Facing adulthood with a hearing loss

…so, I’m 28 and I’ve just lost the hearing in my right ear. Up until this point, my only accommodation had been amplified handsets for the telephone. With lip reading and my hearing aid in my right ear, I felt like I heard really well. I still missed a lot on the [...]

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Growing up with a hearing loss

I’ve been making my way through all the books about CI’s that I can get my hands on.  Between all of this reading, my visits to message boards and daily messages that come from email lists I belong to, it makes me feel like I’m surrounded by CI users.  I told Dave that I keep [...]

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Say what?

Conversation between me and Eric this morning:
Me: What kind of cake do you want? (Side note: His 18th birthday is this coming Tuesday)
Eric: The cake is a lie.
Me: The cake is alive?
Eric: No…Portal.
Me: Poodle?
Eric: (cracking up) GAWD, mom, what are you, DEAF?
(both of us laughing)
Eric: PORTAL
Me: Portal! [...]

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Peace & Quiet

…oh, how I miss it! I used to really enjoy just sitting in a quiet house, with the absence of sound. I’m sure there were sounds there but with my level of hearing loss, I didn’t hear them. It was just nice, peaceful and relaxing. Around here, the phenomenon of a [...]

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Tony Stark built this blog entry in a cave…with scraps!

Today we pulled off a rather miraculous feat…we got the whole family together to go see Iron Man at the theater!
We only have a short window of opportunity to see movies in an actual movie theater, because our only option is the open captioned movies shown at Marcus Theatre near our home.  (I realize we [...]

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Little Triumphs, Little Heartaches

Dave and I went to Half Price Books yesterday. I found a copy of “The Lost Continent” by Bill Bryson on clearance for $1.00 and snapped it up. I really love his books and have been trying to collect them as I come across them, even though I’ve read them all (from the [...]

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All I Want **

Visiting the doctor’s office is becoming routine now. I’ve been there four times in the past month, which is more than I’ve seen any other doctor in such a short period of time. Well…maybe during the last month or so of each pregnancy I was going once a week for a checkup. [...]

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I gotta have some of your attention…

I’m engrossed in whatever I’m doing…dishes, typing, reading, sewing. Totally focused, listening to whatever weird thing my tinnitus is doing at the moment (Pipe organ! Roaring ocean! Revving motorcycles!). Suddenly there’s a tap on my shoulder and I shriek, peel myself off the ceiling.
Sometimes I feel like being deaf is going [...]

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Hurdles: Facing Them, Jumping Them

We went over to my mom’s house on Mother’s Day. It’s kind of funny, this ‘holiday’. On the one hand, I’m a mom so in the back of my mind I feel like it’s my day to be pampered. On the other hand, I don’t want to ignore my own mother so [...]

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The CI Assessment

For some reason, I’m nervous this time. I guess it’s because I really don’t know what to expect from a CI evaluation. I’m not sure who will be there, what they’ll ask, what tests they’ll do. Will a psychologist evaluate me? How long will the hearing tests be?
I’ve always hated hearing [...]

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