Cacophony to Symphony

Coming out of hiding...

2011-12-27T11:20:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a while. I don't really count my last post as a real post since I gave absolutely no updates about what's been going on with me, so it has really been about four months since I've last posted. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Things have been busy. The school year started off okay. I went through a rough time for a while... I was just in a really bad place. I made some changes and re-evaluated what was important to me, and I'm making a conscious effort not to let myself get stressed out and anxious over things that are completely insignificant in the long run. I've felt so much better since.

My clinical rotations class has been going really well, and I absolutely love it. As much as I've been enjoying it, I was secretly hoping to get the chance to see some crazy, exciting thing happen. Lesson learned: be careful what you wish for! At one of my last sites of the semester, I got the amazing opportunity to do CPR on a patient during a code. I swear, it was just like Grey's Anatomy and all those other medical shows! I watched as the doctors and nurses worked on the patient for hours doing everything possible to save her. I felt so invested... It was the first time I ever got to touch a patient, let alone keep her heart beating! By the time I left, it was clear she would not make it. I was devastated, and I got in my car and sobbed. The whole thing was just heartbreaking, especially since when the patient initially came in, she was conscious and the doctors were hopeful that there would be a positive outcome. There are just some images that will remain forever etched in my memory. The lone tear rolling down her cheek after she was intubated and unable to speak. Her husband and his repeated, hopeful inquiries, "She'll be okay. She'll come out of this fine, right?" Her lifeless face as the doctors desperately pushed more and more medication into her veins, hoping her heart would beat on its own again. Her husband, wandering down the hall, dazed and crying when he realize everything might not be okay. As difficult as it was, I learned so much from the experience. And I suppose if I continue to pursue a career in medicine, I will have to face the bad outcomes as well as the good.

On a happier note, this video made me *very* excited. I'm so glad to see that UC-Davis is going to such lengths to accommodate its medical students with hearing loss, and I hope all schools take note! I actually got to meet and speak with Amanda at the AMPHL conference this summer, and I have no doubt she will go far in her career and in life! The video is captioned!

I am so glad I am on winter break. I ended the semester on a high note, getting A's in all of my classes. I also got my PSAT score back. I scored a 217 out of 240, which is in the 99th percentile for juniors. Yes, I am bragging, and I am proud! I worked darn hard for that score!

I went to California last week for my older brother's wedding, and I also got to meet up with one of my friends who I got to meet at LOFT over the summer. I had a great time! I'm back home now and taking advantage of the free time. My amazing parents gave me a Nook for Hanukkah (and e-book reader produced by Barnes and Noble, for those of you unfamiliar), and I have been reading away. I feel like a little kid again, staying up until 4 AM reading :) Yep, I had a unique childhood!

One last thing.. I recently came upon this great article while reading my local newspaper. It's about a woman who works as a closed captioner for the Dallas Cowboys stadium. She is also heavily involved in the hearing loss and cochlear implant community. Give it a read!

Happy holidays to my dear readers who are left! May you have a happy, healthy, and safe new year!

Cowboys Stadium closed captioner article

2011-12-27T11:17:00.003-06:00

ARLINGTON — Roger Emrich is the public address voice for most fans at Dallas Cowboys home games. But for a certain segment of the crowd — particularly those with hearing loss — Lisa Davis is the team’s true voice.

A Cowboys fan since high school and closed captioner at Cowboys Stadium, Davis spends every home game in Arlington trying keep up pace with the action. Fingers flying at an average of 200 or more words per minute, she captions the pregame announcements and events, PA announcements during the game, halftime entertainment and postgame interviews.

In the simplest terms, Davis, 39, is paid to go to Cowboys games and type exactly what she hears. The job is often trickier than it sounds, she said, but just as fun as any fan might imagine. And a dream come true when she received the news by phone that she was hired.

“I hung up and probably screamed as loud as I could,” Davis said. “It was like hitting the football fan lottery.”

Davis — an independent contractor — started captioning Cowboys coaches’ shows for TV in 2006. And since Cowboys Stadium opened in 2009, Davis has captioned the Super Bowl, boxing matches, rodeos and more. Her typing appears on handheld devices available at the stadium and some video screens there.

Outside the sports world, she has captioned church services and government contractor meetings, cooking shows and college algebra classes, Martha Stewart programs and a presidential speech.

However it’s her work for one of the world’s most-famous sports teams that has given her a degree of fame inside her industry. A feature story in the May Journal of Court Reporting profiled Davis along with other sports specialists.

Davis said she received some praise from inside that community for her work at Super Bowl XLV. Nervous about the highest-profile assignment of her career, Davis said she counted on the national anthem as perhaps the only moment to catch her breath that day in February.

Instead, pop star Christina Aguilera flubbed the words and left Davis scrambling to keep up with the botched version. Davis remembers her typing screeching to a halt as she thought to herself: “That’s not how it goes.”

Davis never considered any option other than typing it just as Aguilera sang it.

Captioners are trained not to clean up language.

“They get what the hearing crowd gets,” she said about her audience. “They don’t want special favors. They don’t want to be edited. They don’t want to be babied.”

Esther Kelly, a hearing-loss resource specialist for the Deaf Action Center in Dallas, said that kind of passion is why she has hired Davis for 15 years.

“She cares not just about the job but about the people that need the captioning,” Kelly said. “She’s wholehearted for the people.”

The only time Davis turned down a major event at Cowboys Stadium was when a college football game conflicted with a gathering sponsored by hearing implant maker Cochlear.

She said her work with Cochlear and the Deaf Action Center are the few jobs that generate the same kind of passion she has for the Cowboys.

She never expected her sports fandom to contribute to her career path while growing up in the Dallas area and graduating from Wylie High School. Davis’ father worked for the Justice Department, so she imagined herself as an undercover narcotics officer or FBI agent.

Her father wasn’t supportive. “No daughter of his was going to get shot at,” Davis said.

Instead, he talked her into court reporting. It’s a good-paying career that would allow her to keep a foot in the criminal justice system, only without the gunplay. Davis said captioners are paid about $45 to $200 per hour depending on the type of work.

After years of schooling and practice, Davis worked on just one trial and was bored and didn’t want to deal with the daily horrors at the courthouse.

Unexpected path

The Americans with Disabilities Act showed her a different way to make a living. That federal law boosted demand for captioning in classrooms and at business meetings, conferences and conventions. The Federal Communications Commission also started phasing in requirements for closed captioning of all new programming on television.

Scott Purcel, the Cowboys’ director of broadcasting, said there was greater demand for captioning but the “quality wasn’t always what I was expecting.” As the father of a hearing-impaired 8-year-old, Purcel is particularly attuned to captioning and the gap between the good and bad.

He said he’d only use her or someone she’d recommend at Cowboys Stadium.

“I brag when I go to other stadiums about having a better captioner,” he said.

Davis’ work is ultimately a serious job. She sits in an area adjacent to the stadium’s TV control room and watches every play on a bank of monitors. Although she’s just a few yards from a coveted view of the field, Davis can’t stray from her stenography machine.

As PA announcer Emrich calls out downs, players and penalties, Davis types the words verbatim — just as she does his announcements of stadium contests and entertainment. A game for her is often a seven- or eight-hour day, starting long before kickoff and finishing with any post-game activities.

Despite the concentration required, she still finds plenty of time to unleash her inner fan. The long-stated rule against cheering in the press box just down the hall doesn’t apply to her little piece of the stadium.

Just like a Cowboys homer in front of a TV set, she roots for players, claps, urges fans to get loud and groans when things go wrong.

“OK, we need halftime right now,” she said as the Cowboys led the New York Giants by just two points at the Dec. 11 home game. “I don’t want to see that again.”

Unplanned challenges

Not many of her jobs give her the chance to cheer.

While still “wet behind the ears,” Davis captioned some breaking-news coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing for WFAA-TV (Channel 8). She did similar work for news coverage of the 9/11 attacks.

Jobs like that are not only emotional but pose a professional challenge.

Moments after the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Davis said her boss told her to stick with one spelling of Murrah until someone could call and determine what was correct. She said she had the same problem with captioning tornado warnings and other storms in Oklahoma, where many cities have Indian names that are difficult to figure out phonetically.

“You have to think how it’s spelled as it’s being pronounced,” she said.

But in some cases, different combinations of keystrokes might spit out a word or spelling that’s unexpected. The stenography machine captioners use doesn’t include every character, so some letters are created by multiple keystrokes. On top of that, captioners create their own shortcuts for names and terminology that might come up.

In an instant and under pressure, they’ll often have to work through what’s essentially two layers of coding to make sure the words appear precisely as they were said.

Davis said one of the few things that made her throw up her hands in frustration was working on a local youth music show. That was soon after rapper Snoop Dogg popularized the slang language that replaced the endings of words with “izzle,” creating a sort of hip-hop Pig Latin.

Mid-tempo country songs tend to be far easier to caption than bouncy rap or dance numbers. Davis said that was nothing, though, compared to trying to caption an auction — an attempt that wasn’t entirely successful.

Davis figures that technology — such as Apple’s Siri voice-recognition feature — will one day catch up with her profession.

“Technology is advancing every minute so I know that eventually, something’s going to happen somewhere,” Davis said. “But I also know that it’s also not near” professional standards of recognition.There are still problems, she said, with filtering out crowd noise and nearby voices and accounting for accents and even changes in pronunciation because of a cold.

In a real-life version of John Henry’s battle against a steam-powered hammer, Davis pitted herself against voice-recognition software. Viewers could see her work and the computer’s work projected side-by-side.

“We went to head to head, and I’m happy to say I kicked its butt all over the screen,” she said.

To hit speeds of 200 to 400 words per minute, captioners create shortcuts for common names and terms. Cowboys Stadium captioner Lisa Davis has an extensive library tailored for her work there. Some require unusual spellings to avoid conflicting with existing shortcuts. Here are a few of those:

TOEM TOEM = Tony Romo

WAS NAS = Akwasi Owusu-Ansah (note: Recently waived)

LOERJ = Line of scrimmage

QB = Quarterback

LAUB = Linebacker

KAUB = Cornerback

RAUB = Running back

Dear Abby

2011-11-07T15:21:00.000-06:00

I spotted this in my newspaper this morning. I can't recall encountering this type of reaction before, but I can see how some people could respond ignorantly. Have any of you experienced this before?

Dear Abby: My 16-year-old son, “Victor,” is hearing-impaired. He wears hearing aids in both ears. The aids are small and not easily seen.

Recently we were in a new doctor’s office, and the nurse was talking to my son but looking in another direction. When I explained that Victor is hearing-impaired and couldn’t hear her, she replied, “Oh, I know teenagers — selective hearing.” I said, “No, he is hearing-impaired and wears hearing aids.”

The same thing happened at summer camp. My husband said Victor has a hearing problem, and the counselor responded with, “So I need to smack him on the side of his head to get him to listen?”

My son has informed people he wears hearing aids because he can’t hear well, and he still gets the same smart-alecky retorts. Have you any suggestions?

Not Being Flippant
in Pennsylvania

Dear Not Being Flippant: Oh, yes. The nurse in your doctor’s office was tactless. If she didn’t apologize for her comment, you should have mentioned it to the doctor so he could educate her not only about hearing loss, but also about diplomacy. As to the ignorant camp counselor, your husband should have immediately reported it to the camp director.

