Below is a journal entry from pre-CI surgery
From June 5th, 2005:
I once said I'd never get a Cochlear Implant.
"Never say Never" might be a piece of advice I should've followed.
I am tired of being accidentally left out of conversations, tired of people talking about me when I'm right there (good or bad is irrelevant, the fact that they're talking about me and not telling me is rude) tired of how hard it is to make friends, tired of being unable to properly make plans to hang out with new people, tired of waiting for movies to come out on dvd, tired of how long it takes to learn how to read the lips of new people, tired of being socially shy because I know how hard it is to communicate with me, tired of pretending to know what people are saying, and certainly tired of people thinking of me as a rude/snobby.
I would love to finally be able to engage in a group discussion, make phone calls and both understand and hear the noise coming from the other end, go on a dinner-and-a-movie date, occasionally being social, being in less awkward situations when it comes to new people talking to me.
I don't even know if it'd work OR how long it would take for me to learn how to interpret sounds so that I wouldn't have to read lips. I'm not even sure what would be crossed off the list of things I could do (can I deep sea dive, can I safely play soccer, can I go sky diving, can I be on a plane longer than 5 hours?)
My parents would be so thrilled to learn that I'm seriously considering a cochlear implant.
So why does the idea seem exciting but saddening? My parents have spent years trying to turn me into a hearing person. They don't always get my attention when they talk to me,they just start talking and I have to prod them to look at me and repeat, so they never seem to remember I must read lips or I don't know what they're saying.
I used to go two years with hearing aids. Two years without, so that I wouldn't be so overly dependent on hearing aids. I can hear sounds, but I cannot interpret them with a hearing aid, I MUST read lips. SO WHY DO I WEAR ONE??? It caters to everyone elses laziness so that they won't have to catch my attention (because yelling is so much fun...)
I'd like to think I'd still have the same level of English skills even if they had placed me into a Deaf school, allowed me to learn ASL, and allowed me to develop social skills in an environment where I would understand everything going on. But I don't know, maybe if they hadn't mainstreamed, I'd have "4th grade English skills." But because I didn't understand what was going on around me, I turned to books. I was insomniac and I read books everynight. Would I have done so well in school, or read so many books if I hadn't been so isolated growing up?
Two reasons why they didn't teach me ASL: "We didn't want you to be handicapped " But I am handicapped and one reason is because I wasn't taught ASL. The other is because it's a hearing world, and even if I grew up with ASL, I'd still be just as held back from communicating with hearing people as I am now. A lack of communication in real life is a handicap. A guessing game is not stable or accurate and therefore not a true sense of communication.
In July, I'll be making an appointment to discuss a cochlear implant. Every hearing test I've had, they'd say I'd be a perfect candidate and that I should consider it. But does perfect include being able to understand sounds?
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Coming up next: What has changed since this journal entry from 2005 and are which changes are credited to getting a CI?
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