DEAF in one Ear and HEARING or HOH other Ear

I dated a very beautiful deaf woman once who was very much into deaf culture. When I met her family, I talked at length with her aunt who was hearing. My date told me later, she felt like a dog in the room because she wasn't in on the conversation. I fully understood her feelings having been there myself and it is not pleasant. However, she also needed to understand that just because I can have a conversation it doesn't mean I'm ignoring her.

We are not conduit between hearing an non-hearing people. We have our own lives and our own problems. And, in some cases, those problems are more complicated than either group.
 
Frisky Feline said:
Yes. It came to my mind, as to why I find it weird becuase this person who can hear but the other ear who can't hear. It seems to me that its difficult to have both worlds, such as hanging out with friends. Indeed, i know some people do hang out who are both speaking and signing. But for some people made chocie of hanging out with hearing people or deaf people.

i guess it is all about with upbringing, experience and parents play role with the culture. :dunno:
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I make the choice to hang out with people I find interesting - regardless of race, hearing/deaf etc ... people are people first.

In my case, my parents had next to nothing to do with my living in both the hearing and Deaf world ... my parents tried very hard to pretend I was hearing - even going so far as re-defining what "deaf" meant (they said I hear everything it's just "fuzzy" so I have to pay attention!!!!).

They also tried very hard to warp my own understanding of myself and make ME believe I was "just not trying hard enough" to be "normal". Thankfully, I never bought into their "you really hear just fine, one ear doesn't make a difference and you don't want to be "lazy" with your hearing" BS.

I was the one who actively looked for other Hoh and Deaf people from a very young age (Linda on Sesame Street etc).

At times I've struggled to find my place (but everyone does!), but it's always been an basically unnecessary internal struggle - I've always been welcomed with open arms by EVERY Deaf/ASL community I've met, and been seen as Hoh/Deaf (not a hearing person with a deaf ear).

I'll never belong to the hearing world, I can live in it, but I'm not "of it". Within the Deaf World I can truly be me - with the "quirk" of sometimes having access to sounds (something that with HAs and CIs in the Deaf Community isn't really a "big deal" anymore at all)
 
frisky, IMHO, folks who have a Deaf ear and a HOH ear tend to identify as d/hoh...some may even identify as Deaf. Unilateral deaf they tend to identify as mildy HOH...heck many unilateral folks don't even wear a hearing aid.
 
I know one girl who is 9 years old who is deaf in one ear and hearing in the other. She has Deaf parents and can fit in both worlds. She is comfortable not using ASL with non signers and comfortable using ASL with signers. I am just happy she had the opportunity to be exposed to both cultures.
 
My hearing was fine until age 5 when I had a several week bout with measles followed by an ear infection in the left ear. The resulting loss left me with no detectable hearing in the left ear but the right remained very good. Throughout my elementary school years (k-8) I was checked periodically with earphones but not in a booth. I had no speech therapy although it was available from the same traveling specialist that did the hearing tests. I can only assume that I did not need it. I had no regular testing in high school. I did have some very loud bouts of tinnitus in my junior year of high school.

Tinnitus showed up intermittently in the following years. But, did not come to a point of checking the right ear further until in the 1970's when I was in my 30's. I got my first hearing aid for the right in when I was in my early 30's and found that I was hearing things from a further distance away than I remembered. So, there was probably some loss there before I realized it. That loss has been progressive to the point that it is now profound.

I do not sign! I took a beginning course at Kaskaskia College two different years and made NO contacts to continue and improve my use of it. I have since forgotten 99% of what I did learn.

I did see a specialist named Dr. John Shea in Memphis in the mid 1980's and was told that the left ear did not look like typical infection damage and that is had resulted in a sensorineural loss instead. He could not account for why the loss in the right ear. At that time he had nothing to offer surgically and even if he had he said he would have hesitated to do anything to the right ear because of possible loss of what I did have. He also made the comment that he thought I was able to get at least 50% of a conversation from lip reading.

I have used a TTY with VCO and the state relay service ever since it first showed up in Illinois in the early 1990's. For a few years I also used a very expensive private relay service for interstate calls that did not have VCO because the first few years of the Illinois Relay they only handled calls within Illinois. I also take advantage of any assistance systems available in churches, etc. I have kept a neckloop of my own on hand ever since my hearing got to the point that the ear bud that comes with the receivers that are part of the Personal PA by Williams had to be held in just a certain spot and my ear would hurt by the end of our church service. I have used the same neckloop with a number of different hearing assistance systems.