After reading your letter, I consulted Dr. Rick Friedman at the House Ear Clinic in Los Angeles, who told me that approximately one in 2,000 children is born with hearing problems. (There is a genetic component, and hearing problems can run in families.) Being subjected to loud noises can also have a negative impact on hearing, and Dr. Friedman said studies are being conducted to determine to what extent.

Only Child, AMPHL conference, and a rant

2011-08-18T02:39:00.000-05:00

Sorry for being MIA! I've been in and out of town every week! My mouth has healed up wonderfully, though. It was so much easier than I expected it to be! Honestly, by the 2nd or 3rd day, my arm was hurting (from the IV) much worse than my mouth was, In fact, my hand and wrist are still sore nearly three weeks later, not sure why that is? I've never had such pain after an IV before, but oh well! It's nice to be able to eat again!

I just got back from moving my sister into her dorm in college. It was so weird driving home without her; I keep expecting her to walk into the room at any given moment. I miss her so much, but we'll still talk to each other all the time so it will be fine!

For those of you interested in the program I mentioned in my previous post, I interviewed a few of the other attendees and posted it on Deafteens.org. Check it out! They're a pretty great group!

I also recently attended a conference in Portland as part of the Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Losses. I wasn't sure what to expect and thought it might be a bit awkward since most of the people there would be, well, medical professionals (and not high school students), but everyone was very friendly and welcoming. I learned a ton, and I started a post about it when I got back. I need to find the notes I took so I can give some of the specific stats I think some of you might be interested in hearing. I could relate to so many of the stories and experiences shared at the conference It was very helpful, but also a little daunting. I realized then more than ever that the challenges never really go away. Now, don't get me wrong- I didn't expect to magically have normal hearing when I turned eighteen or anything, but I just hoped it would get a little bit easier. It seems that the majority of medical and nursing schools have limited or no experiences with disabilities. I realized the fierce determination required to make it through medical school. I'm well aware it's not easy for someone without hearing loss, but for someone with hearing loss, it's just that much harder. I can do it! As much as it frightened me, it also got me pretty excited for what the future holds.

I start school Monday. New school. Huge. Still in denial.

On a semi-related note, I really hope I live to see the day that schools are more receptive and open to helping students with hearing loss (as well as other disabilities). It is long past due for the general hearing public (or, more specifically, school administrators) to stop being ignorant and stop hoping that we'll just go away. Some progress may have been made but we still have got a long way to go. A person's ability and potential should never be limited by what a school feels like providing or what is most convenient for the teacher. The current system is only failing us. It is only failing me.

I swear, as each year passes, I lose more and more faith in the educational system. Something needs to change, but I don't think I can fight anymore.

Quick Udpdate

2011-07-29T21:29:00.000-05:00

I know I have some comments and messages that I need to respond to. I just got back in town yesterday from AG Bell's Leadership Opportunities For Teens program, and I had a blast. It was such a powerful, emotional experience that I will blog about in much more depth later because I just had my wisdom teeth out this morning. I was doing well but now all the numbness has worn off and it feels like I have been punched in the jaw about 50 times, so hopefully the pain medicine will kick in soon! Promise I'll write more soon!

Failure

2011-07-19T00:35:00.000-05:00

The title does *not* reference a CI failure of any sort.

Remember my freshman year?

Remember how hard I fought for accommodations? How much I struggled?

And then remember sophomore year? How I barely got any sleep? How I accepted the fact I'd just have to work harder than everyone else? How I figured if I just studied hard enough I could make up for what I missed in hearing?

And remember that one class I took for the past two years? I literally spent hours nightly slaving over the textbook reading, carefully taking notes- hoping that what had been discussed in a class of 50+ students would instead be absorbed by reading and rereading the material.

At the end of the two years, I took the national exam. It doesn't really serve much of a purpose besides the opportunity to receive college credit. Basically "testing out" of a college course. It's a culmination of all the work you've put into the class, giving you reassurance that yes, it was worth it.

I didn't think I'd done very well, but I hoped for the best. Scores came in the mail in rounds. I heard as more and more people received their letters and received outstanding scores. They never studied nearly as much as I did, so I thought maybe all my studying would pay off.

It didn't. I didn't just "not do as well I'd hoped"; my score was nauseatingly bad.

Maybe some people would shrug it off and think "better luck next time."

But I'm not like that. Instead I reflect. I overthink.

I always thought that if I worked hard enough, I could achieve anything. But maybe that's not true at all. Am I completely out of my league? If I did this miserably bad on an exam with a class of 50-something kids, how in the world can I handle competitive college classes that can be 5, even 10 times bigger, let alone years of medical school?

Have I completely overestimated myself?

Don't get me wrong, working hard has gotten me far. On the surface, I'm doing pretty well. I hear and speak, by most standards, well. Working my butt off and barely getting any sleep has allowed me to stay in the top 5% of my class (for now).

Is it even worth it? Where is this going to get me? Are my standards just set too high? If I feel so burnt out now, where am I going to be five, ten, twenty years from now? Will there ever ever be a point where I can look back and comfortably say, "it paid off."?

It just bothers me because I feel like I'm capable of so much, yet every time I try to reach my potential, I can feel the painful hands of hearing loss trying to pull me back. Actually, I can't even completely blame it on my deafness, but, more accurately, society's refusal to adapt to it.

It seems like it would be so much easier to just be average. To be satisfied at the idea of simply passing a course that's on grade level.

But for now I carry on, chin held high, slowly placing one foot in front of the other. My life is so much more than a test score.

Keepin' It Sweet

2011-07-05T23:46:00.001-05:00

Your regularly scheduled programing will resume shortly. Instead, I decided to give you some pictures! Have I mentioned that I like to bake? I realize this is incredibly random, but I thought I'd take a break from my usual posts, especially since the series I'm working on, as I mentioned, is still in progress in my life.. So I might not finish that up quite yet, we'll see! Plus, I thought some of you might be interested in learning a little more about what I enjoy, so here you go!

Anyway, these are just a selection of pictures of some of the things I've baked (the ones I actually thought to take pictures of). I make a pretty mean chocolate chip cookie, but I guess I've never taken any pictures of those. These are cell phone pics, so they're not the best quality, but if you want a recipe or anything then just ask!

This was the first time I ever made crepes. The first one turned out pretty disastrous (I'll spare you the picture), but I think the second one turned out pretty well! It totally reminded me of the crepes I had in France.. yum!


Banana-Nutella Crepe

Okay, this cake did not turn out so well... and it doesn't really count since my sister and I used a boxed cake mix. As you can see, a giant crack formed in the middle of the top layer after we stacked them. We made our own frosting, though and it didn't taste too bad! And if you're wondering about the red and blue blobs, my sister thought she'd decorate the cake with some fireworks since our mom's birthday was on the fourth of July. She also did the writing on top (trust me, if I had done it the writing would have been illegible!)

Devil's Food Cake with White Buttercream

These are the easiest cookies to make, ever. They're flourless, so they're good for Passover and people who can't tolerate gluten. But, more importantly, they taste delicious! They look a lot more appetizing in person, I promise!

Peanut Butter cookies with chocolate chips

This was my first attempt at making cakeballs, and they were a huge hit a family gathering I brought them to. I got the idea off of Bakerella, and she lists the steps out and makes it super easy!

Red Velvet cake balls in cream cheese frosting with white and milk chocolate coatings.

I got a Whoopie Pie recipe book for Hanukkah, but hadn't gotten the chance to make any until recently when a friend and I decided to do it for fun. They were big globs of deliciousness!

Classic Whoopie Pie

For Father's Day, my sister and I made cake balls. This was try two, and they actually didn't turn out as well as the first try (above). My dad is a big coconut fan, so we dyed some coconut and sprinkled it on top!


Yellow cake with cream cheese frosting, dipped in white chocolate and coconut.

Do you like to bake? If so, then share your favorite recipes- I love making new things!

The Difference-Part 3

2011-06-30T20:44:00.002-05:00

Part 1
Part 2

At that moment, I realized I had a conscious decision to make. I could get defensive, cry, storm out and say they weren't legally allowed to ask me about my hearing loss (were they? I'm still not even sure?), or I could put my advocacy skills to good use and actually educate them. So I put on a composed front and reassured them that everything would be fine, carefully answering each of their questions. I should note that they were really friendly and seemed to actually care and were genuinely concerned, but it was still a little overwhelming.They barraged me with questions that included (but were not limited to):

How will you hear in (various listening situations described)?
There's 2 teachers... one microphone. How will that work?
What if you and the other girl with the microphone are in the same class? Will it still work?
Will you tell us if you can't hear?

Apparently they had a really bad experience the one time they had accepted a deaf/hard-of-hearing student. My understanding is that she was oral but relied on lip/speech-reading quite a bit to comprehend what was being said. All year, the girl would stand in the back whenever they were teaching how to do skills for the CNA exam taken during the year as part of the class. The girl was going through a bad time in her life or something and refused to look at the teachers to lipread them. And of course, all year the girl never came to the teachers to let them know she was struggling, so they never really had any inclination. Their main concern was that I might be struggling to hear, and they just wanted to be sure I would tell them if at any point there was an issue so they could help me.

I could see where they were coming from, and it's certainly easy to think one individual is representative of an entire group, especially since she's the only one in the group of students with deafness they had met! It's a shame that it was a bad experience, but they were open enough to see that I wouldn't be like that. Although I felt I had handled the situation well and responded confidently, I was still extremely worried that I wouldn't be accepted because they would view the FM and hearing loss as an extra burden. As I have posted previously, I was ultimately accepted. The other girl with cochlear implants was accepted as well. At an informational meeting with all of the students, the teachers came up to me to be sure I heard everything okay. They really seem comfortable with the whole idea and I can tell that they care and want me to succeed. I brought up the whole stethoscope issue and mentioned that it was not yet resolved, but we were working to find a solution. They assured me that even if I can't get it to work, they will figure something out and work around it if we have to. Of course I would like to ultimately be able to use the stethoscope, especially if I end up following my current dream of becoming a doctor, but I am really glad to hear they're willing to work with me if it's not possible.

I am really excited for the class. I really do think it will be a great experience. Anyway, the main reason I shared this was to demonstrate how positively they reacted. They openly voiced their concerns and listened when I gave my input, and I do feel that they will work with, rather than against me to solve any problems that might spark up along the way. In the next few posts I will share another experience, but it's not a positive one. Actually, I'm still kind of in the "what should I do?" state. I have received quite a bit of advice and I am trying to figure out my next step.

Anyway.. stay tuned for part 4!

The Difference- Part 2

2011-06-29T18:19:00.006-05:00

This is part 2 in a series. If you haven't already done so, I recommend reading part 1before continuing.

I slowly got up and walked towards the interview room from my desk. An outspoken girl in my class shouted "good luck!" as I got up, but I assured her I had already interviewed and had no idea why I had to go back. I knew it wasn't to say I got in since they told us the list would not be posted for another month.

I hesitantly opened the door and peeked my head in the room. "Come in! Sit down!" they said. Well, they were being friendly... That seemed like a good sign...

Then, one of the teachers explained how during the course of the interviews that morning a girl in another class (who also has CI's) had brought in her FM and stated that the teachers needed to use it. This sparked the teacher's memory (who had visited our classroom before), and she made a comment along the lines of "Hey, last time I had to wear one of these things twice. I wonder if the other girl that used one also applied."

