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St. Jimmy

d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing

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Searched, and did not find a similar post, sooo...

 

Anyone else here who is d/Deaf/HoH? I'm curious, and I figured why not have a space where we can all discuss our experiences.

 

Myself, I'm HoH, been so since almost a year ago. I got really sick, and the infection spread to my right ear and permanently damaged my cochlea. I have a little residual hearing left in it but now I have to depend on my left ear and lipreading to understand speech. (and lipreading is a HUGE pain in the censorkip that will need a post all on its own, when I have the words.) I've also been trying to pick up ASL, though that doesn't help much when I know maybe two people who know a few signs.

 

Please, let's not play the "not d/Deaf enough" game; how someone with hearing loss identifies is their concern alone. Also, for the difference between d/D, here's a link.

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I'm half deaf/HoH, and have been for years. Only recently (well, four/five years ago, if thats concerned recently) was it officially proven, (I'd had it much longer, and I had chronic and awful ear problems as a small child) and we found out why. In my right ear, I have a *clears throat* non-significant endolymphatic sac anomaly; basically, a non cancerous/benign growth.

 

I forgot why they decided against surgery, but they did, and instead, I've had a hearing aid ever since. Just got my new silicon mold recently, (I'm a teenager and 'still growing' so I have an over-the-ear hearing aid) actually, after my dog decided he wanted to use my other one as a snack. Oh well, I needed a new one anyway.

 

I wanted to pick up ASL as my foreign language requirement (in my state you have to take two semesters as a foreign language to get into a 4+ year college) but alas, my father forced me to take Spanish. I've been meaning to take it upon myself to learn, but I just haven't. I'm not well practiced in lip reading, and sometimes I can and sometimes I can't do it.

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I wanted to pick up ASL as my foreign language requirement (in my state you have to take two semesters as a foreign language to get into a 4+ year college) but alas, my father forced me to take Spanish. I've been meaning to take it upon myself to learn, but I just haven't. I'm not well practiced in lip reading, and sometimes I can and sometimes I can't do it.

Ooh, if you're looking to learn ASL, lifeprint is a great resource. It's got lessons, a dictionary, and even some info on Deaf culture. Plus Dr. Bill Vicars is Deaf, so you know you're getting accurate information.

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I was actually considering to make a thread like this last few days. tongue.gif

 

I am profoundly deaf on both ears. My older sister and I were born deaf, so it's genetic. We both attended and graduated at a school for the Deaf. So yeah, obviously ASL is our first language, English's our second language.

 

Coming from an experienced ASL user, I also strongly recommend lifeprint website mentioned above. It's easily the best website with a lot of useful information.

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This was quite a few years ago, but I took ASL in HS (my teacher was deaf), and he suggested asl pro to us. The website doesn't have the most recent look, but it has lots of neat features for learning/practicing ASL.

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I have a question for any hearing aid users. I'd really like to have one since I interact with a lot of hearing people at work, but all I can afford right now is a basic amplifyer like one of these. Do they help much with speech comprehension? It would be nice to know before I drop 60 bucks on one.

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If it's digital - it should. I am deaf (otosclerosis) and I have the basic digital aids that the UK health service provides. They have made a LOT of difference - though I have to say that I do have three settings on mine, which may make a difference. As they say - the really expensive ones are custom fitted and have custom settings.

 

They do make your ears itch; when that happens any cheap hydrocortisone cream fixes it.

 

And it is true that they will also amplify background noise. That is a nuisance - but even so - I'd go for it. I had analogue ones for years before I got my current ones, and they amplified everything - but were still FAR better than no aids at all. (I'm not sure if those batteries shown are correct, by the way - I'd get it and find out before ordering (see reviews). MINE are that size, but someone reviewing is Very Angry !)

 

I'd go for it. And I don't have $60 !

 

ETA there are these too: might be a little more sensitive...

Edited by fuzzbucket

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Thank you, from what you said the pros outweigh the cons for me - a lot of background noise is okay when my ear normally picks up nothing xd.png

 

Also oops I forgot amazon reviews were a thing. Looks like you're right about the batteries being wrong. They sell batteries cheap at walgreens anyway.

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I'm hard of hearing but very young. I basically ruined my hearing I suppose by being a disobedient child to my father but to be fair if you had known him back then, you would have done it as well. I actually used to think I might be better off deaf so I couldn't hear him anymore.

 

 

I got my wish but I have pain in my ears now very frequently and I have a really hard time understanding what people say when there's background noise. I can't lip read and I don't have the mental capacity to remember all the hand signs for sign language which is a shame

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I am not sure if I qualify as Hard of Hearing, however, I do know that I have some hearing loss.

 

Part of it MAY be inborn....m but it is hard to say.

I also had frequent ear infections as a child that didn't help I am sure.

