AlaskaStar
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2012
- Messages
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Hi, I thought I would introduce myself. New to the site as a member, been lurking as a spectator now since December 2011 when I was living with the monks on Kodiak Island.
I lost 100% of my hearing in a tragic mix of my being stubborn and 2 horrible doctors and my official last day of almost clear sound was Halloween, which I spent with my nephew taking him out to gather candy and had him laughing the whole time.
I suffered chronic ear infections, sinus infections, and such forth my whole life thus far. I had so many before that this one was just another storm to weather, or so I thought. It started in June of 2011, when I was on a job site moving a 10,500 square foot building by dismantle, transport and rebuild 76 miles away in the Fairbanks area. I kept working, and my sinus infection added an ear infection like it has so many times before.
So it kept going, and I have an incredible threshold for pain. It's so high that when I break bones I can tell you if it's broken or just a really deep bruise. That kind of pain level tolerance comes from getting hit by cars and trucks as a pedestrian (once hit by a cop that was distracted on a cell phone!).
The pain was numbing and large, but I dealt with it and kept working. I am self employed so I work a lot outside, and when work calls, you go. It's not a comfortable life, and I am not in debt, but I run the under $100 mark of being broke all the time.
Since I have a great disdain for doctors and a bad history of being the one who accidentally finds the bad ones every time, I refused to go see a doctor.
Then in late October, my tonsils swelled up, and the Eustachian tubes had been swollen shut completely, and with a painful sinus infection plus ear infection in both ears... November 1st, the left ear drum ruptured, making my pillow look like a bloody crime scene. November 3rd, my right eardrum ruptured making my new pillow look like a bloody crime scene. The pressure was gone and it felt VERY GOOD!
Though it felt good, the doctor did a Tympanogram Test and it came back as ZERO for both ears. He had me do an MRI and they were unable to locate 2 of the 3 bones from either ear or the drum from either side.
So the 1st doctor (Father in Law...) gave me these drops that literally were made from:
Hydrochloric Acid
Sodium Hydroxide
Salt Water
Hydrocortizone
Isopropyl Alcohol
Potassion Perchlorate
The drops went into my ear like cool water, then upon entering the bloody mess felt like LIQUID MOLTEN METAL as it worked its way into my throat, where I could taste it.
Family members tell me that I howled like a savage beast from a horror movie all night till I passed out from something.
The next day, they tackled me (I was already tired so it was easy) and gave me the drops again. Repeat of the first night.
The 3rd day, I was waiting with my .50 caliber which I pointed at them and demanded they hand me the bottle and leave before I get trigger happy.
I saw the ENT on the 4th day and handed him the bottle with a nice description of what it felt like in my head. The ENT went into a raging fit about the stupidity of the 1st doctor (Father in Law...) and proceeded to do tests and a high resolution scan MRI and discovered that everything inside was all scar tissue due to chemical damage.
Thanks Doc!
Now my Cochlea are perfectly fine. As a mad scientist of sorts, I assembled a home-made bone conduction hearing aide that was worn like a hat, had wires, and dials, and knobs for my adjusting all the time, and it ate 6 "AA" batteries every day.
Then I was gifted a StarKey Bone conductor Hearing Aide by a nice woman in a town 1,000 miles away.
So my wife was already fluent in ASL, and I was already very fluent in ASL for two years prior.
I had the unfortunate discovery of what my friends were really made of, as after going deaf, my friend count hit the negative integers in a hurry.
My family all but disowned me. Wife included. So I packed my tools into my minivan and hit the highway. I landed in Kodiak, and wintered over there with some of the most patient and wonderful people ever. They were monks. Awesome ones at that. You wouldn't believe how low I had hit. I have plenty of guns, and I regularly put the keys in a sling-shot and sent them out into the woods to keep from blowing myself away.
I am back at home, and of all my customers, neighbors, and people I meet at random, the only 3 that have problems are my family.