At this point, the girl being interviewed decided to be helpful, and said "Oh, yeah!" and then stated my full name.

This was one of those moments in which I mentally screamed "Really?! Was that really necessary?!"

I can't really blame anyone else, it really wasn't the girl's fault that she shared her knowledge... But I was still slightly annoyed. Anyway, there wasn't much time for me to get annoyed because one of the teachers continued.

"We were shocked... We had no idea, and you speak so well!"

Okay, this wasn't the first time I'd heard this...So far, so good...

"I can understand not wanting to be identified as the girl with hearing loss first," she continued, and told me about how she doesn't introduce her own daughter who has a chronic condition to people as "Jane, the girl with (disease)."

"But," she continued, "we have some concerns."

"Here it comes," I thought to myself, and I took a deep breath.

Look for part 3 tomorrow!

The Difference

2011-06-29T00:27:00.002-05:00

Occasionally, people with little experience with hearing loss will make a hearing-related comment or ask a question that sounds absolutely ridiculous and stupid to someone who has dealt with hearing loss his or her entire life. It's easy to jump on these people, and write them off as ignorant of hearing loss and possibly even people with disabilities as a whole. What I've learned is that rather, it's how these people react after you try to educate them that demonstrates that they're either willing to learn and open-minded, or indeed ignorant. I've been putting off sharing these stories on my blog for a little while now, but they truly demonstrate the polar opposite reactions I've faced when trying to educate people about hearing loss. I'll split this up into a few posts- one story has a happy ending, the other with an unresolved and leaves-a-bad-taste-in-your-mouth feeling.

A while back I shared that I had gotten into a program at my school that's medically oriented with lots of hands on and observational experiences in medicine. It was a big deal to me because the program requires applying, getting recommendation letters, and an interview with the teachers of the class.

The interview required getting dressed up in formal business attire. Before the interview, I weighed the pros and cons of disclosing my hearing loss. While it seemed like it would be easier to be honest and upfront, I also didn't want deafness to be the topic of the entire interview, which would be short anyway. In addition, when people hear the word "deaf", it's easy for them to jump to conclusions based on their minimal experiences with other deaf people. Rather than focusing on my qualifications, I was afraid that their minds would instead start racing about the possibilities of things I *couldn't* do.

It was for those reasons I decided it would be best to wait until *after* I was accepted into the program to tell them about my CI's and hearing loss. My only concern was that one of the (two) teachers had visited with some students taking the class to tell us more about it a few months prior to the interview. She had been given the FM to wear, so I wasn't sure if she would remember that I was the one that gave it to her. I figured I'd take my chances, and if she said mentioned anything about it I would simply say that I used my FM to deal with noisier situations, but that I hear pretty well most of the time. It was true, and it seemed to be a good way to avoid talking about hearing too much.

So the interview came, and I got all dressed up and was so nervous. My sister (who took the class) told me not to shake their hands since one of them is a slight germaphobe, but someone else said it would be rude not to. Should I extend my hand, or just see if they extend theirs? What if I misheard their questions? What if I said something stupid?! In the end, they only asked me one question, and then spent a couple of minutes talking about my sister. At the end of the interview, the teachers told me "Your grades are great, you have outstanding recommendations and a flawless attendance record. I think we know everything we need to know!" and asked if I had any questions. I took that as a good sign (since those were the assets they listed as the most important to get into the program).

So I was relieved that I was done interviewing on the first day, since the teachers were there over a course of two days and some people wouldn't get interviewed until day 2. That night I had tons of homework and tests to study for. I barely got 4 hours of sleep, and I don't even think I had time to shower (that's not a regular occurrence, just fyi, haha!). That morning I was running late, so I pulled my frizzy hair into a messy bun, threw on an oversized T-shirt and jeans, and ran out the door without a touch of makeup on. I usually wear very little make up regularly, so it wasn't a really a huge deal except for the sunken in dark circles around my eyes. It was just one of those days where I looked (and felt) like hell!

With this mental image in your head, you can no doubt imagine the shock that came over my body when I arrived to medical science and the teachers came out and called my name and stated they "needed to talk to me." My heart and mind began racing. What could they possibly want?

To be continued...

My Greatest Accomplishment?

2011-06-26T23:35:00.001-05:00

So I'm going to a program this summer for teens with hearing loss. I'm excited for it, but before I go we have an assignment to answer a series of personal questions about ourselves using only a visual for each question (images, photographs, etc), but no words. I haven't had issue with the majority of it, but I am stuck on one last question "What is your greatest accomplishment?"

I've been pondering over it for days now, and I am still at a complete loss. Of course, I've had months to do it and now I only have a few days left, but sometimes life gets in the way!

Anyway, it's an interesting question. You'd think something like your greatest accomplishment would be something you'd know off the top of your head. One of those things that flashes before your eyes as you die and can say "Yeah, I did that!" Okay, maybe I'm being melodramatic... But gosh, reducing everything I've done in my sixteen-almost-seventeen-years into my greatest accomplishment? I just don't know what I've done that is worthy of the title... I've never done anything particularly great. Shouldn't I have accomplished something by now? I mean, you hear about those teens who have climbed Mount Everest or sailed around the world or memorized the dictionary or whatever...but what have I done? My family is convinced that I'm nuts for getting so worked up over this.
"This is ridiculous! Just pick something!"
"You're sixteen, it's not like anyone expects you to have found a cure for cancer!" (..yet)

So here I am, feeling extremely unaccomplished. If you think you know my greatest accomplishment, then please, enlighten me..

I really need to stop obsessing over everything..

By the way, if you have anything you'd like to see/read me write about, or a question you'd like me to answer, or anything like that...I'm open to suggestions. I feel like I'm running out of things to say, believe it or not! I'm not quite ready to see this blog die.

It passed right by...

2011-06-18T17:23:00.002-05:00

Monday was my 4 year anniversary of bionic hearing! It was a relatively uneventful day.. I kinda just remembered that it held any significance!

Now it's just normal. Wearing my CI's is just so natural, that I never really think too much of it. My new favorite hearing thing to do is blast my car radio and sing along. They're still not perfect. I still need frequent mappings, but that's getting better as my 2nd ear is growing and not fluctuating as much. I never really adjust my hearing settings. In fact, I don't carry around the remote (and seldom know where it is...). Although occasionally when it gets ridiculously noisy and it is necessary to scream to be heard, I switch to the Zoom/Focus program. I'm not quite sure how it works, but it works wonders! And for those know-it-alls that claim the Nucleus 5 is just a smaller Freedom, I can tell you that I feel the Zoom feature alone was worth cost of upgrading. The sound is different. Don't ask me how it works, don't tell methat I must be wrong because the technology is the same...

I know what I hear, and it's pretty amazing!

For those of you wondering, the Ultimate College Guide is under way and is now being done in partnership with Rachel Chaikof of Cochlear Implant Online. It should be pretty amazing! If you'd like to participate/be featured, just message me!

In other news... I'm probably giving up French :(
No, it's not by choice. Yes, it is a hearing/accommodations thing. Yes, I am upset by it because it absolutely sucks.

Speech

2011-06-14T23:41:00.000-05:00

I speak well.

I didn't always, but after many years of speech therapy, I'd say that if you didn't know anything about my hearing ability, based on hearing me speak, you probably wouldn't suspect anything. Occasionally I don't fully enunciate the /s/ sound, but I've been told that after I got my CI's my speech improved... Anyways, that's not really the point of this post..

I don't think a person's speech should matter, as long as someone's speech is intelligible, what difference does it really make? Some (hearing and ignorant) people, though, think that the way a person speaks reflects his intelligence. Some people think it's okay to make fun of another person's speech just because it doesn't sound the same as theirs.

This has caused me to be stuck in the middle of some extremely awkward situations. I've realized that:
1)Many people don't think of me as deaf
2) Some people are complete idiots
Looking back on some of these incidents, I definitely wish I had spoken up.

When I was in middle school, a group of girls who I was acquainted (but not particularly friends) with were sitting at my table gossiping before class started. I listened without actually saying anything. The conversation topic soon turned to a girl who was deaf that went to our school, who one of the girls at the table had gotten into a fight with. They began rattling off all the things they disliked about this girl.

Then, one of the girls gossiping says, "Have you guys ever noticed the way she talks?"

I cringed but didn't look up.

They all laughed and nodded in agreement with the girl.

Then, they all took turns pinching their noses in amazingly ignorant attempts to imitate her voice. I was horrified, but didn't say anything since I wasn't actually involved in the conversation. The girls were very outspoken, and I was certainly on the shyer side.

There was another incident that occurred within the last couple of months. In my Health Sciences class, we have vocabulary quizzes are administered orally every couple of weeks. Our teacher had been out sick for the last couple of days, and there had been a substitute teacher in her place. He was a really chill, friendly guy. He was always smiling, but was originally from somewhere in Africa (I can't remember anymore) and had a very thick accent. I usually do okay with accents, but I honestly could not understand a single thing that came out of this guy's mouth, so I just smiled and nodded whenever he said anything (we were doing group projects, so he wasn't actually teaching us, just making conversation).

Knowing that I could not understand this man, I was concerned about the impending quiz. Since I didn't have that class until later in the day, I asked some friends who had Health Science in the morning if we had the same sub administering the test. When they said that we had a new sub, I admitted that I was relieved because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to understand the previous sub. One friend said she felt the same way, and assured me I would be able to hear the new sub just fine.

Then, another girl (infamous for her tendency to speak *way* too much,) chimed in.

"Yeah but the new sub talks funny. It's really annoying"

My friend glared at her. "That's so rude! Don't say that!"

"Ugh but it was so annoying," the girl said, and then turned to me. "Her voice was really weird."

To be honest, I was completely confused as to what she could possibly mean. I figured the sub had a lisp or something.

Alas, when I got to the class, the sub introduced herself. She explained that she had hearing loss and her hearing aids were broken, so we'd have to get her attention before speaking to her. Her speech was completely intelligible, by the way (and I aced the quiz).

I had pretty much forgotten about what the chatty girl had said. I figured it was a moment of poor judgement, and just kind of shrugged it off. But then I saw her that evening at some sort of school function. We were making small talk when she suddenly blurted out,

"Wasn't I right about the sub? ugh Her voice just like bothered me so much."

Then she laughed. I shrugged and then did my best to escape from the conversation.

I feel cowardly. The voice inside my head was yelling all sorts of not-so-nice things, while my actual voice remained silent, pretty much implying agreement.

I really need to get over the whole "quietness" thing. I always regret not saying something, yet I never learn. So frustrating!

Quote du Jour

2011-06-01T23:48:00.001-05:00

"No one ever said life would be easy... they just promised it would be worth it."

Today, I felt like Alexander..

I haven't even taken any of my hard exams yet. However, my day started off with locker clean-out during study hall. During this time of absolute chaos, a herd of rather tall teenage guys was stampeding through the halls like no body's business. Apparently my foot was in their way, so rather than running over it..they just ran on top of it it. My typically pasty white foot is now puffy and an ugly purplish color. It hurts pretty badly too :(

In my excitement and enthusiasm for starting a new school in the fall, I had been lulled into a false sense of security and assumed that the few accommodations I currently wouldn't be a problem come next year. It's not the district that's putting up a fight, but it doesn't really matter whose fault it is when the outcome is all the same... I'm always the one who ends up losing out, and yet I was completely blindsided. Silly, silly me.

