same time, how amazing is that?!
To offer a quick recap: my therapist and I sat down and discussed my progress over the last month or so, then proceeded to listening exercises that I’ve done a few times before. Throughout, she commented on my growing confidence and poise with listening, or at least my growing willingness to persevere with deciphering what I hear. To paraphrase her words, she told me: “Your entire life, you’ve had to hang back, to resign yourself and say, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t understand this.’ You’ve felt constantly unsure and you’ve grown used to being cautious as a result. Now you have this wonderful new tool that helps you engage better, and you’re learning how to overcome that hesitation that you’ve grown used to.”
How true, not only for me but for anyone else with a hearing loss. And how nice to have this perspective articulated so clearly. Disengagement has been a survival mechanism for me for so long that it’s hard for me to commit my brain to listening, to trying to piece the sounds together despite having less than ten months’ experience with this auditory mess. The words streak by, not making any sense at first, that old response kicks in and I think “I can’t do this! For heaven's sake, I’m deaf!” and then I get overwhelmed and implode and my mind switches off. I don’t do this intentionally, I don’t think. It’s not that I mean to give up. It’s that habit (by now, almost instinct) tells me that my efforts will be futile and that trying isn’t even an option. Spoken word gibberish soup, again. So much for that.
But when I do try, strange things happen. One of today’s exercises dealt with listening to a simple sentence involving two words: “Please pick up (food item) and (food item) from the store.” Old hat, this exercise, even while the words to engrain in my auditory memory seem limitless! Some of the food words, I’d heard often enough to get right away, such as hamburgers and French fries. Others were more unexpected, and when my auditory therapist saw that I wasn’t getting them she would switch to verbally describing them to give me clues, instead of either 1) repeating the word over and over again while I got progressively more frustrated, or 2) throwing in the towel and telling me the word outright. This backroads strategy is one that she’s used from the beginning, to force me to listen in the context of language. It’s also very hard for me right now. Remember, I’m listening to full-bodied descriptive sentences without lipreading. Talk about a jump up!
So, today I sat and listened to her describing this unknown word using other unknown words, the sounds piling up and toppling over and burying me in their rush, and while I couldn’t have told you what I was hearing I also wasn’t completely overwhelmed. This time was different. The words going by sounded like English words, they sounded like language. They sounded comfy, like they could have been my friends. Even if it was impossible for me to say exactly what they were, at least after the fact – I felt more like I was brushing each one of them as they passed, but not strongly enough to sink in my hook and reel them in. Once in a while, one or two would jump up and I would grasp a fleeting phrase, but then struggle to hold on as the stream continued. “This is a… breakfast… You use it to… and it… green…” Other times, I would rustle against individual sounds but couldn’t think fast enough to assemble them into words.
Yet, out of this ghostly, translucent chaos, some sort of picture emerged. The first time this happened, I listened to my therapist’s stream of speech, sat there subconsciously ruminating, and then said, “Yogurt.”
“Very good!” she told me.
“That’s really what it was? Yogurt?”
“Yes.”
How did I ever get that? All I’d heard, at least consciously, was something about flavors and strawberries. Impossible, for my brain to make the leap from that to “yogurt.”
But then it happened again. The word in question: zucchini. I listened, gathered that my therapist was talking about a long and green vegetable, but instead of searching through my mental food vocabulary to find something that fit the bill, the word popped up and came to me right then. I knew. It had been there all along, beneath the surface of my brain, but hesitating and not knowing how to fight its way into conscious articulation.
And again. Something about cutting and breakfast and sugar, only half-grasped and feeling like a murky dream: without a doubt, it must be grapefruit. I wasn’t assembling clues, because the clues themselves hardly made sense. Unless they were assembling subconsciously, just like everything else?
Whoa whoa whoa, wait. What the eff is going on? I don’t get this. How can I so definitively say something, based on so little (read: almost nonexistent) proof? Unless the proof is there in abundance, somewhere deep within that black box, and I’m not capable of realizing it? What determines whether the sounds click together to make a word or whether they don’t? How can all this be happening without the conscious input of my work ethic or deductive reasoning or problem-solving skills, but based only on my willingness to sit there and listen to and accept what seems like chaos? How can my brain be so resourceful, all by itself and seemingly without me?
