Ian Luna
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- Apr 6, 2017
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Hi everyone! It’s late and I should've been studying for my midterm but I just had to post here. IDK if anyone's going to read this lol.
I've been hard of hearing all my life. I'm not too sure the details on how - but I know that I was born a premature baby to two amazing parents who were musicians. Early on - my parents were concerned that I was extremely hyperactive as a toddler. I was diagnosed with ADHD, but doctors thought it might have been my difficulty in hearing.
The earliest memory I have of struggling with hearing was in the 1st grade when my hearing suddenly dropped and I couldn't hear anything. I remember sitting in class when suddenly I couldn't hear the substitute teacher calling me and saying things to me. I remember being so scared and confused. The entire class was staring at me, some were laughing, and some were pointing to gesture at me. I don't remember what happened then but I vaguely remember being in the doctor's hospital that night. It had to do with my left ear being underdeveloped and infected? I'm not too sure - but I remember I had 4 surgeries for my ear. One was to drain my left ear of fluid, and the others I can’t remember what for.
My left ear was always the weak ear, the underdeveloped ear that never matured as a result of my premature birth at 6 months and 3 weeks. My entire life I relied on my right ear to hear people. Although my left ear was the weak one - my hearing on my right suffered. Something to do about bilateral hearing...? I'm not sure. Anyway after my surgeries that year, I finally got hearing aids. I remember being so happy and giddy about being able to hear more.
I wore my hearing aids day and night - I wore them to church, I wore them to the playground, I wore them to school. That’s when I began to become ashamed of my hearing aids. Every year until middle school, kids would point and laugh at my ears. They would call me “grandpa” or they would try to whisper behind me to see if I could hear them. All the popular, smart kids started to make fun of me. This is when I started wearing my hearing aids less, and began to make an effort to hide them in front of my classmates. It was impossible. How could you hide these massive, beige things resting on top of your ear with a yellow-ish tubes sticking into your ear. They were sweaty, sticky and obvious. So I stopped wearing them at school.
It was about third grade when I finally stopped wearing my hearing aids. I was in a “gifted” class they called “GATE” class – an advanced class for those who were high performing, sort of like an AP class in high school. I struggled to hear in class, my grades dropped, and I had detention every week. Can you imagine? A deaf, ADHD kid running around in a gifted class – it’s like I didn’t belong there. That’s when I started feeling like I didn’t fit in. I’m Filipino-American, but I didn’t fit in with the Filipino’s at school because I didn’t speak Tagalog (both my parents spoke a different dialect and I grew up with that dialect). I didn’t fit in with the cool kids because I was the kid that wore hearing aids. I didn’t fit in with the smart kids because I was failing class. I didn’t fit in with the Latino kids because I was Asian.
I was a lonely kid – so I would always just end up reading books on my own. It was around this time that I started appreciating books, movies, TV shows, etc. I was obsessed with reading and books. I was always by myself - so to have fun I would write about things. I don’t know if my ADHD had anything to do with it – but I was very, VERY imaginative as a kid. I was the kind of kid that would talk and sing out loud, play in my own imaginary world, and lose myself on the playground. I had so many ideas for stories and so many poems that I wrote as a kid. One of them was about a deaf brother and sister (I have an older sister) who were able to travel to other worlds and do anything they wanted. Lul.
Anyway – as a result of my obsession with reading and writing I began to bring up my grades in reading, writing and comprehension. I ruled at book reports and spelling quizzes; although, I had to have the teacher repeat the word at least 50 times. Math on the other hand was difficult for me - you had to explain to a hard-of-hearing kid with very short attention span the multiplication table and fractions. I hated fractions. Usually the teacher lectured about math and then had you do problems on your own – I never knew what was going on or what the teacher said during these lectures. I am 23 years old today and I still cannot understand my professors during lectures. You could only imagine the panic that ensued every time the teacher said, “Okay, go ahead and try it on your own.” Try what? What the fuck is going on?
A teacher would call on me and ask me something - no response. I just see the teacher staring at me, and eventually everyone’s head turning towards me. Did the teacher just ask a question?? Is she talking to me?? I would usually turn red and whisper, “What?” to my classmates around me who were laughing and gesturing me to say something. This is the worst feeling – and I still end up in these situations today. The feeling that everyone around you is staring, laughing because you look stupid for not answering or for having such a blank look on your face. What the fuck did the teacher say?
My parents were pretty social, fun and outgoing. They were musicians and they had tons of friends from the Philippines and in the US. My sister was the same – she was 12 years older than me and she was the popular cheerleader in high school. My immediate family consisted of the most outgoing, fun and obnoxiously loud people. Then there was me. The quiet kid. I was quiet around new people because I was scared that they would find out that I had a hearing problem. I was scared that they would ask a question and I’d look dumb and terrified on the spot. I was scared to play with my parent’s friends’ kids who were my age. I couldn’t do it – it was terrifying.
My parents had played music since they were little. They were basically stars since youth in the place they came from. They had played together since their teen years and with my sister they had formed a band. My father played the piano/keyboard, my mom played the bass and sang backup, and my sister sang lead. “Muzikman: the One-man Band.” They were all amazing vocalists. Not me, fuck that – I’m too shy to even try karaoke in my most drunken moments.
