Am I Hearing or Deaf?

Do I consider myself hearing or deaf?  Honestly, I think I am both.  I get to enjoy the best of both worlds.  I don't consider myself completely hearing because some situations are very difficult to hear.  But I don't consider myself completely deaf either because I have a cochlear implant.  I live in the hearing world, but I prefer to let people know that I am deaf.  I get this question often, and I have thought about it a lot.  I go back and forth.  Sometimes I consider myself hearing, but then I switch and consider myself deaf.  So I've come to the decision that I am both deaf and hearing.  

I prefer to keep my cochlear implant on as much as I can.  I don't like being deaf when there are others around me.  I feel left out.  If it is really noisy and I'm doing homework I will shush people, and then they get mad because they know that I can just take my cochlear implant off. I hate it when people say, "Just take off your cochlear implant!" I don't want to take it off because then I will miss things they say, and sometimes it can get too quiet.   However, there are times when I do take off my cochlear implant.  I consider it my "safe place".  When I am having a rough day I go into my room and turn off my cochlear implant.  I also sometimes take it off when I am home alone.  Or when I need to go in the basement alone, I will take it off.  Whenever I want to go into my safe place, I just turn it off. 

I like the name deaf better than hearing impaired, hard of hearing, or hearing loss. I don't know why, but I just prefer being called deaf.  I also hate when people use the word hearing aids when referring to my cochlear implant.  I don't have hearing aids, I have a cochlear implant!  They are completely different!

I don't consider myself disabled at all!  Sure, I might not be able to hear perfectly, but I can do anything a hearing person can do.  I can dance, play sports, wakeboard, repel, etc.  I have never felt that I couldn't do something because I am deaf.  Some things might be harder, but they aren't impossible.  

As I get older one of the things I think about is whether or not I will marry a hearing or deaf guy.  I would prefer marrying a hearing guy because I want him to be able to help me.  I want him to be able to hear when our children wake up so he can wake me up.  However, I would prefer that my future husband knows ASL or be willing to learn ASL.  

At the end of the day I am deaf, but I am also hearing!  In some ways I am lucky because I can take advantage of the best of both worlds. 

School

Before I talk about school I want to talk about a girl I met a couple of weeks ago.  She is 7 and she has bi-lateral implants.  Her parents wanted us to meet.  We had an instant connection when she realized that I have a cochlear implant and I know how to sign.   We were able to have a full conversation in ASL.  It was so cute to see her sign and talk.  I am glad I was able to meet her and be a role model for her.  Meeting her also solidified my goal of becoming a speech therapist that works with kids with cochlear implants.

Ok, now on to school.  Today was my first day of school.  I am a senior at Lone Peak High School (a public school).   I haven't always gone to a public school.  I attended the school for the deaf for preschool and kindergarten.  When I was in first grade I went half day to a public school and then the second half I went to the school for the deaf.  I went to a charter school 2nd grade through 8th grade. My mom chose to send me to a charter school because it had smaller class sizes and each teacher had a teacher aide. In 9th grade I went to a local public junior high because I wanted a better transition into high school.  

I do great in a public school, however, I do need to sit in front of the classroom.  I prefer to sit in the front because it is easier to hear the teacher, I can read the teachers lips, and I can turn around and read my classmates lips when they say something.  

In order to be successful I need to have the teacher facing me when they talk.  I struggle to hear when they are writing on the whiteboard (I can't see their lips).  It is also hard when the teacher is walking around the room.  I have to turn to face them wherever they go.  It is also hard to hear when kids around me are talking and being noisy.  Another situation where it is hard to hear is when a student makes a comment and I can't hear them.  I love it when the teacher repeats what the student said.  It helps a lot!  Another challenging situation is when we watch a video in class.  Often times the teachers tell us to take notes or we have an assignment that goes along with the video.  I need closed captions when I watch movies, and often times the video doesn't have them.  It can get really frustrating.  I try my hardest and then I ask a friend for some help.  Another challenging situation that I can think of is assemblies.  I really hate assemblies.  I just can't hear at assemblies, not one bit.  It is always super loud and I can't hear when they are practically yelling in the microphone.  Announcements are another thing that are impossible to understand.  I can't do any lipreading and the announcements are muffled anyway.  Luckily, my school posts the announcements on the school website, so if I want to know something, I check there.  

On back to school night I went to all of my teachers and told them that I am deaf.  I told them that I need to sit in the front, I need them to keep the noise level down, and that I need closed captions for videos.  I love it when teachers are nice about it.  I like it when they remember and they are aware of me.  Some teachers really make an effort to help me and I really appreciate it.  

I am a hard working student.  I have a 4.0 GPA.  I am enjoying high school and I'm looking forward to college.  School can be very challenging, but I make it work. 