And, at the same time, how amazing is that?!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Breaking Through the Jargon
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had a few interesting experiences with appointments: among others, visits to the doctor and the dentist. All have emphasized to me how I continue to progress with my CI (even if, again, I don’t feel like I’m progressing).
Now, I’ve always hated going to any sort of appointment by myself. The reason, I think, is fairly obvious. There are too many people to adjust to for lipreading, too much important information to catch (especially with medical terms! oy vey), and too many details that too easily slip beneath my notice. Up until the time I left for college, and even past then, I always took a parent in with me for any kind of appointment, just as a safety net. That isn’t an option anymore. Nor, really, is requesting an agency interpreter to show up for every little thing – I’d consider that in a dire situation, but as someone who sometimes feels like she spends a quarter of her life scheduling interpreters in one way or another, I’d rather cling to my sense of freedom. As well as personal privacy.
Appointments aren’t the highest item on my worry-o-meter, but they’re pretty high. So, in the last month, I found myself pleasantly surprised when I visited the dentist and heard the technician say, “Now, I’m going to floss your teeth,” as well as some other things I don’t remember. When I went to see the doctor, she slipped behind me and (without meaning to, I’m sure) spoke from where I couldn’t see her face. “Take a deep breath,” she said, placing the stethoscope on my back. And I understood! If only she knew how much time, hard work, anxiety, joy, and pride had gone into that one breath I obligingly took. Other things, like “I’ll be right back,” “Just step this way,” and “Very good” also stood out to me, like tiny rays of light against a murky gray surface. Falling like candies into my hand.
I still might not be perfect, but when my CI steps in like this it assures me that I will be okay, that I am capable of figuring out routine hearing-people things like going to the doctor by myself. But still – every time one of those tiny comprehension moments occurs, I am so, so stunned. I never get used to the feeling of how easy understanding is during the moments where things fall into place. (Even as I type this right now, I’m grinning uncontrollably.)
Dear readers, are these tiny moments getting redundant or boring yet? Of course not! For me they never will, because I cannot ever imagine myself taking them for granted.
Now, I’ve always hated going to any sort of appointment by myself. The reason, I think, is fairly obvious. There are too many people to adjust to for lipreading, too much important information to catch (especially with medical terms! oy vey), and too many details that too easily slip beneath my notice. Up until the time I left for college, and even past then, I always took a parent in with me for any kind of appointment, just as a safety net. That isn’t an option anymore. Nor, really, is requesting an agency interpreter to show up for every little thing – I’d consider that in a dire situation, but as someone who sometimes feels like she spends a quarter of her life scheduling interpreters in one way or another, I’d rather cling to my sense of freedom. As well as personal privacy.
Appointments aren’t the highest item on my worry-o-meter, but they’re pretty high. So, in the last month, I found myself pleasantly surprised when I visited the dentist and heard the technician say, “Now, I’m going to floss your teeth,” as well as some other things I don’t remember. When I went to see the doctor, she slipped behind me and (without meaning to, I’m sure) spoke from where I couldn’t see her face. “Take a deep breath,” she said, placing the stethoscope on my back. And I understood! If only she knew how much time, hard work, anxiety, joy, and pride had gone into that one breath I obligingly took. Other things, like “I’ll be right back,” “Just step this way,” and “Very good” also stood out to me, like tiny rays of light against a murky gray surface. Falling like candies into my hand.
I still might not be perfect, but when my CI steps in like this it assures me that I will be okay, that I am capable of figuring out routine hearing-people things like going to the doctor by myself. But still – every time one of those tiny comprehension moments occurs, I am so, so stunned. I never get used to the feeling of how easy understanding is during the moments where things fall into place. (Even as I type this right now, I’m grinning uncontrollably.)
Dear readers, are these tiny moments getting redundant or boring yet? Of course not! For me they never will, because I cannot ever imagine myself taking them for granted.
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