Monday, September 24, 2012

Essay post


Damron, Andrew

Gaylene Croker

English R101 11:30-12:20

9/11/2012

             

The Happy Silence

 

              For many years I always thought that people just stopped talking in the middle of their sentences, but that was not even close to what was actually happening. This all started back when I was in the third grade. I had a teacher who noticed that I continued to miss things that all the other students were getting. Not to say that I was a dumb student or anything, but I clearly was not hearing all the things the teacher was saying. So one day after class had let out for recess he told me to stay back, that he wanted to see something real quick. He talked to me for about five minutes and in that time he had already realized that I was partially deaf. He recommended I go to the nurse of the school to actually see if there was any proof to this but she was unable to tell, seeing as she was a school nurse. So the school then recommended that I go to a specialist. After going and running some tests, the doctor said that I suffered from severe hearing lost in both ears; the doctors weren’t sure as to how much I had lost but I did clearly miss some things. The doctors also then said I suffer from something called tendentious, which basically means I hear loud ringing noises in my ears at random times. This is usually a result of a traumatic sound damage, such as that of a bomb or an explosion of some sort.

                One of the things that I had soon come to realize after discovering that I was deaf, was that I also had an incredibly bad speech impediment, and it was painfully obvious to others but I guess they were just too kind or something to even ask why I was saying words wrong. So now all of a sudden I had just discovered that I was not only deaf but I also had a bad speech impediment. I thought to myself well things can’t get much worse. Oh how wrong I was. After discovering that I had these things wrong with me, the school also found out that I had a stigmatism in my right eye. So I had the trifecta of things that could go wrong, I was hearing impaired, my vision was impaired, and my speech was impaired.

                Well things had to change and I had to come to terms with the fact that all these changes were going to be extremely weird. The first thing I had to get was glasses; now I’m not saying that wearing glasses makes life hard or something but the school I was in didn’t really have any kids wearing glasses. Basically the only other people wearing glasses at the school were the nurse and I. So wearing glasses led to some of the less looked back upon days of my elementary school life. After a while I got used to the glasses and so did everyone else, but then my family had to move to Hawaii because my father was in the military. When we got there, the doctor told my parents that if I could get something like a trampoline, it would really improve my sight. When I heard that, the first thought came to mind was “Mother of God, where have you been all this time?” So with the doctor’s recommendation my parents went out and got me a trampoline. It turns out that the doctor was right and the trampoline did in fact help and fully correct my stigmatism, but the correction wouldn’t happen overnight, the whole thing took about six months to fully correct my impairment to the point where I didn’t need to wear glasses anymore. The way it helped was that my eye, like everyone else’s tries to lock onto everything around us. While on a trampoline your eyes can’t lock onto everything around you because you are jumping up and down rapidly. This causes your eyes to focus in and become stronger as they try to lock in on the moving environment around them.

                  The most complicated change and weirdest was the change to my hearing. Now, my family isn’t rich or anything like that, but when it came to my hearing my parents put forth a pretty penny. I had gotten a pair of hearing aids that cost about six thousand dollars. This, of course, was mainly covered by our insurance but still, trusting a fourth grader at this point with a pair of six thousand dollar hearing aids is a little scary, at least for me. The first step and one of the most awkward parts of getting these hearing aids, was the molding. Basically this was one of the worst events that have ever taken place in my ear. The doctor came in and just packs molding clay into my ear for about ten minutes it was him messing with my ears to get the clay down in there. Then on top of that I had to hold the clay in place by tilting my ear to whatever side he was working on. If you have ever had to have something put in your ear for even, say, five minutes, it’s already annoying, well I had to sit there head tilted for about half an hour per ear. This was possibly one of the worst days in my life to date. So after getting the molding for the hearing aids the doctor said it was going to be about two weeks until I finally got them. So my mom, being the caring mother she was, signed me up for speech therapy. The first session started before I had received my hearing aids, so I was somewhat on my own for trying to pick up what the therapist was saying. But after finally the teacher had told me what I was saying wrong I was easily able to correct it myself without the hearing aids.