I recently ended up losing my $1600 hearing aide to an industrial mishap in the garage that I use at my dad's place because he was getting so nasty (verbal) about me not wearing it that I put it on, which allowed him to ask a rhetorical question (really important to ask stupid stuff after acting like a spoiled 5 yr old huh?) of me while I was working. I was replacing the transmission in a 2005 Chevy Aveo, and the new transmission was sitting on the crate in front of the car. Dad had to ask, "You putting a new transmission in the car?" to which I had to answer, "No. I am removing the right rear tail light through a complex process that starts under the hood and somewhere around the back seat I will take a shower and then remove the tail light. This shiny new Chevy Aveo transmission is only here for good luck!"
Dad was a civil engineer and a mechanic. Talk about a serious "DUHHHH" moment!
15 minutes later, the starter that I had been trying to get out decided to fall toward my face, I turned my head and it crushed the hearing aide into the concrete floor, preventing damage to the nose cone of this $65 starter motor. $1600 bucks gone in a moment of stupid. There is a REASON that I do not wear it while working on equipment.
I cannot stand stupid people. Never could.
At the hardware store, I bring pen and tablet because stupid people work there as well. Lady tapped me on shoulder, and I wrote "I am Deaf" and handed her the pen and tabled, to which she wrote "WHY?"
Really?
I told her to go home, because she needed more help than she could possibly offer me that day!
Being deaf in Alaska has it's challenges.
The first being my addiction to hiking the various mountains (we have plenty to choose from here...) and being unable to hear Bear or Wolverines approaching.
The cost of a service dog is prohibitive, and apartments here that are not over-priced do not allow dogs anyway.
Nobody here hires deaf people, regardless of their skills, and we are left to do janitorial garbage work.
I went from being a $65/hour subcontractor to being unable to be hired even by McDonalds as a burger flipper.
Although there is far less racial discrimination here, the stigma and discrimination that I face as a deafie in public in general and the stigma that my wife faces for having a deaf husband keeps us on the edge of divorce constantly, let alone the financial challenges of trying to survive.
We were fortunate enough to educate ourselves financially in such that we live debt free, have no credit card debt, and live totally cash & carry, our vehicles are 100% paid for (heck my service van and econo-car were FREE!) and though our bank accounts waver below $100 and above zero, it's not easy.
Though I would place us as a couple into an extreme minority in this country as the economy tumbles faster than a Jenga Game during the 1964 quake, I wouldn't say that we are better than anyone else nor do we have any grandeur ideas about it either.
Now the kicker: I have perfect speech. I pronounce things very crisp and clear. My dad is extreme H.O.H. and so I always had to enunciate at full scream so that he could hear, even with hearing aides.
This clarity of speech makes people think that I am not deaf. I don't have deaf accent. So I have to either sign or write and then they get the message. It's amazing. I speak and they speak back, even if I calmly state "I am deaf." 4 times in a row, they still keep flapping their lips.
The prevalence of thick facial hair on men and excess fat (hey, I am blunt, call it what it is!!) on women makes it EXTREMELY difficult to read lips. Not that I can't, it's just difficult because of the culture. We have an excess of excessively fat women and an excess of men with excessive facial hair around here.
My mother taught the Lindamood Bell System of literary education to help people learn to read late in life as well as properly make the sounds that represent the letters of the alphabet and their various combinations. I still remember many of the diagrams and names, like "Lip Popper" and "Tongue Tapper" to make the "P" and "T" sounds clearly without slurring your speech.
In this, I watched and assisted my mother and tutored many kids and adults in my free time.
Now... my family refuses all out to learn ASL. They refuse to write. They push me toward reconstructive surgery (impossible thanks to a certain doctor...) and refuse to interact in a civil manner, but deliberately make life harder for me.
I finally managed to find a way to communicate with one of the parts houses where I mainly buy my parts, and one of the workers uses text, because driving the 7 miles there just ask how much it is and if they have it in stock is a huge toll on the fuel and my working budget, even if I drive a car that gets 47 MPG on the highway, and it's all highway miles to get there.
Of the largest lessons learned, is that "hearing people" are far more MENTALLY DEAF than deaf people could ever be. It's a really sad thing to witness.
Well, that's all for now.