Why did I have this crazy idea that I could actually enjoy the right to an equal education without having to fight for it?

I need summer. All I want is to be back playing with and "helping" the sick kids. It brings a strange peace to my heart and I just need to see those beaming smiles to put everything back in perspective.

They make it worth it.

College on the Brain- Input needed!

2011-05-29T10:48:00.000-05:00

I just have to survive exam week and then I'll be done with sophomore year! Then, the day after I get out of school, I get to experience the wonderful pleasure of watching my sister graduate. What could be better than waking up early on the first day of summer to watch all 1200 students in my sister's class walk across stage and listen to a bunch of speeches from people I don't know?! I'm half kidding- I love my sister and wouldn't dream of missing her graduation. I can't believe she'll be leaving me in a few short months to go off to college :'(

Anyway, all of this college talk has definitely gotten me thinking. Navigating through college applications and trying to figure out what schools to apply to can be tricky, and it can be even harder as a person with hearing loss. In addition to things like the location, campus, and quality of education, a teen with hearing loss may also have to worry about having accessible dorms, class size, accommodations such as FMs, interpreters, CART and more. Not only are there SAT scores, essays, and teacher recommendations to worry about, but also the question of whether or not to tell a college about your hearing loss during the admissions process, or to wait until after you've been accepted. Not to mention the fact that college is expensive, but there are so many additional options and scholarships for students with hearing loss. For example, did you know that any resident of the state of Texas with hearing loss can attend any public Texas college (that they have been accepted into) without any cost to them, regardless of their financial situation?

I feel like there are so many resources available for students applying to college, but so many of them are little known. I want to create the ultimate guide for students with hearing loss in looking for, applying to, and being in the appropriate college. In addition to gathering resources, I want to compile an array of personal college experiences, both good and bad. Anything from advice, to anecdotes, to articles on a specific college-related topic. Name and/or college attended are both option information, but if there is enough input I may even compile a list of college that have been great at accommodating students with hearing loss, and possibly also a list of those that have been less than accommodating. I'm not sure exactly what type of format I'd ultimately like it to be in- a website? PDF? Published book?

Yes, I am ambitious. These are just ideas I'm throwing out there. Please let me know if this is something you'd be interested in, I'd like to know if other people feel there is a need for this as well. Also, if you would like to help in anyway, please let me know with either a comment or private email, whichever you prefer! Suggestions? Thoughts? Please share with anyone you think might be interested!

I'll leave you with a few pictures from a recent academic awards ceremony at my school. I received an award from my French teacher. (Actually, most of these pictures were taken afterwards at my house, but still!)

Sisterly Love!

and a nice day to you too...

2011-05-10T19:53:00.002-05:00

I'm going to post an update about lots of things soon. I don't have time right now since this seems to be a ~~week~~ month filled with stress, no sleep and tears. :( At least I'm almost done?!

Anyway, I have always allowed anonymous comments... I know some people have privacy concerns and/or don't want to create a Blogger account. I haven't had any problems with it up until now... Now I am considering disabling the "Anonymous" option. If you have any opinions/advice, feel free to share. Here is a comment I recently received, in its fully glory (and no, I did not approve it to be published as a comment on the original post)...
"CI?? Recommended?? no... Cochlear implants have a bad side effects which can occured to death. Implanting on the child is a great risky due to Neurology and Psychosocial. The childhood migraine variants as sickness lead to death from the Infectious Diseases and bad environmental because, for example, Something happen to ci users, go emergency hositpal and the doctors cannot do the MRI, Cardiac Arrest, Shock Cardiogenic, Radiation Emergencies, Electronic Machines, so you let your child to die beacuse of cochlear implant in the skull could a greater of damage in the nerve damage or brain damage. That's the facts. I am sorry, if you feel offened. The matter of fact, the CI doctors and Audiologists hyocrited and manipulations because just for hositpal and doctors profits! Consider yourself and think twice!

Cochlear Implants Failure... Lawsuits...Call Lawyer...

Cochlear Implant Lawyer for Advanced Bionics and Clarion Devices

Get a free lawsuit review for Advanced Bionics cochlear implants and earlier Clarion models by completing the form on this page. A Deaf attorney is available to review your information and can discuss it by videophone (VP). The lawyers of Weitz and, Luxenberg P.C. have expanded litigation against Advanced Bionics related to defective Advanced bionics cochlear implants implanted in young children and adults. \*law firm website removed* Have a nice day! :)"

Classy. If you are a representative of this law firm, want to invest in spell check...That is all :)

Million Ear Challenge (Attention D-FW!)

2011-05-05T20:51:00.001-05:00

As you may have heard, it's Better Hearing and Speech Month, and in honor of BHSM Cochlear is asking you to take the Million Ear Challenge, and they in turn will donate products and accessories to customers who otherwise couldn't afford them.

In celebration and to spread awareness, there is going to be an event here in Dallas at the Grapevine Mills Mall. Here is the information:

On Saturday, May 14th from 2-3 PM, we will be meeting in front of the Food Court Entrance of the Grapevine Mall. Yellow T-shirts will be passed out free of charge. To help raise awareness, ear plugs will be handed out, and a full minute of noise-making and hand-clapping will occur so people in the mall know what this event is for. This is also a great opportunity for CI recipients and candidates to socialize, so try and stop by!

If you have any questions/ suggestions please feel free to contact me! And also, please spread the word!

In other news...

2011-04-17T19:13:00.000-05:00

Remember that program I mentioned?

I got in!

It has its perks

2011-04-17T15:13:00.000-05:00

After getting 3 hours of sleep the night before...

I went to bed especially early

and slept especially soundly.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that

these fell

and these lit up the sky

as these blasted.

All while I got to catch up on my beauty sleep.

Jealous?

I know my family was!

Sharing Your Experience

2011-03-20T00:09:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I met a friend of mine for dinner. As I was waiting for her to show up,I enjoyed people-watching and looking around at the various customers in the restaurant. I noticed a middle-aged man, directly in my line of vision, with two hearing aids eating dinner with his wife/girlfriend/lady friend. I spent the next few minutes watching their interaction, noticing the man to be clearly frustrated. He may have also been upset about something else, but was constantly having to ask his dinner guest to repeat herself. When the waiter came to their table, he asked "What?" three or four times, and he was clearly annoyed.

I wanted so badly to go over there and shout "I know how you feel!" and share the possibilities of cochlear implants, but decided against it because:

I didn't feel it was my place to say
It seemed rude to barge in on his dinner
He didn't appear to be in a particularly happy mood
I didn't know about his personal views or situation. What if he already knew he didn't qualify, for whatever reason? What if he is against the idea of CI's in general? I didn't want to be one of those people pushing my beliefs onto someone else, I despite it when others do that to me!
My friend showed up.

While I am more than happy to share my experiences with people when asked, I guess I feel uncomfortable going up to other people unprompted. I'm sure there are people who would feel rude asking and wish a person they notice with a CI would just go up to them...

What do you think? Do you shout the praises of cochlear implants, or just quietly enjoy them? Have you ever shared your experiences with cochlear implants and offended someone else? (Or helped them?)

Side note: I was able to hear quite well in the restaurant, and don't think I had to ask for any repeats! While I'm the first to admit that CI's are far from perfect, I'm always amazed when I think back to the constant "What?" from my days of hearing aids and compare to how well I am able to hear now.

The last three months, in bullets

2011-03-15T23:15:00.001-05:00

A few months back I went into a class filled with audiology/SLP grad students to tell my story and answer questions. It was a great experience, and it was nice to see how eager they all were to become the best professionals possible. To be honest, grad school looked much more interesting than high school, but it probably isn't always that way!
I got an iPhone 4! I am in love with it! It took a few hours to get used to the the keyboard (and I still have trouble typing without looking, but who really needs to be able to do that anyway!) I was worried I wouldn't be able to hear very well on it, but the sound quality is actually much better than any other phones I've used in the past. I don't use the listening/speaking part of the phone too often, but it's good to feel confident that I can hear on it when I do use it. I haven't gotten the chance to try out the FaceTime feature yet... It is wonderful having my music and phone all in one, and the apps aren't too bad either :)
I have officially had my license for 6 months! My mom insists that's not very long, but it does mean that I can now legally drive more than one passenger in my car!
Yesterday marked two years since my bilateral surgery. I'm finally getting to the point where I'm not feeling like I constantly need to go for mappings, and it is *so* nice.
I still have a love/hate relationship with school. Hate the work, but I'm loving spring break :)
For the last month or so, I've had horrible jaw pain upon opening my mouth, chewing. talking, yawning.. you get the idea. Today I went to an oral surgeon and he asked if I've been under stress lately. I laughed- when am I not under stress? Apparently I clench my jaw at night because I'm stressed, so the joint on one side of my jaw is out of place. It's supposedly really common, and is curable by doing some mouth exercises a few times a day.
The above appointment was also to have a consultation to get my wisdom teeth out. Yeah, that's what I get to do this summer on top of two different (P)SAT programs, online school, and volunteering. What happened to summer being time for relaxing? Or even having a little bit of fun?
The aforementioned surgeon also mentioned a company that takes wisdom teeth and preserves the stem cells in them for future use. There's no telling what medical advances will come about in my lifetime with stem cells (and I'm not just talking about hearing loss), so we'll look into doing that.
I definitely had another two or three bullets to write, but then a bug flew onto the keyboard and I got completely distracted and don't remember what I wanted to say...
I feel like I change the colors of this blog more often than I post, but it looks wintery and I'm read for spring. Plus, I looked back at some of my older posts and noticed you can't read them with the darker background..
I just remembered everything I wanted to write...
I wanted to thank everyone for the outpouring of support as well as the wealth of information that you have all provided regarding my last few posts. Pedro Martinez left a comment about an online course about stethoscopes with hearing loss. It was extremely helpful, but of course the speaker lost connection right as she was about to talk about stethoscopes with cochlear implants. So typical! I've decided to hold off messing with stethoscopes further, since we're done using them for the year. I may or not need it next year, depending on if I get into a program I'm applying for. More to come in the next month, keep your fingers crossed for me!
I'll be participating in a research study on FM use and cochlear implants, and I will get the chance to try out a couple of different FM systems. I will keep everyone posted!
I'm embarrassed to admit that I even watch Celebrity Apprentice... but did anyone else see the most recent episode on Sunday night? If not, let me just say that it is the epitome of of ignorance of hearing loss/deafness (or whatever term you prefer).
Most importantly- I ask that as you pray for the thousands of tragedies in Japan and whatever else is going on in your life, please squeeze Sara and her family into your thoughts and prayers, if you haven't already. Sara is an amazing young woman and a member of the Cochlear Community. Her brother and sister were recently in a car accident. Her brother was killed, and her sister is currently in a coma. I can't even begin to imagine being in her situation, but I do know that every last ounce of support can make a difference.

4 quizzes, 4 tests, and 2 projects, oh my!

2011-03-07T23:15:00.001-06:00

Mix in the the fact that I have my "academic conference" to discuss the rest of my high school classes (meaning, stress and a few missed classes), an audiology appointment (meaning I can't hear too well and have to miss more class), a book discussion for a book I haven't read, and the entire yearbook has to be finished by Friday, which means scrambling for all of the last minute club group pictures.

