Sorkabeth
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2013
- Messages
- 6
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Hi, I'm sorry if this is long and rambling, I'm nervous. I'll start at the beginning. In 1998, my junior year of high school, I got sick with something that stumped the doctors by resembling viral meningitis but with little or no fever. I had a headache and was violently dizzy and nauseous for months during which time there was so much pressure in my head that I had trouble hearing. Slowly, eventually I got better, I could walk down the halls at school without clutching the lockers to stay upright and the pressure in my head went away so I could hear again, I thought. The next year a hearing loss was detected by regular public school screening, they tested me 3 times, on 2 different machines, with 2 different people, and made me come back later to be retested in a quieter room. Their concern was obvious in the looks on their faces and the was they kept asking "No one ever told you you had a hearing loss before?!" But I really didn't feel like I was missing anything so we didn't do anything about it. That changed when I got to college. Lecture halls were a disaster no matter how close I sat to the front. And I was majoring in technical theatre so it was always either loud with hammering and power tools or dark and everyone was whispering. We finally decided to look into hearing aids so I went down to my local beltone shop and their testing showed a mild cookie bite of 35R and 40L db centered on 2k and I got the hearing aids the guy offered me, small ITCs and I wore them for a couple of years. They were ok and gave me environmental sounds I had been unaware of, the radio in the neighbors apartment, sirens down the street,but were not as helpful for clarity of speech and I was still having a lot of trouble. It was in this time period that I took a semester of ASL, figuring my hearing loss wouldn't matter in that class and that I might make friends with other hearing aid users. I had never met anyone deaf or anyone under about 80 who wore hearing aids. When I told the (hearing) ASL teacher that I was hearing impaired and would need her to face my general direction when she spoke aloud so I could read her lips to fill in the sounds I didn't hear her demeanor changed immediately to angry glaring and stiff formality. She never liked me. I had to look up the sign for hard of hearing myself because she wouldn't teach it to me. I'm assuming the phrase 'hearing impaired' is what set her off but I was young and new to hearing loss and didn't know any better. When I went to d/Deaf events I was eager to make friends but found myself largely rejected by the Deaf community, or rather, that particular group, in that place, at that time. It seemed like they couldn't understand why someone who was neither deaf nor planning to become an interpreter would bother learning ASL or be worth their time. (I am sure that not all Deaf people would feel this way but this, this combined with my regular, extreme shyness, is why I'm nervous to introduce myself) The rejection hurt, leaving me to continue trying to integrate being hard of hearing into my self identity alone. I decided not to take a second semester even though I liked learning ASL and think the language is beautiful, when I found that I would have to take it with the same teacher.
I can't remember exactly when I got the second pair of hearing aids, either just before or just after that class. The second pair were widex diva BTEs and were SO MUCH better! I loved them and hated taking them off at the end of the day because the world sounded muffled and unclear. I eventually got bright yellow earmolds for them because I found that the people around me forgot the need to look at me when they spoke so often that I wanted to wear a shirt or carry a sign that said LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU TALK! But that seemed like it would be annoying so bright colored earmolds are a good visual reminder for my friends, family, and acquaintances. Also, bright colors are fun. I even wore the yellow molds at my wedding, they matched the daffodils in my bouquet. I stopped wearing them when I got a job at a daycare center in an infant and young toddler room. The sounds of unhappy children crying and happy children shrieking all day hurt my ears if I wore my aids and since the children were all preverbal it didn't matter that I would have had trouble understanding them. I signed some with my daycare class and my class had the fewest behavior problems and tantrums of all the classes. It was around that time I lost the divas and couldn't afford to replace them.
So I've bee unaided for the last 5 years or so and had genuinely forgotten how much I was missing. Though he passed his infant hearing screening, my son talked late, having very few spoken words on his second birthday, but he had over 100 signs that he used regularly so the pediatrician actually didn't label him with a speech delay. He is now 2 and 3/4 and is now talking a lot and I have trouble understanding him though I know his speech is very clear for his age and understanding his little friends at playgroup is worse. He asks me about sounds I can't hear all the time "what's that sound, Mommy?" And I don't hear anything at all. We recently got new insurance because my husband's work changed plans and the new one will cover part of new hearing aids so I went to the audiologist a week and a half or so ago and it turns out I've been having more trouble not just because I have more need to hear because of my son but because my loss is worse.
