Everyone has their cross to bear, right? Well mine is a haearing loss that I have lived with all of my life. As a small child, seven or so, this discovery was made possible by a second grade school teacher and her weely spelling tests. Though I would study words all week long, every Friday I would bring home a big X on my paper. My mother would call the teacher to find out why she marked "dog" wrong on my test when it was indeed spelled correctly...the teacher's reply,
"The word was log, ma'am."
This spawned an entire year of hearing and neurological testing, only to come to the conclusion that there was really no expanation or cure for the problem. They put me in hearing aids, which in 1977 were not yet socialy acceptable on a school playground among children. Needless to say it caused a bit of isolation and dissasociation from most of my classmates.
Though hearing aids helped to amplify the sound of what I couldn't hear, but they also amplified what I could, cancelling out any benefit and giving me killer headaches. I learned to live with it. I got by in school. I didn't need to hear to read, or write. That was easy. Keeping up with notes in a lecture hall, that was another story.
As I got older and became financially responsilbe for myeslf, I couldn't afford to upgrade and replace those hearing aids for many, many years. When I finally did, it was amazing how much difference there was. I had found a new me. I new confidence, a freedom from an invisible leash that had been holding me back, unkowingly. I was living a new life and it was taken away by a LhapsoPoo. You know, a dog, a little, white, furry, yappy thing with sharp teeth that like to chew on small plastic objects. In about ten seconds, that dog took my entire life. As I pulled the mangled plastic and micoro wires from his crooked little teeth, I started to cry. I hated that dog, but kept him spite of it for a while longer...then gave him up for adoption.
I went on, got used to it again...not hearing, not knowing what is going on all around me. I went back to relying on my husband and children to interpret everything for me, I never thoght I would have the oprotunity to hear like that again. That is until last week. I made an apointment for my daughter with an ENT for a hearing test...upon leaving the Dr.'s, I made one for myself too. the audioligist told me about a program that she thoguth could help me in more ways that I ever thgouht possible.
It was bitter-sweet. The audioligist went over my hearing tests with me, she described the rate of decrease in my hearing loss as severe and was very surprized by how well I get by without assistance. I apparently have an overactive brain that assimilates sounds very rapidly, the sounds I can hear. Then the words came from her mouth like dagers,
"You are leagally deaf." This sounds horribe, doesn't it? but to me it meant an opprotunity. You see, meeting the criteria for this definition entitles me to tuition waivers for college, employment placement programs, assistive services and devices...hearing aids. I felt strange being so excited about a diagnosis that most people would be devistated by,. I looked at my husband as he wiped at a tear that had escaped my eye and I knew that I had made the rght decision to see that doctor and do something to change my life.
So, now it appears that I can finally go back to college and get that degree, but I have no idea what to do now that I am all grown up There are so many choices, and so many things I would enjoy doing, but where is the money? Afterall, the motivation behind it a is money. My family needs the security and I will be able to finally give it to them, if I do it right. If I pick the right thing. What an amazingly difficult decision is this? I have to make a sound one.