Oh yeah, it's the week before spring break. My motivation level is at an all-time low, and exhaustion at an all time high. Please let this week go by quickly!

I promise, once I have time to think (or even blink) I will write a nice, long detailed post. Trust me, I have lots to say!

Oh, and I've officially had my driver's license for 6 months! Just thought I'd throw that out there :)

Until next time!

Using the FM with the N5: Revisited

2011-02-02T10:28:00.000-06:00

I've been meaning to post an update about this for a while, especially since I've noticed a lot of people have found my blog when they were searching for information about using the Nucleus 5 with the FM adapter. Well, when I posted before, I had no personal experience using it since I had used the MyLink neck loop which, despite its ugliness/cumbersomeness, worked pretty well with only occasional computer interference. Since Cochlear was sending free adapters, we went ahead and ordered two and the school district provided the boots to go with them. I must say I had high expectations, and was hoping that any interference issues would be alleviated since the T-coil was no longer in use.

Not to be Miss Debby Downer here, but I had a horrible experience! I couldn't get through more than a half day with them.. The interference was so awful that I would only occasionally get reception when my head was tilted a certain way and the teacher stood in a certain spot, and that was only in one ear! After dealing with non-stop static for three hours, I gave up and asked for the neck loop back. The school district audiologists didn't bother to troubleshoot and pretty much just said, "Oh well, we tried." It's completely possible that with some adjustments to the FM channels it would have worked fine, but I don't know since I didn't get the chance to try it out. I'm not saying you shouldn't try out the boots with Euro adaptors on the N5 (as long as you can try before you buy!), but if you have small children using them, please be sure they're not just hearing static all day! It was the most terribly unpleasant experience, and I would hate to think that there are some toddlers out there who aren't able to explain what they are hearing that are having to deal with it too!

Frustrated

2011-01-29T11:27:00.000-06:00

So, I'm taking a class that basically is an introduction to health care careers. The unit we're currently doing is vital signs, learning how to take blood pressure, pulse, etc. In order to take blood pressure, we have to use stethoscopes.

Many months ago the special electronic stethoscope was purchased, and I even got another programming on my implant specifically for use with the stethoscope. Long story short, now that it's come time to use it I am not able to hear any noise that at all resembles a heart beating.

And you know what?
I'm sick of it.

I'm so unbelievably tired of having to try and find alternative ways to do things when for everyone else it's a thoughtless given they can take for granted. I've watched resentfully as all the other kids in my class went around taking each other's blood pressures, and I sat there with nothing to do. And I know in order to get anywhere in life, you have to roll with the punches while advocating for yourself. Most of the time, I get along just fine as far as hearing goes.I can hear better than ever, and I certainly perform well with my implants. I'll tell anyone and everyone that will listen about the amazing miracles of cochlear implants. I'm comfortable in my own skin, and not the least bit ashamed.

And yet..

I'm tired.

I know, it could be much worse. I've heard all the corny cliches. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Don't take anything for granted. Life's not fair.

Call me selfish, ungrateful, spoiled, or whatever else you want. But, right now, if I was given the opportunity to wave a magic wand and hear perfectly?

I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Remember Me?

2011-01-22T14:38:00.000-06:00

Hope those of you that celebrate had a Merry Christmas! And a Happy New Year! And hope you enjoyed MLK Day...might as well wish you a Happy Valentine's Day while I'm at it!

Yeahh... I haven't posted in a while! I keep thinking of things that I could post about, but never get around to it. I've been trying to limit my time on the computer, but writing is good for the mind. I could write about everything that I want to say into one long ginormous post, but then it would be boring and long and no one would actually read it. So this is more of a post promising that I'm going to post stuff. Until then, here are some month old pictures of my dog.

....with a face like that, how can you not forgive me for not posting?!

Those are my friends' feet in the back ground. We don't just keep pairs of shoes lying around our house :)

School's Out...

2010-12-20T11:27:00.000-06:00

(for 2 weeks)
Hallelujah!

Soo glad to be out (and even more excited that I only have 6 months until I am DONE with this school forever. My district divides the high schools up 9th-10th graders and another school for 11th-12th graders). I did well on all of my exams; even better than I expected. I'm leaving in a couple of days to fly up north (all by myself!) to visit a very dear convention friend. Super excited!

After kicking off the break with an ugly-Christmas-sweater/White-Elephant/gingerbread-house-decorating/Christmakuh party on Friday night, I went to the Dallas Hearing Foundation's Sounds of the Season Gala/fundraiser. This was the first year I have attended; I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was absolutely wonderful!

My older sister and I

A while back they asked me for my cochlear implant story for the gala and had me get my picture taken. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to be used..

Well, I had "my" own table! It was named after me, and each place setting had my picture with the story on the back. Pretty cool!

My picture/story was also turned into a poster board that greeted all the people as they walked in.

Please excuse the fuzziness- this was taken from my sister's phone.

I really wish I had gotten pictures of my favorite part, which was the presentation by 5 kids who had been helped by DHF. All of of them had cochlear implants, enjoyed the benefits of speaking and hearing, and were absolutely adorable! I was too busy enjoying it to snap any pictures. By the end there wasn't a dry eye in the house. If I had brought any money with me, I would have dumped it all right into one of the donation envelopes right then ;)

There was Meghana, the junior emcee, who hosted the event along with her sister. She's in second grade, and was implanted when her family moved from India to Texas when she was four. She had a precious performer personality, and did a great job. Some of the other kids included:

A little girl, whose entire family (including herself, her parents and brother) were born deaf and wear cochlear implants. She spoke beautifully about the miracles of Hanukkah and described the miracle of her cochlear implants.
A 12 year old boy implanted when he was 5. He got up and sang a pretty awesome rendition of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer". He even got everyone to sing along!
An eight year old bilaterally implanted when he was one. He wowed the crows with his breakdancing skills!
A boy who has bilateral implants, as do all of his siblings. He thanked his mom, describing how she checks 6 processors and 18 (!!!) batteries every morning to ensure each of her kids can hear. He told of his struggle to learn to hear and speak for the first time when he was implanted, at age 8. It was clear he had worked hard and had made tremendous progress, and hearing him exclaim "Just look at me now!" brought on a flood of tears.

I had a great time, and I hope DHF was able to raise plenty of money. I also got to enjoy catching up with old friends, some girls my age who also have bilateral implants.

Happy Holidays!

Just one of those weeks

2010-12-03T23:43:00.000-06:00

It's not a hearing thing.

I used to think it was, until one day at lunch my friends were describing how when they're really stressed out at school, the smallest things will set them off into a fit of crying. Ha! I actually am normal!

Maybe it's a girl thing? A perfectionist thing?

This week has absolutely sucked. (sorry Mom, I know you hate that word..)

I would go as far as to say this week was the most stressful, upsetting week of my one and a half years in high school. All of my teachers are being forced to squeeze in a ton of last minute projects and assignments. I don't think they like it anymore than we do, but, quite frankly, they're not the ones running on 4 hours of sleep.

So, that in addition to some family stuff to deal with --> me=disaster. Every little thing set me off.
Example:
Friend/family member: Hey, how was your day?
Me: *cue blubbering hysterics*

Just lovely. On Wednesday, I had 2 very large projects due, leading to my lack of sleep (and even on those 4 hours of sleep, I wasn't able to complete all of my homework. I got to spend my lunchtime working too!) This morning (Friday), I was finally feeling relaxed. I had no tests or quizzes to study for, and all of the projects for the week were turned in, and I was finally going to be able to get some sleep tonight. I just wanted to print off a copy of a powerpoint we were using in one of my classes so that I would have an easier time listening rather than concentrating on taking notes.

I went to the printer to retrieve the notes, but it was out of paper. I refilled the paper. I looked down expecting my powerpoint notes to be printed.

The first thing that printed was the last page of my English project. The one I had stayed up working on until 2 AM. The one that was due on Wednesday. It was the last two paragraphs (i.e, the last 20 points).

*Insert full-out sobbing and shrieking here*

Thank G-d my teacher likes me. He apparently took sympathy on my teary, puffy-eyed self and insisted that it was fine since he hadn't graded it yet. It's good thing he accepted it, because I may have otherwise had a complete mental breakdown on the spot.

This week is over. Now I have the onslaught of projects for this upcoming weeks. Just 2 more weeks until Winter Break. I can do this. Right?

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish readers. I've barely had time to celebrate, but I will write about it later on!

Dallas Hearing Foundation Fundraiser

2010-11-28T12:26:00.000-06:00

Tickets are $25 off today and tomorrow only!

There's also a special deal on raffle tickets with lots of cool prizes. You can still win even if you're unable to attend.

Also be sure to check out the DHF Facebook page to read lots of great patients stories (and maybe even see some familiar faces!)

AG Bell Article

2010-11-26T17:33:00.001-06:00

Click on the picture, and it should expand so that the words are legible.

Check it Out!

2010-11-22T23:58:00.000-06:00

If you're an AG Bell member, check out the latest issue of Volta Voices. More specifically, page 38 featuring yours truly :)

If you're not a member of AG Bell and would like the article emailed to you, just let me know. I'm going to see if there's a way I can post part of the PDF on here.

Getting Creative

2010-11-21T01:06:00.000-06:00

As long-time readers probably know, getting captioning on school videos has been a struggle for me, (and I'm sure many other D/HoH students as well). All of my teacher have dealt with the situation differently, and sometimes I can understand the video pretty well without captions, so long as I don't have to take notes and can just concentrate on the listening part. Other times, it's some animated video narrated by an Irish guy, and I'm completely lost. In one of my classes we're watching a video that takes 3 class days to watch. It's in a two year class for freshmen and sophomores, so I had these teachers (there are 2 teachers- I have 60 kids in my class) last year. They've always been really accommodating and helpful, so they made sure to get a video with subtitles.

Well, once they went to play it, they discovered these subtitles were only available in Spanish or French. So, I got a summary of the movie, plugged my FM into the speakers, and used French subtitles. I could understand a large amount between my hearing and French skills. It actually wasn't too confusing reading in French while listening in English, and it wasn't certainly much better than having nothing. I always thought learning French would come in handy, but being able to read French subtitles never really entered my mind!

Raising money for a good cause

2010-11-15T23:15:00.001-06:00

And all you have to do is watch a sweet little video! Every time this video is viewed, various sponsors will donate 2 cents to the American Society for Deaf Children. I must admit this is the first time I've heard of this organization, but it sounds like they do great things and the video is pretty cool!

What I've been up to...

2010-11-08T23:31:00.000-06:00

Since I rarely post pictures, and almost always post ~~novels~~ very long stories, , I thought I would switch things up a bit. Wondering what I've been doing?

World Series

Sea of red and blue

Funny sign

Home run..the only game the Rangers won :(

Driving

Sweet 16's

Homework. Lots and lots of homework.

PS: Check out the latest contest over at CI Online for a chance to win a fancy medical bracelet!

Contest!

2010-11-06T17:46:00.000-05:00

Rachel over at Cochlear Implant Online is hosting a giveaway contest to win a cochlea-inspired spiral pendant. The jewelry is gorgeous and "hand-stamped" with inspirational messages. The deadline to enter to win is tomorrow night, so do it soon! Information about how to enter can be found here.

I will post an update about me soon...Promise!

