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Originally Posted by Dennis
So, you're saying that if I took off my glasses (which serve to help me see what I'm doing) it would take me "almost exactly 10 minutes of focused concentration" to forget that I can't see? My CI is a vital and integral part of me, as much as my glasses are. I guess I should be playing without my glasses from now on because they're likely to break while playing.
Prosthesis? Niiiice. You're insulting both those people who use assistive hearing devices AND people who use artificial limbs to live more normal lives. I guess you don't think someone who lost a limb should be allowed to use their replacement leg or arm to play either, right? No, even that would be too mean for you. Just cut it out, admit that neither hearing aids nor cochlear implants make a person "less Deaf." If they're no "less Deaf" than their non-wearing counterparts, then they should be allowed to play regardless of what their aids, because it does NOT interfere with play nor incur a liability.
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Dennis, since I've been wearing a hearing aid almost longer than you've been alive I'll try and be understanding about your defensiveness, unflattering though it may be. And since my own father lost a leg to diabetes when I was a child and I fetched his crutches and his prosthetic leg and his wheelchair for him I'll excuse you for not knowing that I've had that experience in my life. What I don't excuse, since I just retired from a career as a sports reporter and columnist and seem to have carried my own weight in doing so for 25 years, is your disregard for the safety of others. As an athlete myself, I always removed my hearing aid because: 1) Persperation will destroy it, 2) Other athletes will jam the ear mold into you ear in the course of rough and tumble competition, and 3) Because I witnessed a deaf athlete get her ear torn half way off in a high school state championship softball game.
If you can't see, there are such things as safety eye glasses. They aren't the most desirable thing, but officials have a responsibilty to interview athletes who wear them to make sure they are secured to their heads and are made of unbreakable material. But more to the point, there is absolutely nothing you cannot do on the athletic field if you are not wearing a HA or CI. I know this not just from my own experience, but from having watched hundreds of athletic competition over the span of 35 years. Safety isn't interested in the self-esteem of the stone deaf or the the users of prosthetic devices. If you injury another athlete when you had reasonable opportunity to avoid it, do you honestly expect people to defer to your political or self-esteem arguments? Why don't you, yourself, pay the insurance premium for this competition and make this a moot point. However, I would caution you that you can still be sued if someone suffers an ear, eye or head injury due to a loose projectile, which is all a CI or HA is when it rips flesh or an ear hook get lodged in someone's eyeball.
You are forgiven because of your youth and inexperience. I would not be if my HA punctured my own ear drum or inflicted an avoidable injury on another person.