Since I was little, I always helped my dad set up instruments at the gig. We had massive, tower speakers that we would always lug around to every single gig. Anyway – my dad had been gigging for such a long time at this point that his hearing had deteriorated. He knew what I was going through. He would always be frustrated when he couldn’t hear his piano or he couldn’t understand someone in a conversation. English was not his first language – so he became even more frustrated as his hearing deteriorated. I would always have to repeat the other person for him with my hearing aids on. We were a team at times – we were always traveling together. He was my best friend – the first and only friend who understood what I was going through – even if he didn’t acknowledge it out loud. He was always so proud of me – any little accomplishment I achieved, any little thing or hobby I was excited about. He would even brag about some petty ass thing that I was excited about to his friends, like “Hey my son Ian just got a 9/10 on his quiz.” “Ian just got a new toy!” “Ian is learning piano!”
Any little thing, he was so fucking proud of. He spoiled me and took care of me in a way that I could never thank him enough for. I really took him for granted and I regret not spending every single day with him while he was alive. He will never understand what he did for me and how much I appreciate and miss him every single fucking day. I was in college the day he passed away, I lost a huge chunk of my heart. I lost a huge part of my life. I lost my best friend. I lost someone who had an idea what I was going through in our hearing loss. I lost someone who understood me and told me he loved me through his ruffling of my hair – never acknowledging it out loud. He didn’t even make it a year after his diagnosis.
My mom, my sister, my other family members never really understood what was wrong with me or understood how I acted how I acted. They never understood what I was going through, what I went through every day as a kid. The same with my peers and my teachers at school. My teachers were always fed up with me – and I grew accustomed to hating all my teachers. Until high school.
I didn’t think I’d make it to high school. It’s a weird thought – but I was constantly failing classes and getting detentions. I went from gifted kid to absolute loser. It wasn’t until high school that my appreciation for writing came back. I loved my first high school English teacher – and I loved all my English teachers. They allowed me to express myself through writing. Every other class, I hated – especially math. Again in high school, I would keep my hearing aids off – terrified of losing what “reputation” I had left. I mean, itt was high school – a fucking savage time in a savage place. This was no place for me to be wearing a hearing aid and look stupid in front of the girl I crushed so hard on in French class.
French class. Fucking French class. In any language class – you need to participate to get participation points which were part of your grade. I never raised my hand, my teacher hated me and I knew it. I failed that class and had to retake it again. In my retaking French I class, I saw and met the girl of my dreams. It was an unhealthy obsession. Seriously.
I've been hard of hearing all my life. I'm not too sure the details on how - but I know that I was born a premature baby to two amazing parents who were musicians. Early on - my parents were concerned that I was extremely hyperactive as a toddler. I was diagnosed with ADHD, but doctors thought it might have been my difficulty in hearing.
The earliest memory I have of struggling with hearing was in the 1st grade when my hearing suddenly dropped and I couldn't hear anything. I remember sitting in class when suddenly I couldn't hear the substitute teacher calling me and saying things to me. I remember being so scared and confused. The entire class was staring at me, some were laughing, and some were pointing to gesture at me. I don't remember what happened then but I vaguely remember being in the doctor's hospital that night. It had to do with my left ear being underdeveloped and infected? I'm not too sure - but I remember I had 4 surgeries for my ear. One was to drain my left ear of fluid, and the others I can’t remember what for.
My left ear was always the weak ear, the underdeveloped ear that never matured as a result of my premature birth at 6 months and 3 weeks. My entire life I relied on my right ear to hear people. Although my left ear was the weak one - my hearing on my right suffered. Something to do about bilateral hearing...? I'm not sure. Anyway after my surgeries that year, I finally got hearing aids. I remember being so happy and giddy about being able to hear more.
I wore my hearing aids day and night - I wore them to church, I wore them to the playground, I wore them to school. That’s when I began to become ashamed of my hearing aids. Every year until middle school, kids would point and laugh at my ears. They would call me “grandpa” or they would try to whisper behind me to see if I could hear them. All the popular, smart kids started to make fun of me. This is when I started wearing my hearing aids less, and began to make an effort to hide them in front of my classmates. It was impossible. How could you hide these massive, beige things resting on top of your ear with a yellow-ish tubes sticking into your ear. They were sweaty, sticky and obvious. So I stopped wearing them at school.
It was about third grade when I finally stopped wearing my hearing aids. I was in a “gifted” class they called “GATE” class – an advanced class for those who were high performing, sort of like an AP class in high school. I struggled to hear in class, my grades dropped, and I had detention every week. Can you imagine? A deaf, ADHD kid running around in a gifted class – it’s like I didn’t belong there. That’s when I started feeling like I didn’t fit in. I’m Filipino-American, but I didn’t fit in with the Filipino’s at school because I didn’t speak Tagalog (both my parents spoke a different dialect and I grew up with that dialect). I didn’t fit in with the cool kids because I was the kid that wore hearing aids. I didn’t fit in with the smart kids because I was failing class. I didn’t fit in with the Latino kids because I was Asian.