Search for teenage and adults deaf actors for upcoming TV show

2010-10-07T22:51:00.000-05:00

No, this is not turning into a news blog :) I will post an update about myself soon, there just hasn't been much of anything to report. I saw this page on Facebook after a few of my friends "liked" it, and thought some reader might be interested. The plot sounds interesting, and it would be pretty cool if a "typical" speaking, hearing deaf kid was plucked from everyday life into TV fame. Note that they are looking for people who can both sign and speak, and the deadline is October 15th.

From the page:

** REMEMBER: YOU MUST FILL OUT AND SUBMIT A "WAIVER" FORM ALONG WITH YOUR VIDEO SUBMISSION. **

WHERE TO GET A COPY OF THE AUDITION SCENES AND WAIVER

You can find a copy of the waiver, together with the audition scenes here:

DAPHNE: http://www.nowcasting.com/switched/daphne.pdf

** Note: The character of Daphne will be speaking, signing (ASL) and using sim-com during the show. The producers would like to see you do all three at some point during your audition. So, pick some lines from the audition scene where you will speak only, others where you will sim-com and others where you will use ASL only. **

EMMETT: http://www.nowcasting.com/switched/emmett.pdf

PENN: http://www.nowcasting.com/switched/penn.pdf

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

You’ll need some sort of digital video recording device. It can be your iPhone, cell phone, Flip camera, small digital video camera, etc, etc, etc.

BUT KEEP THIS IN MIND:
-- The accepted formats for uploaded files are: Quicktime (.mov), Flash (.flv) and MPEG4 (.mp4) ONLY!
-- You may be able to "convert" your file into one of these formats. But make sure you can and know how to do so, or find someone who does.
-- YOUR FILE CANNOT BE OVER 20MB!
-- Alternatively, you can supply us with a You Tube Video link, which must be set for public viewing.
-- Do not name your video files with punctuations (for example: * " ' / \ @ &)

FILMING YOUR AUDITION VIDEO

It doesn’t have to be a “big production.” But, we need to be able to see you – and hear you – clearly on screen. So make sure you have plenty of light when you record yourself, and make sure the camera is not too far away from you.

Put your camera or phone on a stable surface, like a tripod or table. Again, make sure there’s plenty of light so we can see you. And then … perform like the character you want to play!

Remember, be easy and just be yourself. You have nothing to lose! Ultimately, what we want to see, is the true essence of who you are.

When you're done, you must do two things

1. Fill out and return the "waiver form" you found attached to the audition pages.
- You can fax it to: 323-874-2268
- Scan and email it to: switchedpilot@yahoo.com
- Or include it with your "hard copy" DVD submission in the mail.

2. Upload your video. Here's how:

HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO

Click on this link to go to the Now Casting website. You will upload your videos there:

https://www.nowcasting.com/uploadauditions

- When asked for the role code, use 1133bf53
- Click "submit."
- Fill out the required fields and enter only the role you are auditioning for in the "Description" field. Do not put /&"!'@ in the description or the name of the file.
- Click "choose file" [next to where it says "Audition File" -- underneath where it says "Description"] and pick the file you will be uploading from your computer.
- Click "submit." The audition will be delivered directly to us.

That's it! You're done!

SUBMITTING A HARD COPY THROUGH THE MAIL

Please note that the preferred method of sending us your audition videos is THROUGH THE LINK ABOVE.

If you submit your video this way, there is no postage to worry about, we are guaranteed to receive your video and we will see it much faster.

As a last resort, you can also submit a "hard copy" of your audition video, along with the waiver and personal information, IN DVD FORMAT ONLY to:

Deedee Bradley
6767 Forest Lawn Drive, Suite 100
Los Angeles, CA 90068

Actors should write a short paragraph about themselves and include:
1. Their name
2. Their AGE ( Very important)
3. Where they are currently living.
4. Best way for us to contact them.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS

The deadline for submissions is October 15th, 2010.

Now, good luck! We hope that you are who we’re looking for!"

Here is the plot outline for the show, Switched at Birth which will be on ABC Family and the roles they need to fill:
The show revolves around Daphne, a smart, confident and well-adjusted deaf teenager who has her world turned upside down when she discovers that she was switched at birth with another girl.

DAPHNE - ACTRESS MUST BE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING AND MUST SPEAK WELL, AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE PREFERRED. Age range from 16 to early 20’s to play high school. Actress is to be light-haired or willing to dye hair blond for the role, and if the show moves to series, actress must be willing to relocate to Los Angeles in February.

Smart, confident, and well-adjusted Daphne is stunned to learn that she and Bay Kennish were accidentally switched at birth 15 years ago. Having grown up in a working-class household as the only child of a single mom, she is excited to meet her new parents, and especially thrilled at the idea of having brothers and a dad. But balancing two families is trickier than she expected, particularly because her biological parents have never been around anyone deaf, and are eager for her to enter a mainstream school and a less deaf-centric world.

EMMETT - 16, ACTOR MUST BE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING, MUST BE FLUENT IN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE. Emmett is Daphne's best friend. Raised by deaf parents and educated in a deaf school, Emmett doesn't talk orally, and is more comfortable in a deaf world. Rugged, reserved, a young deaf James Dean.

PENN - late 30’s or 40’s. male, ACTOR MUST BE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING, MUST SPEAK WELL. Penn is Emmett's father and Daphne's mother's best friend. Penn is the one who educated Daphne's mother about the importance of learning sign, schooling Daphne in a deaf world, etc.

I will admit it does sound a bit "stereotypical deaf", with the importance of sign, Deaf culture etc.. However, its still in its infancy and I highly encourage you to audition ASAP if you're interested! There's no telling how things will turn out! Here is the Facebook Fan page that includes all of the information I have posted:
http://www.facebook.com/SwitchedSearch

Deaf teacher publicizes discrimination, gets suspended

2010-10-07T22:36:00.000-05:00

So it just seems that there has been a lot of hearing loss/discrimination related new in my area lately. This article caught my eye when I was reading the newspaper this morning (Yes, I read the paper and always have. My friends like to make fun of me for doing so, but I'm always well informed!)

My summary: Kathleen Nosek is a deaf special ed teacher and has been teaching at the same school for ten years. In the past couple of years the principal of the school, Amy Miller, began insisting that Nosek administer pronunciation tests to her students herself. In the past Nosek had other teachers perform this test (which only had to be done a few times a year) for her, and it wasn't a problem. When Nosek told Miller that her hearing loss made it extremely difficult to accurately perform the tests, Miller questioned whether Nosek's hearing loss made her unfit for her job (which she's been doing for years just fine!). Well, Nosek chose to bring allegations of harassment and intimidation by Miller before the school board. The morning of, she had a local news reporter in her classroom and was interviewed. This led to her suspension.

The full story along with hundreds of comments is available here. If you ask me, this story is blatant discrimination, and her suspension is just the tip of the iceberg.

The news reporter published a blog post with a few clarifications and updates, available here.

Followup Article- Deafness in the Legal System

2010-10-02T12:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I posted about a deaf man freed after a DNA test proved him innocent of a crime that he had already spend 20 years in prison for.

Today, I saw a great article that talked about his conviction and exoneration, with much of the focus on his deafness and how it impacted the case. Here is the link to the article, along with some quotes that I thought were noteworthy.

"Prosecutors don't routinely check whether a deaf defendant had a certified interpreter during police questioning, or whether the defendant's written words would have a different meaning in American Sign Language."
"When Richardson police asked Brodie in writing why he abducted and sexually assaulted the girl, he wrote, "I don't know WHY?" Those words were taken as a confession until the district attorney's office began reinvestigating the case."
"They said police should use a certified interpreter who is trained to sign legal words like those that come up in Miranda warnings when officers ask suspects to waive their rights. Elliott said the ideas of waiving your rights to remain silent and to have an attorney don't automatically translate in deaf culture. "
For 20 years, authorities have said that the 5-year-old victim told them her attacker spoke with a "clown" voice. Police and prosecutors have said the girl was describing how a deaf person speaks. But a recording of the interview shows the girl actually told police the man had a "low voice."

My side note: What the heck?! What does a "clown voice" even sound like? I don't think I've ever heard a clown talk...

Wrongly convicted deaf man freed after 20 years

2010-09-30T23:42:00.000-05:00

Not the type of stories I usually post, but it was in the newspaper and caught my eye. Thought it was interesting, and wanted to share!

Stephen Matthew Brodie, 39 lost his hearing to meningitis at 18 months, and communicates using ASL. He was convicted of sexually assaulting a five year old girl in 1990. Turns out, he didn't actually do it. The following quote from the article really struck me, and I wonder if this sort of thing still occurs today. It wouldn't surprise me, but it's still upsetting.
"After 18 hours of questioning over eight days – much of it with no sign language interpreter present – Brodie had pleaded guilty[.]" ADA, anyone?!

Ironically enough, his deafness was the very thing that led a lawyer to further investigate his case, leading to his freedom. His father wrote a letter to a paralegal, Jena Parker. "Parker said that when she first read the letter from Brodie's father, two things stood out to her: If a deaf person had committed the crime, he would have had no gauge of how loud he was as he went through things in the house; and how did the child victim understand Brodie's instructions when his voice is often unintelligible?" I'm sure someone will manage to find offense with that quote, but it is what ultimately got him released!

Read the article here.

Sweet Sixteen

2010-09-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

I turned 16 on Monday, then got my license on Thursday. As great as it was having the day off of school (since my birthday also happened to fall on Labor Day), being sick put a bit of a damper on things. I went to the DPS on Thursday, since it was a Jewish holiday and I didn't want to have to miss school twice. Stood in line for 2 hours (starting at 7 AM..way too early!), and then made an appointment to take my driving test at noon. While in line, we chatted with a guy who was a year or two older than me (he was getting his license renewed) who also had hearing aids. I don't know know of his hearing background, but as far as I know he is completely oral, and if his hearing aids hadn't been visible I probably would have had no idea he had a hearing loss. We discussed whether or not to get hearing-related restrictions on my license, and he said that he didn't put anything about his hearing loss on the form when he went to get his. In the end, we told the person who was creating my license (which only flustered the poor lady further-it was her first time giving a license and it took her forever to figure out how to work everything on the computer!)

When I came back later to take the driving test, I was terrified. All of the people who were taking the driving test had to line up in their cars in a certain spot, and the person testing would come out to you. There were about 6 of us in line, and I was 2nd. The first instructor/testing person came out, a jolly large old man who seemed quite friendly, and walked over two the first car. I thought to myself, "Maybe it's not that bad!" Then, another person walked out and began making her way out towards my car. An audible gasp could be heard from my mother's mouth- this woman looked miserable, and I'm pretty sure if I'd been in a movie, they would have played that haunting music they play when the villain reveals herself! It didn't help that she insisted in speaking in her one-step-above-a-whisper voice. The test itself didn't last longer than 15 minutes, and I ensured that I didn't fail for "Not following directions" by repeating every single direction she gave me to verify I heard her right. I wouldn't say it was a joyride, and I wasn't quite flawless, but I passed and did well and I now have a license, so I have no complaints!

On Friday I had my birthday part. It was a "sweets" party (get it? "Sweet Sixteen" Clever, right? ;)) and we spent 2 of the 3 hours in 2 teams "competing" by having a cake decorating competition. I was actually surprised at how artistic some of my friends are! There was no winner or prize, but it was a lot of fun. Instead of gifts, I told my friends that I would love donations for the Dallas Hearing Foundation. We raised $300, and I know it was for a great cause! Here are some pictures:

This was a cake we ordered, we're not quite that talented at decorating. Isn't it beautiful?!