 

I hear well enough to get by most of the time, though I do feel like I have a harder time hearing than others do. Part of that is probably because , to be honest, I ALSO tend to be somewhat paranoid about making sure that I heard correctly, which tends to be annoying to others. Paying attention/realizing I was the one being spoken to in time to focus on what was being said is sometimes an issue. I dunno if a hearing aid, someday would help me. It may become a necessity IF my hearing gets worse as I get older.

Edited by Silverswift

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I'm hard of hearing. :3 I was born hard of hearing with a rare reverse slope hearing loss that the doctors are STILL completely puzzled as to why I am hard of hearing to begin with. My inner ear is all nicely shaped (unlike a friend who has a too-short cochlea spiral so he was born hard of hearing too unlike his twin, and soon became fully deaf), I didn't get any sicknesses both in or out of the womb that could've caused it, and its not genetic (there are no D/HH people in either side of my family - aside from people who lose hearing from old age).

 

Because of the reverse slope hearing loss my first hearing aides were a PAIN. They over-emphasized the high frequencies of the consonants (which I already heard better) and didn't do enough for the low frequencies of the vowels (which I wasn't getting so well). I had to be bribed to wear them - understandable since I was very young, only a couple years old. I had a two to three year period of little to no hearing at the beginning of my life before I finally was tested positive for hearing loss (had to get a tester who was skilled with children, not adults lol, I outwitted the first guy >XD). My first language was ASL but thanks to my preschool that I went to from 3 years old until 6, I learned how to talk and the alphabet and focused more on spoken English instead of ASL.

 

Ever since Cchat School (that preschool), I have been mainstreamed in public schools and never went to a D/HH built one. I got my first cochlear implant in my left ear at age 7 years old, then got a nasty month-long ear infection in both ears. I could hear with my left ear during all that (thanks to the C.I.) but got into a habit of not wearing my right hearing aid during that month. I never heard sound again in that ear until I got my second hearing aid at 11 years. (Again I had to be bribed to wear first my left C.I. [Harry Potter legos was a boon for my mom], and then for my second C.I. [treats and games was another boon lol, my poor, patient mother who endured so much!].)

 

Now with those surgeries I am profoundly deaf without my cochlear implants. I wouldn't identify myself as Deaf because I am not part of the community nor have I grown up in it. :/ And I love hearing with my C.I.s too much to give it up, along with the awesome music. x3

 

But I would never get one of those fully-implanted C.I.s either. I don't want hearing ALL the time! I just want it SOME of the time - whenever it suits me that is. >x3

 

Thanks to enrolling in some ASL classes with my mom on and off during high school years, I've gotten better at signing again [i was SO RUSTY because I NEVER SIGNED between my pre-Cchat school days and until my high school ones] but I've always been good at reading signing. That's because whenever my C.I.s are off, my mom signs to me, but I talk back to her normally.

 

Recently I've gotten back into sign again [keep swinging like a pendulum eh?] and feel great pride in my culture's history (instead of disassociation like I felt before thanks to being mainstreamed for all my life) because of the AWESOMING signing videos of where they sign the lyrics to songs on YouTube. Some of them are AMAZING and seem to turn it into a dance so you can actually tell what the musical beat is just by watching them! <3 I even stumbled across a

recently in one awesome girl's youtube channel and could understand most of the lyrics just from watching her sign. xd.png Usually I need lyric videos to really understand what the HECK the singers are saying! Captioning is my best friend. -.-;;

 

Now I find myself absentmindedly signing to myself in a similar way as most hearing people would mutter under their breath for what chores or tasks they need to do next. xd.png And when I listen to music, my mind often translates what they're saying into ASL which is damn cool. xd.png

 

I still am not that great at lipreading. -.-;; I can do it but its... sloppy. Please just write the damn thing down on paper with a pen, or just sign it to me if I can't hear you okay? -.- It's why I hate phones and talking on calls, because there is NO facial cues to help me figure out what they're saying and the voice is SO distorted by the phone. I MUCH prefer email and typing it out like here. Skype video calls are only marginally better than phone calls, and still confuse the HECK outta me so I aaaaalways have to keep asking them what the heck they said.

 

I keep annoying some friends by always double-checking what they said, what the plan is, and not getting jokes at times because I first thought it was serious. Really it's a safety mechanism. If you're not sure if someone's joking or serious, if you assume they're joking when they're deadly serious you can really HURT their feelings BIG TIME. If you assume they're serious when they're joking they may get a bit deflated but are usually happy to tell you that they're joking for you to finally laugh. Guess which one I usually default to? The latter is the safer bet. -.-;;

 

Anyone else relate to what I said? :3 I'm so happy to have found you guys here on Dragon Cave! xd.png <3

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Although not hard-of-hearing/deaf, teaching Makaton to intubated/tracheostomy patients is fantastic as it means they can communicate their basic ADLs with simple hand gestures, and it's fairly easy to educate staff on the basics as well.

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I am not sure if I qualify as Hard of Hearing, however, I do know that I have some hearing loss.

 

Part of it MAY be inborn....m but it is hard to say.