Any deafies in Alaska on here that want a friend who wont judge them, hit me up. I don't care how old you are or what your gender, creed etc.
-Chris
I lost 100% of my hearing in a tragic mix of my being stubborn and 2 horrible doctors and my official last day of almost clear sound was Halloween, which I spent with my nephew taking him out to gather candy and had him laughing the whole time.
I suffered chronic ear infections, sinus infections, and such forth my whole life thus far. I had so many before that this one was just another storm to weather, or so I thought. It started in June of 2011, when I was on a job site moving a 10,500 square foot building by dismantle, transport and rebuild 76 miles away in the Fairbanks area. I kept working, and my sinus infection added an ear infection like it has so many times before.
So it kept going, and I have an incredible threshold for pain. It's so high that when I break bones I can tell you if it's broken or just a really deep bruise. That kind of pain level tolerance comes from getting hit by cars and trucks as a pedestrian (once hit by a cop that was distracted on a cell phone!).
The pain was numbing and large, but I dealt with it and kept working. I am self employed so I work a lot outside, and when work calls, you go. It's not a comfortable life, and I am not in debt, but I run the under $100 mark of being broke all the time.
Since I have a great disdain for doctors and a bad history of being the one who accidentally finds the bad ones every time, I refused to go see a doctor.
Then in late October, my tonsils swelled up, and the Eustachian tubes had been swollen shut completely, and with a painful sinus infection plus ear infection in both ears... November 1st, the left ear drum ruptured, making my pillow look like a bloody crime scene. November 3rd, my right eardrum ruptured making my new pillow look like a bloody crime scene. The pressure was gone and it felt VERY GOOD!
Though it felt good, the doctor did a Tympanogram Test and it came back as ZERO for both ears. He had me do an MRI and they were unable to locate 2 of the 3 bones from either ear or the drum from either side.
So the 1st doctor (Father in Law...) gave me these drops that literally were made from:
Hydrochloric Acid
Sodium Hydroxide
Salt Water
Hydrocortizone
Isopropyl Alcohol
Potassion Perchlorate
The drops went into my ear like cool water, then upon entering the bloody mess felt like LIQUID MOLTEN METAL as it worked its way into my throat, where I could taste it.
Family members tell me that I howled like a savage beast from a horror movie all night till I passed out from something.
The next day, they tackled me (I was already tired so it was easy) and gave me the drops again. Repeat of the first night.
The 3rd day, I was waiting with my .50 caliber which I pointed at them and demanded they hand me the bottle and leave before I get trigger happy.
I saw the ENT on the 4th day and handed him the bottle with a nice description of what it felt like in my head. The ENT went into a raging fit about the stupidity of the 1st doctor (Father in Law...) and proceeded to do tests and a high resolution scan MRI and discovered that everything inside was all scar tissue due to chemical damage.
Thanks Doc!
Now my Cochlea are perfectly fine. As a mad scientist of sorts, I assembled a home-made bone conduction hearing aide that was worn like a hat, had wires, and dials, and knobs for my adjusting all the time, and it ate 6 "AA" batteries every day.
Then I was gifted a StarKey Bone conductor Hearing Aide by a nice woman in a town 1,000 miles away.
So my wife was already fluent in ASL, and I was already very fluent in ASL for two years prior.
I had the unfortunate discovery of what my friends were really made of, as after going deaf, my friend count hit the negative integers in a hurry.
My family all but disowned me. Wife included. So I packed my tools into my minivan and hit the highway. I landed in Kodiak, and wintered over there with some of the most patient and wonderful people ever. They were monks. Awesome ones at that. You wouldn't believe how low I had hit. I have plenty of guns, and I regularly put the keys in a sling-shot and sent them out into the woods to keep from blowing myself away.
I am back at home, and of all my customers, neighbors, and people I meet at random, the only 3 that have problems are my family.