This was the table of sweets. Not all of the food was out yet, but I still think it's so pretty!

Cake decorating supplies

Team 1's cake

Team 2's Cake

Hearing is great! At the beginning of my party I began to regret having 16 already loud and hyper girls, who were also now on a sugar rush, all decorating and talking in one room, since it began to get so noisy that even my friends had to ask for more repeats than usual. I then gestured my mom for my remote, quickly put it on the Zoom setting, and was able to hear fine for the rest of the evening!

FM with the N5 EDITED

2010-09-07T23:28:00.002-05:00

I've found that my blog has had multiple searches about how to use the FM with the N5 processor. Currently, I use the MyLink neckloop instead of a boot (using T-coil) and the SmartLink Transmitter, both shown.

Recently, I went to look at the Cochlear store's newest items, in search of the microphone covers (I had a mishap in putting mine on, which resulted in needing another set. Cochlear just sent me some more for free. Details in another post!). I came across an exciting discovery..

"The Euro Accessory Adaptor is designed to create a convenient interface for connecting a wireless FM receiver, such as the Phonak MLxS, to the Cochlear Nucleus CP810 Sound Processor. Wireless FM receivers allow the voice of a speaker, often times a teacher, to be transmitted wirelessly to the listener for easier listening in noise." Cost: $90

For those of you curious of what it looks like while being worn, I found some pictures that someone posted on a Dutch CI Forum. To see more pictures and, I guess if you read Dutch, read more about it, check out http://www.dcig-forum.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=18445&sid=2a9daa833ba1f71e0d1bf7ce67a859b1

This is not me, see above link for source.

See above link for source

I was worried about it being awkward looking. I'm not sure what I think of it, but it certainly adds bulk at a bit of a strange angle. It could be much worse, though. I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts (or experiences) on using the Euro Adapter. How do you think it looks? My biggest concern is the decrease in battery life that I will more than likely experience.

*EDIT as of 9/9*: Cochlear has information posted on their website about the new Euro Adaptor, and the site says that N5 users will be able to get the adaptor for free by filling out a form (which is supposedly on the website, but I can't seem to locate it). Check it out, plus tons of other info about using the FM here. Also, Cochlear has released an improved version of their Snugfit for the N5, which is pretty much the same as that of the Freedom (except shaped to the N5), so it's no longer transparent but much easier to bend to fit your ear shape. In addition to that, they've released Compact Rechargeable Battery Covers. This is good news for the parents of younger kids who like to use the covers and the smaller rechargeables. All of the items mentioned are for sale on the Cochlear Online Store under Nucleus 5 Accessories, which can be found here

Hearing Loss, Confidence, and my Second Week of School

2010-09-04T10:23:00.000-05:00

Week 2 was also successful! The homework load has increased, and there has been an annoying amount of "busy-work" but it has certainly been bearable. It was pretty uneventful (except for a bunch of other sophomores unofficially declared on Tuesday "Scrub Day" which I find to be terrifying and cruel. If you don't know what it is, I'll leave it up to your imagination. Hint: It has absolutely nothing to do with wearing scrubs or cleaning). Since there's not much to say about that, I thought I would talk about confidence and how it has impacted me.

Over the summer I volunteered at a nearby pediatric hospital. While I had done it the summer before, this year they placed me at the front desk as opposed to being in the back filing papers. I was really excited about this, as it's obviously more a lot more interesting to get some interaction with patients and parents. I was in charge of giving directions and walking people to their destinations in the hard-to-navigate hospital. I certainly feel like it taught me quite a bit about speaking up for myself, as you can't exactly bluff when you mishear the location you're supposed to be bringing someone! As time went on, I also built up the confidence to go up and ask people who seemed to be wandering and lost if they needed help. People view you completely differently when you act like you know what you're talking about.

This brings me to the school year. The (semi-)confidence to talk to complete strangers has proved essential for yearbook, since we have to ask people permission before taking their pictures. This also means getting shot down over and over (and over!) again, but I guess that's just another life lesson! It has also transferred over to my other classes, such as when I asked my teacher to change my seat since I was facing the wall instead of the front of the room. She was more than happy to move me, but I don't think the girl I traded with was too crazy about having to strain her neck for 50 minutes every day. Not sure why they position the desks like that anyway...

I also built up the confidence to run for an officer position of my school's French Honor Society. To back up a bit, I had never been in the officer position of a club before until I decided to run for my school's Red Cross Club. My friends and I were pretty much the only freshmen in it last year, so this year all 5 of us are officers since there wasn't really anyone to run against. We're hoping to get more students involved! Anyway, running for FHS officer was the first thing where I'd actually have to compete against other people for the position. Luckily for me, the winner is chosen by having an interview with my French teacher instead of having to give a speech and have members vote (baby steps!) To be completely honest, I wavered back and forth about whether I wanted to interview, and wasn't going to do it until the tutorial session I was going to attend before school was canceled, and I was already at the school so I had nothing better to do but to go and interview for the position. I hadn't prepared at all, but I managed to win the position I wanted, so that was pretty exciting!

Sophomore Year- Week 1

2010-08-29T23:22:00.000-05:00

So far, everything has been pretty good and my teachers have been wonderful (knock on wood). We've watched a few movies, and every time they have either been captioned (knock on wood), or the teacher has told me in advance and worked out how I will get the information. My hearing has been great (knock on wood) and I actually went for a mapping before school started, but chose to stay on my old program. That's the first time I felt like I was hearing well enough that I didn't want to change to something new. The FM has also worked pretty well (knock on wood) and the teachers have been great about passing it around.

The workload hasn't been terrible (I'd say knock on wood, but your hand is probably getting tired), and I am so glad I chose the electives I did. While my friends are spending their time reading studying and reading for quiz after quiz for their AP elective class, I get to go around taking pictures for the yearbook! Obviously, once we have more pictures there will be more work in designing the pages, staying after school, going to outside events, etc. but I would much rather be doing this. I can't remember if I said this before (I probably did) but I am also taking a medical science class, which will hopefully lead to me securing a spot in a program next year where students get to observe doctors of all kinds as well as surgeries. We haven't started doing any in-depth learning yet, but I can tell it will be something that I will enjoy. We're also going to be learning how to use stethoscopes properly in the coming weeks, so if anyone has experience/ advice on using a specific brand stethoscope with a cochlear implant, please share! There is another person taking the class with CIs, so the school is looking into purchasing one. We'll see where that goes!

I turn 16 on Labor Day and will hopefully be getting my license soon after, as I have to take yet another test due to the crazy laws that Texas passed and put in effect starting with the teens getting their licenses literally a week before me. I would be grumbling about having such a borderline birthday, but if I had born a week earlier I would be a Junior, so I guess I can't complain! Here's to another good week!

Guest Post by Joey of BTaC

2010-08-25T23:11:00.002-05:00

The following is a guest post by Joey from BigTeethAndClouds.com. If you would like to write a guest post, please contact me with your idea. At this time, I am not interested in guest posts for advertising or those that are specifically about a technology that I do not/have not used. Thank you!

Our house has a nifty feature that wasn’t advertised by any real estate listing. Twice a summer, there are fireworks we can see from the street right outside our house. In July, we made our 5-year-old daughter, Julia, take a nap so she could stay up to watch the display.

The neighborhood kids are a nice bunch. There are four other little girls under age 12 that play with my girl regularly. They understand about her hearing aids and though they’re not perfect at compensating for her communication needs, they get along really well. There is one boy, age 6, in the neighborhood.

This boy never comes out to play. He doesn’t care for the girl dominated street or whatever. He made a rare appearance on this evening of the fireworks.

He wasn’t really paying attention to the show, so someone drew his attention to the fact that there was music being played. It was far distant music that I could hardly hear myself.

This boy walks up to my daughter, my sweet angel with her hot pink, purple, and white ear molds. He gets right up to her and asks, “can you HEAR that music? Can you? Can you hear it? It’s like doo, doo do do.”

The whole interaction took just a couple of seconds. Julia said that she could hear it, which may well have been a lie. The boy lost interest and went away from her.

I was left with tightness in my chest for the rest of the evening. I had a whole fantasy sequence where I held that little boy by the shirt and told him that he will never be permitted to speak to my child again. My palms felt sweaty and my heart was beating too fast. Where did he get off talking to her like that?

When we were inside and Julia was in bed for the night, my husband and I talked about the incident. We agreed that he was not being a nice kid. He probably isn’t a nice boy.

There are a lot of boys and girls in the world that aren’t nice. Julia will be meeting all sorts of kids this year in kindergarten. I will be not be there to assess their intentions. She will be alone.

Though I’m frightened for her, I’m glad too. I can’t take it. Julia clearly can. And really, it’s hers to handle. So until she comes to me with one of these stories, I really should stop worrying.

If only that were my nature.

A long way to go

2010-08-20T23:08:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, I was at a good friend's house with a group of girls. I'm close with some of them, but there were a couple who I was friends with when I was younger but haven't talked to very much in recent years. I was discussing how I was taking my driver's test the following day (which I passed, by the way! Yeah!) and how my parents were being even more paranoid than normal, since my sister had been hit by a car the week prior. I was describing how the girl driving hit her, and the mom came out and said it was their fault, but they did not get police involved since it was a minor accident in the parking lot. I mentioned how my sister decided not to ask for money for her car damage, since she didn't feel the scratch was very noticeable, and the girl driving the car also had special needs. A few days later, the mother called saying it was my sister's fault and asked for a very large sum of money for their car repairs. As I was relaying this story,
friend-who's-grown-apart (FWGA) chimed in:

FWGA: She had "special needs"? I didn't know 'they' could drive.
Close friend: I'm pretty sure that's discrimination if you say someone can't drive because of that.
FWGA: No! Because blind people aren't allowed to drive. Neither can deaf people...so I'm pretty sure they don't let 'them' drive.

Oy...While we've come a long way, we still have a long way to go! (And yes, I set her straight! It's just concerning that this conversation occurred right after I said I was taking my driving test.)

Alarming rate of teen hearing loss

2010-08-19T00:22:00.001-05:00

I figure most of you have heard this by now, but being a teen I think it alarms me that much more to consider the number of friends that I have who will likely require hearing assistance when they are older. So, I'm posting this for those who already haven't already heard...

1 in 5 teens in the US has a slight hearing loss.*

1 in 20 US teens have mild or worsening hearing loss.

This is a 30% increase since the mid '90s.

Links:
Yahoo! Associated Press Article
USA Today Article

I think the problem is both a lack of education about noise exposure, as well as the all-too-common idea "it won't happen to me." The other day I got into my seventeen year old (hearing) sister's car, and as soon as she turned it on the car was shaking with the radio blasting at full volume. I could feel the beat in my chest, and could hear the low frequency sounds pumping without my implants (I can tell when I'm able to hear something with my residual hearing alone. It "comes through" differently.) I glared at my sister, and she turned off the radio. Lately she's been complaining about hearing a buzzing or ringing in her ear. I went on to tell her that this could damage her hearing, and that this tinnitus could actually be a sign of hair cells in her cochlea being killed off. She was actually surprised, and went on to ask me why *I* get to turn my iPod speakers up so loud. "Well, sis. I don't know if you've noticed yet...but I'm already deaf! I've got nothing left to lose!" (I suppose she doesn't think it's fair). I'm pretty sure as soon as I got out of the car she turned the radio right back on, but who knows. I'm sending her this article.