I also had frequent ear infections as a child that didn't help I am sure.

 

I hear well enough to get by most of the time, though I do feel like I have a harder time hearing than others do. Part of that is probably because , to be honest, I ALSO tend to be somewhat paranoid about making sure that I heard correctly, which tends to be annoying to others. Paying attention/realizing I was the one being spoken to in time to focus on what was being said is sometimes an issue. I dunno if a hearing aid, someday would help me. It may become a necessity IF my hearing gets worse as I get older.

That's a very accurate description of my own situation, too.

 

When listening to people, I have a really hard time understanding them if there is background noise. Gatherings where lots of people are talking to each other are a pain for me, as I can't understand a full sentence without having to guess half of its content. :/

 

I also noticed that I have a pretty hard time understanding stuff that is spoken in English, which is not my first language. (I'm German, and I have a much easier time understanding spoken German than English, to be honest.) This has already been a problem when I was still attending school and might be the reason why my English reading comprehension, writing and speaking skills by far surpass my listening comprehension. tongue.gif

 

And let's not talk about me understanding the lyrics of song from merely listening to it, either: Too much background noise, mostly the "wrong" language plus sometimes odd pronunciation... All factors which do nothing to help me understand what's actually sung.

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My older brother is partially deaf/ hard of hearing (i'm not sure which is the more correct term). He's 16 years older than me and from my mother's first marriage so we didn't grow up together for me to understand it very well.

 

I don't remember if he was born with it or because something happened when he was really little but he's had to wear hearing aids for as long as I can remember (or have us shout when they weren't working properly). On the plus side, he doesn't need to wear sound reducing headphone earmuff things at work ;D

 

I've wanted to learn ASL so I could know it if a situation calling for it would ever arise. Also because why not? It's a useful thing to know tongue.gif

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When I was 20 years old, I started having trouble balancing and hearing people. My doctor did a CAT scan and found an Acoustic Nueroma in my right inner ear right next to the skull, on my 7th nerve. I was given two options: to ignore it and die for sure in 2 or 3 years from pressure on the brain pan, or have it operated on, with a 10% risk of dying on the table. There was also the risk in the operation of nicking the nerve right next to the tumor and losing control of my right facial muscles. Kinda sobering choice for a 20 year old to make, no?

 

So I had the operation, it was successful, no complications, but I couldn't walk properly for almost a year due to balance issues, and even now, I still have to be careful on uneven paths. Not to mention permanantly deaf in my right ear. Luckily my left ear over compensated and I hear fine, except when I'm in a place with lots of ambient noise, like a mall. Then you have to make sure you are talking to my face.

 

I'm 50 now, and barely notice, but it has changed my life significantly.

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My mother is deaf in her right ear, and we're pretty sure it's something genetic, so this whole subject is one I find personally a very interesting (as in, I want to know more about it) one. She started losing her hearing when she was 30 or so, and I'm fast approaching that age myself.

 

As for me, I have a little trouble hearing lower tones (though I can clearly hear high tones that my roommate doesn't hear as well) and when people talk quietly, and I'm nearly certain I have lost at least one job because my boss could hear what people were saying when I couldn't. For context it was a sandwich making store and I would have to ask people to repeat what they wanted and he would lean over and tell me. Very embarrassing.

 

For the most part this doesn't affect my life, though, so I don't consider myself HoH. It is kind of embarrassing to ask people to repeat things if they talk too quietly or quickly, but I'm used to it and people seem to understand when I tell them that I have some difficulty hearing. I guess it's just one of those things.

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How fun, my roommate thinks I'm lying about being HoH because he keeps me up at night playing video games, even when he's talking at a normal volume and across the apartment. I can't really get through his head that a) I still have hearing in my left ear and it fluctuates, cool.gif there's no background noise at night and c) I can tell the difference between talking and not talking, the HoH part means I can't UNDERSTAND him.

 

Hearies sometimes! >_<

 

In other news, I'm going to a Deaf game night/lunch thing tomorrow. I've never been to a Deaf event before, so any advice?

 

 

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How fun, my roommate thinks I'm lying about being HoH because he keeps me up at night playing video games, even when he's talking at a normal volume and across the apartment. I can't really get through his head that a) I still have hearing in my left ear and it fluctuates, cool.gif there's no background noise at night and c) I can tell the difference between talking and not talking, the HoH part means I can't UNDERSTAND him.

 

Hearies sometimes! >_<

 

In other news, I'm going to a Deaf game night/lunch thing tomorrow. I've never been to a Deaf event before, so any advice?

Did you ever try one of the aids?

 

It is hard to explain to hearies (great word!) that some sounds get through no matter what. I sing in a choir, which confuses people - but as I try to explain, music doesn't mumble...

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Did you ever try one of the aids?

I did! It helps a lot when I'm talking to people. Still have the same problems with background noise though; I don't think that's going away. Not very comfortable though xd.png

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