I was a lonely kid – so I would always just end up reading books on my own. It was around this time that I started appreciating books, movies, TV shows, etc. I was obsessed with reading and books. I was always by myself - so to have fun I would write about things. I don’t know if my ADHD had anything to do with it – but I was very, VERY imaginative as a kid. I was the kind of kid that would talk and sing out loud, play in my own imaginary world, and lose myself on the playground. I had so many ideas for stories and so many poems that I wrote as a kid. One of them was about a deaf brother and sister (I have an older sister) who were able to travel to other worlds and do anything they wanted. Lul.
Anyway – as a result of my obsession with reading and writing I began to bring up my grades in reading, writing and comprehension. I ruled at book reports and spelling quizzes; although, I had to have the teacher repeat the word at least 50 times. Math on the other hand was difficult for me - you had to explain to a hard-of-hearing kid with very short attention span the multiplication table and fractions. I hated fractions. Usually the teacher lectured about math and then had you do problems on your own – I never knew what was going on or what the teacher said during these lectures. I am 23 years old today and I still cannot understand my professors during lectures. You could only imagine the panic that ensued every time the teacher said, “Okay, go ahead and try it on your own.” Try what? What the fuck is going on?
A teacher would call on me and ask me something - no response. I just see the teacher staring at me, and eventually everyone’s head turning towards me. Did the teacher just ask a question?? Is she talking to me?? I would usually turn red and whisper, “What?” to my classmates around me who were laughing and gesturing me to say something. This is the worst feeling – and I still end up in these situations today. The feeling that everyone around you is staring, laughing because you look stupid for not answering or for having such a blank look on your face. What the fuck did the teacher say?
My parents were pretty social, fun and outgoing. They were musicians and they had tons of friends from the Philippines and in the US. My sister was the same – she was 12 years older than me and she was the popular cheerleader in high school. My immediate family consisted of the most outgoing, fun and obnoxiously loud people. Then there was me. The quiet kid. I was quiet around new people because I was scared that they would find out that I had a hearing problem. I was scared that they would ask a question and I’d look dumb and terrified on the spot. I was scared to play with my parent’s friends’ kids who were my age. I couldn’t do it – it was terrifying.
My parents had played music since they were little. They were basically stars since youth in the place they came from. They had played together since their teen years and with my sister they had formed a band. My father played the piano/keyboard, my mom played the bass and sang backup, and my sister sang lead. “Muzikman: the One-man Band.” They were all amazing vocalists. Not me, fuck that – I’m too shy to even try karaoke in my most drunken moments.
Since I was little, I always helped my dad set up instruments at the gig. We had massive, tower speakers that we would always lug around to every single gig. Anyway – my dad had been gigging for such a long time at this point that his hearing had deteriorated. He knew what I was going through. He would always be frustrated when he couldn’t hear his piano or he couldn’t understand someone in a conversation. English was not his first language – so he became even more frustrated as his hearing deteriorated. I would always have to repeat the other person for him with my hearing aids on. We were a team at times – we were always traveling together. He was my best friend – the first and only friend who understood what I was going through – even if he didn’t acknowledge it out loud. He was always so proud of me – any little accomplishment I achieved, any little thing or hobby I was excited about. He would even brag about some petty ass thing that I was excited about to his friends, like “Hey my son Ian just got a 9/10 on his quiz.” “Ian just got a new toy!” “Ian is learning piano!”
Any little thing, he was so fucking proud of. He spoiled me and took care of me in a way that I could never thank him enough for. I really took him for granted and I regret not spending every single day with him while he was alive. He will never understand what he did for me and how much I appreciate and miss him every single fucking day. I was in college the day he passed away, I lost a huge chunk of my heart. I lost a huge part of my life. I lost my best friend. I lost someone who had an idea what I was going through in our hearing loss. I lost someone who understood me and told me he loved me through his ruffling of my hair – never acknowledging it out loud. He didn’t even make it a year after his diagnosis.
My mom, my sister, my other family members never really understood what was wrong with me or understood how I acted how I acted. They never understood what I was going through, what I went through every day as a kid. The same with my peers and my teachers at school. My teachers were always fed up with me – and I grew accustomed to hating all my teachers. Until high school.
I didn’t think I’d make it to high school. It’s a weird thought – but I was constantly failing classes and getting detentions. I went from gifted kid to absolute loser. It wasn’t until high school that my appreciation for writing came back. I loved my first high school English teacher – and I loved all my English teachers. They allowed me to express myself through writing. Every other class, I hated – especially math. Again in high school, I would keep my hearing aids off – terrified of losing what “reputation” I had left. I mean, itt was high school – a fucking savage time in a savage place. This was no place for me to be wearing a hearing aid and look stupid in front of the girl I crushed so hard on in French class.
French class. Fucking French class. In any language class – you need to participate to get participation points which were part of your grade. I never raised my hand, my teacher hated me and I knew it. I failed that class and had to retake it again. In my retaking French I class, I saw and met the girl of my dreams. It was an unhealthy obsession. Seriously.