I recently ended up losing my $1600 hearing aide to an industrial mishap in the garage that I use at my dad's place because he was getting so nasty (verbal) about me not wearing it that I put it on, which allowed him to ask a rhetorical question (really important to ask stupid stuff after acting like a spoiled 5 yr old huh?) of me while I was working. I was replacing the transmission in a 2005 Chevy Aveo, and the new transmission was sitting on the crate in front of the car. Dad had to ask, "You putting a new transmission in the car?" to which I had to answer, "No. I am removing the right rear tail light through a complex process that starts under the hood and somewhere around the back seat I will take a shower and then remove the tail light. This shiny new Chevy Aveo transmission is only here for good luck!"
Dad was a civil engineer and a mechanic. Talk about a serious "DUHHHH" moment!
15 minutes later, the starter that I had been trying to get out decided to fall toward my face, I turned my head and it crushed the hearing aide into the concrete floor, preventing damage to the nose cone of this $65 starter motor. $1600 bucks gone in a moment of stupid. There is a REASON that I do not wear it while working on equipment.
I cannot stand stupid people. Never could.
At the hardware store, I bring pen and tablet because stupid people work there as well. Lady tapped me on shoulder, and I wrote "I am Deaf" and handed her the pen and tabled, to which she wrote "WHY?"
Really?
I told her to go home, because she needed more help than she could possibly offer me that day!
Being deaf in Alaska has it's challenges.
The first being my addiction to hiking the various mountains (we have plenty to choose from here...) and being unable to hear Bear or Wolverines approaching.
The cost of a service dog is prohibitive, and apartments here that are not over-priced do not allow dogs anyway.
Nobody here hires deaf people, regardless of their skills, and we are left to do janitorial garbage work.
I went from being a $65/hour subcontractor to being unable to be hired even by McDonalds as a burger flipper.
Although there is far less racial discrimination here, the stigma and discrimination that I face as a deafie in public in general and the stigma that my wife faces for having a deaf husband keeps us on the edge of divorce constantly, let alone the financial challenges of trying to survive.
We were fortunate enough to educate ourselves financially in such that we live debt free, have no credit card debt, and live totally cash & carry, our vehicles are 100% paid for (heck my service van and econo-car were FREE!) and though our bank accounts waver below $100 and above zero, it's not easy.
Though I would place us as a couple into an extreme minority in this country as the economy tumbles faster than a Jenga Game during the 1964 quake, I wouldn't say that we are better than anyone else nor do we have any grandeur ideas about it either.
Now the kicker: I have perfect speech. I pronounce things very crisp and clear. My dad is extreme H.O.H. and so I always had to enunciate at full scream so that he could hear, even with hearing aides.
This clarity of speech makes people think that I am not deaf. I don't have deaf accent. So I have to either sign or write and then they get the message. It's amazing. I speak and they speak back, even if I calmly state "I am deaf." 4 times in a row, they still keep flapping their lips.
The prevalence of thick facial hair on men and excess fat (hey, I am blunt, call it what it is!!) on women makes it EXTREMELY difficult to read lips. Not that I can't, it's just difficult because of the culture. We have an excess of excessively fat women and an excess of men with excessive facial hair around here.
My mother taught the Lindamood Bell System of literary education to help people learn to read late in life as well as properly make the sounds that represent the letters of the alphabet and their various combinations. I still remember many of the diagrams and names, like "Lip Popper" and "Tongue Tapper" to make the "P" and "T" sounds clearly without slurring your speech.
In this, I watched and assisted my mother and tutored many kids and adults in my free time.
Now... my family refuses all out to learn ASL. They refuse to write. They push me toward reconstructive surgery (impossible thanks to a certain doctor...) and refuse to interact in a civil manner, but deliberately make life harder for me.
I finally managed to find a way to communicate with one of the parts houses where I mainly buy my parts, and one of the workers uses text, because driving the 7 miles there just ask how much it is and if they have it in stock is a huge toll on the fuel and my working budget, even if I drive a car that gets 47 MPG on the highway, and it's all highway miles to get there.
Of the largest lessons learned, is that "hearing people" are far more MENTALLY DEAF than deaf people could ever be. It's a really sad thing to witness.
Well, that's all for now.
Any deafies in Alaska on here that want a friend who wont judge them, hit me up. I don't care how old you are or what your gender, creed etc.
-Chris