250 R20 L20, 500 R25 L25, 1k R30 L35, 1.5k R45 L45, 2k R50 L60, 3k R40 L55, 4k R20 L40, 6k R15 L30, 8k R15 L0
I'm told that it's progressive and will continue to get worse as I age. I get my new hearing aids on Monday the 11th, purple phonak boleros with clear, blue earmolds. I'm excited to hear all of the sounds I've been missing but aware that it will be an adjustment.
So, now that I've told you my whole life story... Hi, I'm Liz and I'm hard of hearing. I still don't know anyone else who wears hearing aids. I'm looking to make friends with other people who understand how it feels to miss something and be told nevermind. Other topics of interest include Doctor Who, Star Trek, Anne McCaffrey and David Weber novels, other assorted nerdiness, living with asthma and/or ADHD, raising a child with food allergies, Babywearing, Glee, Switched at Birth, Facebook, and theatre.
tl/dr Hi, I'm Liz. I've been hard of hearing since late high school. I only sign a little. I'm getting new, purple, phonak boleros on Monday. I'd like to be friends.
I can't remember exactly when I got the second pair of hearing aids, either just before or just after that class. The second pair were widex diva BTEs and were SO MUCH better! I loved them and hated taking them off at the end of the day because the world sounded muffled and unclear. I eventually got bright yellow earmolds for them because I found that the people around me forgot the need to look at me when they spoke so often that I wanted to wear a shirt or carry a sign that said LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU TALK! But that seemed like it would be annoying so bright colored earmolds are a good visual reminder for my friends, family, and acquaintances. Also, bright colors are fun. I even wore the yellow molds at my wedding, they matched the daffodils in my bouquet. I stopped wearing them when I got a job at a daycare center in an infant and young toddler room. The sounds of unhappy children crying and happy children shrieking all day hurt my ears if I wore my aids and since the children were all preverbal it didn't matter that I would have had trouble understanding them. I signed some with my daycare class and my class had the fewest behavior problems and tantrums of all the classes. It was around that time I lost the divas and couldn't afford to replace them.
So I've bee unaided for the last 5 years or so and had genuinely forgotten how much I was missing. Though he passed his infant hearing screening, my son talked late, having very few spoken words on his second birthday, but he had over 100 signs that he used regularly so the pediatrician actually didn't label him with a speech delay. He is now 2 and 3/4 and is now talking a lot and I have trouble understanding him though I know his speech is very clear for his age and understanding his little friends at playgroup is worse. He asks me about sounds I can't hear all the time "what's that sound, Mommy?" And I don't hear anything at all. We recently got new insurance because my husband's work changed plans and the new one will cover part of new hearing aids so I went to the audiologist a week and a half or so ago and it turns out I've been having more trouble not just because I have more need to hear because of my son but because my loss is worse.
250 R20 L20, 500 R25 L25, 1k R30 L35, 1.5k R45 L45, 2k R50 L60, 3k R40 L55, 4k R20 L40, 6k R15 L30, 8k R15 L0
I'm told that it's progressive and will continue to get worse as I age. I get my new hearing aids on Monday the 11th, purple phonak boleros with clear, blue earmolds. I'm excited to hear all of the sounds I've been missing but aware that it will be an adjustment.
So, now that I've told you my whole life story... Hi, I'm Liz and I'm hard of hearing. I still don't know anyone else who wears hearing aids. I'm looking to make friends with other people who understand how it feels to miss something and be told nevermind. Other topics of interest include Doctor Who, Star Trek, Anne McCaffrey and David Weber novels, other assorted nerdiness, living with asthma and/or ADHD, raising a child with food allergies, Babywearing, Glee, Switched at Birth, Facebook, and theatre.
tl/dr Hi, I'm Liz. I've been hard of hearing since late high school. I only sign a little. I'm getting new, purple, phonak boleros on Monday. I'd like to be friends.