Lip Reading

Even though I can hear really well, I depend on lip reading.  I have to see people's lips or else I struggle to hear.  There is something about seeing their lips and matching it to the sound.  If I can't see someone's lips I have a harder time matching the sound to the word.  

Here is a list of some scenarios where I struggle to hear because I can't see their lips:
- Assemblies
- Men with mustaches and beards
- Sitting in the back of the car
- When people are talking while eating and they cover their mouth
- When the teacher is talking while writing on the whiteboard
- When students make a comment but I can't see them
- Talking on the phone
- When someone is trying to talk to me, but they are behind me
- Movies/Videos (I need closed captions)
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Singing
- Any situation in the dark (night games, movie theater, etc.)
- If someone doesn't move their lips a lot or if they are mumbling
- Radio
-Announcements at school 
- High School dances 

Last year I lived in Luxembourg and tried to learn French.  It was difficult because I couldn't recognize the movement of their lips.  

I am constantly lip reading.  I lip read when I have my speech processor on and off.  Even though I am very good at lip reading, it is still very challenging.    

Everyone is impressed by how well I lip read.  Whenever I am swimming, my friends like to test my skill out.  It helps to know the context of what someone is saying.

Funny story:  At our family reunion we played a football game.  Whenever we would huddle together to figure out a game plan I would look over at the other team.  I would read their lips and figure out what their strategy was.  I would tell my team, and we would create a plan based on theirs.  We won every time.  The other team was so frustrated and didn't understand how we knew every time what they were going to do.  At the end of the game, we told them what we did!

I love my cochlear implant and being able to hear.  But to be successful requires other skills like lip reading! 

Lake Powell

I recently came back from a wonderful trip to Lake Powell.  Did I let my deafness limit me on this trip?  Of course not! I was able to do all of the stuff a hearing person would be able to do.  I went boating, I did all of the water sports, and I went cliff jumping.  When I am tubing, I do get worried about hitting my head on someone else's head.  So as a precaution I sit on the far right, so that no one is on my right side.  That way the side that has my implant doesn't hit anyone's head.  I've never had a problem, but I do this just in case.

It was helpful that everyone was aware that I needed to take off my speech processor before I got in the water.  They would remind me to take it off, and they would double check all the time.  One time my brother pushed me into the water, and I freaked out and said, "What if I had my speech processor on!"  He laughed and said, " I checked!"  Before he pushed me in, he leaned close to my ear and asked if I could hear him.  I didn't respond, so he knew I didn't have it on, so he pushed me in.  Haha!

ASL was very helpful on this trip because my implant was off a lot of the time.  It was very helpful to know ASL because we still had a way to communicate when I was in the water.  I think I would feel left out if we didn't use ASL.  I can read lips, but when the conversation is jumping all the time, I get lost.  But with ASL I feel like I am part of the conversation.  Anyway, this trip reminded me how grateful I am that I know ASL.

I would like to thank Shaeley for being so kind to me on this trip.  She took the effort to learn some ASL.  She would finger spell a word she wanted to know, and I would show her the sign.  By the end of the week she knew simple signs like ready, go, cold, hot, want, etc.  I really appreciated that she learned a few simple words in ASL.  It might seem simple, but it made the trip 10x better.  Thank you Shaeley!

ASL

I started signing at 6 months old, and I've used it ever since.  Once my parents were introduced to the deaf world they started to learn ASL.  They had a tutor come over and they learned how to sign so that they would be able to communicate with me.  Funny story: My dad was practicing by fingerspelling to the radio in the car, and this one guy thought my dad was throwing gang signs at him, so he followed him home and was ready to pick a fight.  My dad quickly explained that he just found out his daughter is deaf and he is learning how to sign. Haha!

After I got my cochlear implant the audiologist told my parents to stop signing with me because they believed that it wouldn't help me learn how to talk.  However, I had a huge signing vocabulary and my parents didn't want to suddenly stop communicating with me.  So I grew up with both signing and talking.

The first time I heard a bird, I signed to my dad asking what that sound was.  My dad signed back and told me it was a bird.  With ASL I learned to hear quicker because my parents would tell me what I was hearing.  

"daddy"

"it's stuck!"

"kitty"

"gum"

"mom"

"I'm scared!"

If you have a deaf child I would highly recommend learning ASL.  I would also recommend continuing using ASL even after your child has the cochlear implant surgery.  It has helped me in many ways.  Before I got my implant, I was able to communicate by using ASL.  I can't imagine not being able to communicate with your deaf child. By knowing ASL, it also helped in speech therapy.  They were able to tell me what I needed to do by using ASL.