Years ago I found the PVCO for use with a cell phone and got my first cell phone. When digital cell phones came in that no longer worked and I went to the PocketComm. The PocketComm turned out to be delicate; needing repairs about yearly compared to my cell phone that I had to have nothing done to over the same number of years. It was in March of 2011 that I found Alldeaf while looking for a recommendation of another brand of easy to carry TTY. I have since discovered Wireless CapTel by Sprint and am using that with a Droid Pro smartphone activated on PagePlus.

I think you get the idea. I grew up in the hearing world and have stayed in it. Thus, ASL influenced grammar seems very strange compared to standard English. My friends and I do use email more than the phone. Most are well aware of my problems in groups and noise and have no problem writing down things to fill me in. One other gal that I don’t see that often said I do so well one on one that she forgets I have the problem when I asked her about not getting my attention before speaking to me. So . . . evidently I am not hard to understand.

For many years financing was a stumbling block to even considering CI as my insurance had hearing as an exclusion. Since I turned 65 and have Medicare and a Supplemental policy it would probably be covered but I haven’t really followed up on that in the past five years. Also, logistics is a factor as I have no close family; even the cousins that I do have live across the country.
 
Frisky Feline said:
oh, so does that mean both are deaf? :)

my original post was one hearing and one deaf or one hoh. BUT thats ok. im curious about either with culture too.
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You should change your thread title then is says "DEAF in one Ear and HEARING or HOH other ear" I responded because I'm deaf in one and HoH in the other. If you had really asked if you were hearing in one ear and deaf or Hoh in the other i wouldn't have responded. That's probably what you meant to ask, but that isn't what you asked.
 
deafdyke said:
frisky, IMHO, folks who have a Deaf ear and a HOH ear tend to identify as d/hoh...some may even identify as Deaf. Unilateral deaf they tend to identify as mildy HOH...heck many unilateral folks don't even wear a hearing aid.
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Actually most of the Uni's I know wear either a CROS or BAHA

(Being unilateral from birth is much more rare than becoming unilaterally deaf as a result of illness or trauma ... for those who are postlingually Uni, they almost always choose to use CROS or BAHA and adapt to using it very well. Those who are Uni from birth tend not to respond as favourably to CROS or BAHA)
 
I did spend about 5 years deaf in one and hearing in the other, because I lost in the left first. I didn't use an aid for it until I started losing it in the right 5 years later.

See here's the thing, if you can hear in one ear, and can't from the other, it's not really like you're half hearing and half deaf. That hearing ear makes you hearing. I did perfectly fine and didn't really need an aid for that left ear because I could hear with my right. The only time I really had a problem is when someone was standing directly on my left and trying to talk to me. If I turned my head...tada I could hear them.

They're not half in the hearing world and half in the deaf.

Trying to find the ringing cordless phone was a pain in the butt though, be running around in circles where is it where is it?
 
Well, I'm not deaf in one ear and hearing in the other... but my hearing is unusual. In my left ear, I'm hard of hearing. In my right ear, I'm half more-than-hard of hearing and half profoundly deaf.

With my left ear, imagine a hearing person with all levels of hearing being reduced. With a hearing aid, I can hear "like" a hearing person.

With my right year, imagine a hearing person with the low-pitch level of hearing being reduced but better than my left ear... and the high-pitch level of hearing being reduced worse than my left ear. As a result, my right ear is sensitive to low-pitch sounds... bass. With a hearing aid on my right ear, I get headaches as if I've got people banging drums next to my head. I can also hear things, but I can't tell what I'm hearing. To me, knocking on the door, dropping a book, clattering pots and pans, etc... all sound the same.
 
My husband is deaf one ear, hoh other at the moment. But his family has progressive hearing loss so he will be deaf in both before it's all over.

He doesn't really have a problem with it as he has had the opportunity to watch preceding generations be successful .
 
ambrosia said:
You should change your thread title then is says "DEAF in one Ear and HEARING or HOH other ear" I responded because I'm deaf in one and HoH in the other. If you had really asked if you were hearing in one ear and deaf or Hoh in the other i wouldn't have responded. That's probably what you meant to ask, but that isn't what you asked.
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it does not matter now. i find it more information than what they reply.
I was curious about hearing in ear and the other ear either hoh or deaf. but everyone have their experiences differently. thats OK.
 
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