Community Blog – Page 16 – Open Ears Archive

Why the Ability to Hear is not Enough

On the day I chose to have my first tympanoplasty, May 20th, 2004, I believed restoring my hearing would provide a “perfect life” and solve all of my problems. At the time, I was full of rage about isolation from hearing loss and ear infections occurring at least every six weeks. My ability to trust human beings was in the toilet after being bullied by my classmates and placed into special education by the school district. The only thing I trusted was money because it came consistently, regardless of my health, every time I did a favor for someone else.

Old and lonely.

Closing my eardrum, obtaining hearing, and “becoming normal” seemed to be the be-all and end-all to those problems. I believed I would be able to trust people, escape special education, and overcome the infections the moment I had a “healthy” ear. Once all of those things happened, I would “live happily ever after” and skip off into the sunset, where I would suddenly become a popular girl with straight-A’s in the blink of an eye.

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Which Will it Be? Dementia, or Hearing Better Than a Normal-Hearing Person

In my work, I keep track of technology developments across a variety of fields to try to better anticipate what the future might be like (especially for media and news). Since getting hearing aids about a year and a half ago, and becoming a contributor to this blog, I’ve (of course) included advancements in hearing technology as well as hearing medicine and research to my scanning routine.

Lately, there’s been a lot of activity in the “hearing” space, both positive and worrying. (Since I am, for the most part, a technology optimist, I believe — and hope — that a positive hearing future is more likely.)

JANUS (from Vatican Collection) — Photo credit: Jim Gardner

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Why I Set Up Deaf Blog The Limping Chicken

I set up The Limping Chicken, a deaf news website and blog, in February 2012. My life hasn’t been the same since!

From that day onwards, we have published at least one article every weekday, featuring over 120 deaf writers, and gaining over 2 million views.

In December, we broke the worldwide story about the fake interpreter at the Nelson Mandela memorial service, which by far was our biggest story to date – the site crashed for a while (but luckily we managed to fix it!).

We have a number of supporters, which enables the site to exist, and we are honoured to count Phonak among them.

Although it keeps me very busy, writing, editing, moderating comments and finding new contributors, it’s the best job I’ve ever had!

So why did I set it up?

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Cuddling for Amateurs — Part 2

Something that I also had to learn was that most of the susurrus that take place during lovemaking do not lend themselves to be said repeatedly and articulated clearly. One of my first dates proved especially talkative in this respect.

I was just stroking her belly and thighs, distributing small kisses to her navel, when I heard it:

«Guään?”

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Craving Music

When my hearing loss was diagnosed, after the initial shock, I adopted my hearing aids pretty fast. You must have gone through the same kind of mental process: “Wow I’m deaf —Oh no, I’m not, not just because someone tells me my hearing is not up to par, I didn’t turn deaf between yesterday and today, did I? —I can hear what they’re saying, I’m not hard of hearing. —Hearing aids? Wow, they were right, that feels so much better!”

CDs in a shelf

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Making Health and Social Care Information Accessible

The NHS in the UK recently launched a consultation into the proposed ‘Accessible Information Standard’ which recommends measures to meet patients’ communication needs, including the provision of Speech to Text. While I welcome these improvements — and boy, do we need them — it does beg a question as to why this is felt necessary in addition to the Equality Act 2010. As Laura Ringham wrote, way back in 2012:

There is a clear legal foundation for providing access to healthcare services for people with hearing loss. The Equality Act 2010 requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments to make their service accessible for people who are disabled, and states that they must anticipate and promote these adjustments rather than make them on a responsive basis.

Ringham L, 2012, Access All Areas? A report into the experiences of people with hearing loss when accessing healthcare, Action on Hearing Loss

So, why is it that the Health Service is so behind in terms of making reasonable adjustments so that patients can understand what is being said to them during examinations and consultations? And, where are the legal challenges to the shoddy status quo?

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Cuddling for Amateurs — Part 1

Like anybody, I had to learn how approach the objects of my budding desire. An awkward process, as most of you will recall. There was no manual on how to do it, when to do it, what to do at all! What did it mean if a girl reacted in a certain way?

Zach & Alisha 2 — Photo credit: Victoria Gray

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Children of a Lesser God, Children of a Different Choice

“Do you think that we could find a place that we can meet, not in silence and not in sound?”

James Leeds (William Hurt), a speech teacher, presents this question to Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin), a deaf custodian, as they try to reconcile the differences between their worlds. While James demands Sarah to speak in the mainstream world, Sarah wants to represent herself with ASL– “her language”, as she says. After spending an entire relationship trying to force Sarah into English and “change [her] into a hearing person”, James finally accepts several important concepts.

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A Life on the Ocean Wave

“Excuse me for asking… I know you said you had hearing loss but does your partner have hearing loss too because he seems to be really struggling to follow the conversation?”

Gulp. He doesn’t — or rather ‘didn’t’ have hearing loss — not in the sense of having it confirmed by a professional but yes, whilst away on this particular trip we had both noticed how hard he was finding it to follow what was being said, especially when we were sitting in a group.

On a cruise

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Forgetting

In the same day, I both forgot that I was wearing my hearing aids before jumping under the shower, and that I should maybe carry spare batteries before going to a family gathering.

P13 Hearing Aid Batteries

As I live alone, I usually put on my hearing aids before leaving home as opposed to first thing when I jump out of bed. As I have a friend visiting these days, my hearing aid routine has changed — I’m not a morning person to start with, so add “no ears” on top of that and you get a very poor morning communicator.

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