Even though ASL isn't my main source of communication, I'm glad I still know it.  I constantly use it throughout my life.  Whenever I need to take off my speech processor  like when I am swimming or at night, my parents sign so that I can understand them.  I am very good at lipreading, but it is very challenging.  ASL allows me to get the full conversation clearly.  Another time when ASL was very useful was when I lived in Luxembourg for a year and my speech processor broke.  I'll blog about this another time, but long story short I was deaf for two weeks (and it was awful!)  My parents interpreted for me in ASL.  It would have been very challenging if we didn't know ASL.  I'm glad that I still had a source of communication when my speech processor broke.  ASL is also very helpful in situations where it is noisy and I can't understand.   If I didn't understand what someone said like when a guide is speaking on a tour or in a big crowd, I turn to my parents and they sign for me.

My best friend, Tori, knows ASL and I love that she knows it.  We communicate all the time in ASL.  We sign across the hall at school, at church, whenever I didn't catch something, or just for fun.   It is very helpful to have a best friend that knows ASL, so thanks Tori for learning ASL!  We both enrolled in ASL 1 in 9th grade and now we are in ASL 4.  I absolutely love it!

I'm thankful that my parents chose to learn ASL for me, and that they kept signing even after I got my implant.  It helped me when I was little, and it continues to help me.  I am constantly using ASL, even though it isn't my main source of communication.  I'm thankful that I know American Sign Language.  

Get to Know Me

Emilee's Life with a Cochlear Implant from Ben Cahoon on Vimeo.

This is My Story

On April 2nd, 1998 I was born into this world, and my twin brother was born 5 minutes later.  My parents had no idea what they were in store for.  You would think twins would be crazy enough, but I failed my hearing test.  I was born deaf.  At first my mom was sad because she realized that I would never hear the birds sing or hear her say "I love you."  But then a lady named Becca Larson contacted my mom and introduced my parents to the deaf world.

My parents started attending the deaf church.  They started learning sign language so that they could communicate with me.  I started signing when I was 6 months old.

This is me signing "dad".  I signed it 
whenever he walked in the room.

Even though my parents were immersing themselves in deaf culture by attending the deaf church, they still wanted me to learn how to speak orally.  I started speech therapy when I was 9 months old.  I learned how to say "uh oh" and "ma ma" when I was around a year old.  The speech therapist talked to my parents about a cochlear implant.   They put off thinking about it because they heard a lot of negative things from the deaf culture.  But luckily my mom met several deaf kids with cochlear implants at speech therapy.  

My parents eventually started thinking about getting me one.  They received a lot of negative emails from deaf people at the church.  They told my parents things like, "You don't love your daughter the way she is," "You want to change her," "You think something is wrong with her."  They also told my parents to wait until I old enough and could make the decision myself.   My parents were torn because the audiologist told them if you don't get the implant early it wouldn't be effective.  They didn't know whether or not to get me a cochlear implant.  After a very hard decision they decided to get me a cochlear implant.  (thank goodness! ;) )

 October 27th, 1999 was a big day!  I was 18 months old when I went into a 3 hour surgery to get my cochlear implant.  My parents were absolutely nervous, but everything went fine.  When I woke up,  I was not happy.  

I continued with speech therapy after I got my implant.  Twice a week my mom and I went to auditory verbal training and I learned how to talk.  I actually consider one of my biggest achievements to be learning how to hear and talk.

The audiologists told my parents to stop signing with me because it wouldn't help me learn how to talk.  But my parents decided to keep signing with me because they didn't want to all of a sudden stop communicating.  I had a huge signing vocabulary, and my parents wanted to continue being part of the deaf community.  I grew up with both signing and talking.  One day when I was 5 my mom was signing and talking and I told her, "Why are you using your hands?  I can hear you."  My parents realized that they could stop signing.   My parents still sign when I have my implant off, but other than that we just talk.  

We continued going to the deaf church until I was 5 years old.  My mom decided it was best to leave because when the deaf people would sign to me,  I would respond by talking.  My mom would have to interpret for them.  My mom would tell me, "You can't talk to them, you need to sign."  I would respond with, "Why don't they just get a cochlear implant?"  Of course then the deaf people wanted to know what I said, but it was offensive so my mom would just laugh and make up some thing I said.  That's when we knew it was time to stop attending the deaf church.  

I went to the school for the deaf for preschool and kindergarten.  My twin brother came with me because they liked having a hearing person as an example.  When I was in first grade I went half day to a public school then the second half I went to the school for the deaf.  When I was in 2nd grade I went to a charter school, and I did great there.  The teacher wore a microphone and I had a speaker on my desk.

In 9th grade my twin brother and I switched to the public school.  I wanted a better transition into the huge high school.   I am now a senior in high school, and I am doing excellent!  I am a 4.0 GPA student.  I no longer have the teachers wear microphones.  As long as I sit in front of the classroom I do great.

I love my cochlear implant because it has changed my life.  I am able to do things I wouldn't be able to do if I didn't have my cochlear implant.  I have accomplishments but I also have struggles.  

I am deaf but with my cochlear implant I hear.

This is my story.