                   But finally the day the hearing aids arrived; I was so excited. So many thoughts were running through my head; for a little bit I kind of thought that they were going to make me into a super hero, giving me like super hearing to hear things over miles away. Sadly, they did not give such powers but none-the-less I was not deterred. It was the first time I was going to wear the hearing aids to school and basically the first time I was going to find out what all I had been missing out on my whole life. The anticipation was over-whelming, I started to breath kind of heavily; I was sweating profusely. I remember seeing this tiny little bird with a scared wing hoping, by but then suddenly he took off and was flying as if he had never suffered any damage to his wing. I felt as if that bird was a sign that I was going to be okay, so I walked into class. I figured that I was just going to pick up on a few new things and life would be the same. My goodness how wrong I was. First off, everything sounded like it was coming through a microphone, which basically amplified all the noises around me. I assumed that the hearing aids were going to make things louder than, just not as intense as it was. The next thing was, I heard literally everything in the class. I heard the teacher, the kids in the back, and the ones in the front, I even heard the kids playing outside. All of this was just so overwhelming to me. I felt as if everyone had just gotten really close to my ears and started to do what they did every day. I began to feel Closter phobic; everything was just so crazy that I went from hearing some things and being fine, to hearing way too many things at the same time for my mind to even being to process. I ran out of the class room gasping for air. The feeling being suffocated by sound is one that I will never forget. It’s something I wouldn’t wish onto anyone in the world. I felt as if I had no way out, like I was surrounded by this set of invisible hands that were just choking the life out of me. I took out the hearing aids and I just sat there. I took in the tranquility of the silence I had come to love.

                    At that moment I realized though, I needed to be able to cope with all of this, that I needed to overcome this fear of sound. I put the hearing aids back in and just began to tell myself over and over again that everything was going to be okay, that I’m not going to be choked out by the sounds of other people. I walked back into the class during break and I told the teacher what had happened. She sat me down and comforted me, basically telling me that it was going to be overwhelming at first and that it would be okay after I got used to all these new noises. And to my surprise she was right. Though it took a few months for me to finally accept all these new noises and become accustomed to them, I none-the-less did so.

                       Now as I said earlier, trusting a fourth grader with hearing aids was a scary thing. There was a terrible storm that was hitting the island and we still had to go to school even though it was flooding and there was water all in the hallways. (It was an outdoor school.) The hearing aids were water sensitive, so in the rain I had to wear a hoodie and have an umbrella to cover them up while I was wearing them, or I could put them in my container which was airtight and waterproof.  With me being a brilliant fourth grader, I had forgotten my container at home and only had a hoodie with me. I had to go to the bathroom so I made the god awful mistake of putting them in my sweater pocket. Walking down the flooded hallway there wasn’t a lot of space for more than one person let alone a whole class walking by, so naturally I got bumped into. Now, what I didn’t realize is that the hearing aids had gotten knocked out of my pocket and I never saw them again. So when I got home I told my mother, who had the fury of a thousand suns burning in her, and she yelled at me for a few hours and lectured me on how expensive they were and what not. But the entire time she was yelling all I could think of, what life was going to be like now that I wasn’t going to be able to hear some things again.

                        Naturally my mother tried to replace them with a different and less expensive system, but it didn’t work. I had to adapt to the fact that I was going to miss out on things. So I learned on my own to read lips. I’m not an expert or anything but I can do enough to get by when I miss a few things. And if I get really overwhelmed and end up missing a lot of things I just simply ask the person to repeat themselves, or if it’s someone speaking to a crowd I use something called connecting the context. It’s basically where I use what they said before and what their saying now and try to remember their lips to what I missed and create the word or sentences I missed. But majority of the time I’m able to just read lips and just continue the conversation. What this event in my life made me realize is that even though I don’t hear everything around me, I’m lucky. I have the privilege of not having to hear all the sounds of people fidgeting and coughing and all the other little things people do. Truly, I see myself as a lucky person because I get the tranquility of silence. Something I find is greatly under treasured by others. The silence although sometimes interrupted by the tendentious, gives me the peace in my mind to sit and calmly think about what I need to do or what I should do. With this hearing loss I do find myself sometimes missing the sounds I once could hear but then I think back to being surrounded by all those sounds and I find myself just as happy without them in my life.

10 comments:

  1. I really empathize with your aliments in life; it’s great to hear that you’re overcoming them with such aggression. I truly believe that there are others out there that have the knowledge and professional experience to help us through things. However, it is our responsibility to do the work and get things done for ourselves. You are definitely doing your part, and I wish you the best. Great life story and here’s too many more triumphs in your life! P.S. you have an amazing attitude on your hearing stigma!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow. This is so inspiring! Also, I agree that there is happiness in silence. Glad that you are still optimistic in life after you faced those trials.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have a very intresting story. I started losing hearing in my right ear and every time I get sick it gets worse. Its a little weird.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very interesting and inspiring story! I also too have astigmatism but I have it on both eyes, so I wear glasses.

    ReplyDelete
  5. In life we will always have things happen to us that we cannot always contol, but the way it affects us depends on our attitude, and it seems as though you definitely have the right attitude twards dealing with situations.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I remember you telling me your story. I find it very inspiring and motivating! I'm glad you've overcome your obstacles and didn't give up!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I respect your attitude and that you keep your chin held high.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I know what you mean by wanting to be I silence. I grew up with five sisters and I really wish it could have been less chaotic growing up. You are very lucky.

    ReplyDelete
  9. very inspiring ! i respect the fact that you kept a positive attitude and kept on fighting.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a fun way to fix your stigmatism!

    ReplyDelete