*"Slight" hearing loss in teens is consider to be a loss of 16-24 dB, and most of these are in only one ear. It is important to realize that many hearing aids (and even cochlear implants) don't always amplify/provide sound down to this level, it is very quiet. With my cochlear implants, the softest sounds I can hear range from 5-20 dB. With my hearing aids, it ranged from 40-80dB hearing loss (or so, this is based off of my memory). However, as these teens with hearing loss grow up and lose hearing from age-based hearing loss, they will need stronger hearing aids earlier, such as in their 40's rather than 50's, 60's, or 70's.

A little bit of everything

2010-08-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

Full disclosure: For the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling burnt out and tired of the hearing loss "world", and felt like I had nothing left to give or receive. I was all but ready to take a break, but just today had some exciting hearing related things occur that I will share once everything is final. It gave me another "kick" and a renewed fire for writing about hearing loss issues. Can't say how long it will last (you can partly blame the great hearing my CIs have been giving me-less substance to write about!), but I have no doubt I'll have plenty of material once school starts next week. Hopefully not as much as last year, but we'll see!

Today I went to the orthodontist for follow-up x-rays and pictures so they could have "before" and "after" images from my having braces. It was with a different lady than the couple of different assistants I typically dealt with, so she wasn't quite as aware about knocking off my processors (which seems to happen every couple of minutes, regardless). We started off by taking head x-rays, so I told her I was going to take off my "hearing aids", trying to imply I wouldn't hear. So much for that. She was talking the entire time instructing me, and half the time she would turn the other direction and I could only see her lips moving from the side. She seemed frustrated that I wasn't following her directions, and I probably should have just said something along the lines of "I can't hear you...at all." but didn't feel like it. Instead, she kept pointing to her lips and talk while gesturing. I'd nod- she wanted me to put my lips together, I got it! After about 5 X-ray attempts I discovered she was telling me *not* to put them together. Oops. She probably thought I was pretty stupid.

After this, they needed to do a series of molds of my mouth, which consisted of me biting on various colored pieces of wax. It was easy enough, until she stuck a piece of wax on this hard contraption, had me bite on it, used a screwdriver to screw some sort of pole into it, which connected to some sci-fi halo looking thing that went around my head. She then instructed me to put some pieces in my ear, and I was secretly grateful that I no longer wore hearing aids. Of course, I somehow managed to push off my processors. I still fail to see why this entire contraption was necessary just for me to bite on a little piece of wax, but what do I know?

A month or so ago, I got a car :D I must thank my wonderful parents, and I have been practicing in it with my parents to prepare for the big test, which is coming up very soon! Anyway, my mom was out of town for a few days this weekend so my dad let me park my car behind her garage spot. Before she came back this evening, I had to move my car and parallel park it back in front of my sister's car in front of our house. I can parallel park somewhat behind cars, but have never done it in front of them. My dad asked me to do it myself "because I fully trust you", he said. (Translation: my leg hurts, and I don't feel like walking outside to sit in your burning hot car). And no, he wouldn't dare look out the window to watch me either. So I spent some 10 minutes hopelessly moving the car forwards and backwards, until my dad wondered what was taking me so darn long and wandered outside. He laughed, and then attempted to instruct me on how to park my car. For the record, he wasn't good at it either- I basically went forwards and backward a million times, turning the wheel the way my dad said only for him to shout "oh, never mind! other way!" About 5 minutes into this ordeal, I saw my ENT (who also happens to be our neighbor) walking his dog across the street. I watched him as he squinted and stared for another 5 minutes, as we probably looked like crazed idiots as I attempted to do this parking thing. After a total of 20 minutes, the mission was accomplished: slightly crooked, and a little too close to the curb, but it was done!

Input please!

2010-08-10T23:59:00.000-05:00

Hello my dear readers,
Privacy has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm trying to decide of I should make this blog only accessible to people who have permission. This would mean that in order for you to read this blog, you would have to come out of your lurking shadows and give me your email, which you would have to type in when you want to read my blog. It would also essentially mean that no new readers could read my blog, unless they found out about it through some other way. Obviously, it would also mean more privacy for me and eliminate the worry of who is reading. As you may have noticed, I just posted a new poll on the topic. Please give me your input, and leave me a comment if you would like to elaborate or argue your points. Don't be shy :)

-LAM

The Remote

2010-08-07T23:49:00.000-05:00

The Nucleus 5 CP810 processor comes with a remote. It certainly seems to be one of those love it or hate it sort of things. I don't think it should be a deciding factor in choosing an implant/processor, but I can't say how many times I've heard "You should get brand X because you don't have to fool around with the settings or have to deal with a remote." Or, conversely "I chose the Nucleus 5 because I loved the idea of having a remote!"

FYI, I rarely fool around with the settings on my processor, and I use the remote even less. I have an everyday setting which I am on at least 90% of the time. If I am listening to music alone in a quiet place or at an orchestra concert, I'll put it on the music setting, but I can still appreciate music very well on the everyday setting. Or, if I'm in a noisy restaurant, I'll put it on the Zoom setting, which I finds gets rid of most of the background noise without dampening voices. Cochlear has a few different settings for noisy situations, and each one is a bit different. Noise, Focus, and Zoom are all available, but it really depends on personal preference which one you use. The Noise and Focus options are both separate programs. This means that on the home screen of the remote (or on the buttons of my processor) that I just press which one I want to change it to. It's really easy, and I can easily see which program I'm on.

Here is the summary of Zoom from Cochlear's website:
"Nucleus 5 is designed to enhance hearing performance in noisy environments. A new signal processing path with dual omni microphones has created a new platform designed for better hearing performance. Dual microphone technology has been shown to improve speech performance in noise. Recent research also shows that the Nucleus 5 Sound Processor Zoom™ Power Option may result in even better performance in noise"

Notice this is sentences *in noise*.

Getting to the Zoom setting is a bit different than getting to Noise or Focus, since you can add it on to any of the programs (Everyday, Noise, Music, or Focus) that you're already on. I typically add it to the Everyday program, but you have to get to the processor settings menu to enable it, and back to the processor settings menu to disable it. On the home screen, there is no notification of whether it is turned on or off.

Why is this relevant?

Well, for the past week I've noticed I've been struggling quite a bit to hear, even in one-on-one, quiet situations. I figured I just needed (another) mapping, and shrugged it off. I hadn't bothered with the remote in a while, so as I was shutting it off to put it in my purse, I decided to do a quick check through all of the settings. The volume and sensitivity looked okay. I was just about to put it away, when it hit me...

I'd gone out to a noisy steakhouse a week ago. I set it on the Zoom function, then put the Remote away. Had I ever turned it off?

I quickly went to the "Zoom" setting to see the option to disable it, mean it was still turned on. I felt stupid, yet relieved.

My hearing has since seemed much better. *Whew* I think when Cochlear has a software upgrade for the remote, they should have a "dashboard" setting where you can see everything that you've changed from the default settings. I can't be the only one who's made this mistake! Sad thing is, it's not the first time. Usually I figure it out within a day or two, though.

Lipreading Fail: A Frightening "deaf moment"

2010-08-02T11:35:00.000-05:00

After a long day of SAT classes and a night of getting engrossed in the latest novel I was reading, I finally fell into a deep sleep late that night. I slept soundly, dreaming of puppies and butterflies..

*shake, shake* I rubbed my eyes. Why was someone awaking my slumber at this unearthly hour of *glances at clock* 9 AM?! I rolled over and shut my eyes, only for me to see my mom pounding on my bed again, and then walking out. That was...odd. Besides the fact that this was my one day to sleep in (and for a teenager approaching the end of summer, 9 in the morning is not sleeping in), I usually get a friendlier wake-up call than that. I mean, my sister was set to have her wisdom teeth out this morning, it's not like we were planning to go out and party. I dragged myself out of bed and into the hallway, only to see my mom standing there talking on the phone.

"What was that about?!" I asked in my whining sleepy voice.

My mom began gesturing wildly, a frantic look in her eyes, all the while staying on the phone. She tried talking to me, but my lipreading skills are declining by the day, and I still wasn't fully awake. I stared at her and threw my arms up, trying to signal the fact that I was confused and had no idea watch she was trying to say. I paced back and forth as my mom stood in the doorway of my sister's room, still on the phone.

She signaled for me to put on my processors. I shook my head, unable to recall exactly where I put them as I dozed off the night before. Besides, it was too early! I was ready to jump back in the bed!

"What do you want?!" I asked, starting to get annoyed.

I was finally able to understand. Downstairs..door...me...Ah, I got it! I have to answer the door!" "Who's at the door?" I asked.

My mom slowly enunciated what I thought looked a lot like "Rebecca is coming."
"Hmm, that's weird." I thought to myself. Rebecca was my sister's friend. But, as far as I knew, my sister was still sound asleep from the surgery less than a couple of hours earlier. I shrugged, and went downstairs to open the door for Rebecca.

I stood at the door, looking out the window for Rebecca. As I waited impatiently, I saw an ambulance, flashing lights and all, pull up in front of our house. "Huh..I wonder what happened?" I thought to myself. They stopped at the stop sign in front of our house. I kept watching to see if they were going in the direction of any of my friends' houses. Instead, 4 paramedics came running out, up to our front door. That's when it hit me that maybe my mom hadn't said anything about Rebecca after all. I opened the door and pointed upstairs, to where my sister and mom were. The first man nodded and ran up, the others followed. Then another 2 paramedics came up, holding a stretcher.

I watched from downstairs as my sister's room quickly filled up. I tried my best to see what was going on. Most of them looked like they were just standing around. "That's good, right? I mean, when they have to do CPR there's normally people running around and screaming." I thought, trying to reassure myself. I sent my dad a text message, hoping he would pause his work to let me know if he knew what was going on. I sat on the couch. Not too long after, the paramedics casually walked downstairs and left, my mom and sister still up in the room.

I soon found out that my sister, with a completely numb mouth, tongue, and throat, had managed to get the gauze stuck in the back of her throat and began to panic. My mom panicked too, since it could block her airway, and called 911. By the time the paramedics got here, my sister apparently had managed to swallow the gauze, so all was well.

That night, I went to check on her. She called out my name. "Yes?" I asked.

"You know, those paramedics were pretty hot." she said with a smile.

Yes they were, sister. Yes they were.

Comfortable Kinds of Hearing Aids

2010-07-30T17:10:00.003-05:00

The following is a guest post from a hearing aid center employee. If you would like to write a guest post, write a comment or send an email to pinklam94 'at' yahoo 'dot'com (replacing at and dot with the respective symbols). I will be back to writing some posts of my own very soon, don't think I've given up on writing!- LAM

Many people will tell you that hearing aids are bulky and uncomfortable. But those people probably have an older model hearing aid or have never worn one.

The stigma of hearing aids no longer exists and there are so many styles of hearing aids today that suit different wearers’ hearing loss needs and cosmetic preferences. Here are some facts about a few hearing aid fit styles to help you determine which one you think is right for you:

Open Fit Behind the Ear – This kind features a receiver that fits into your ear canal with thin tubing that securely connects to a speaker behind your ear. Speakers are lightweight and difficult to see behind the ear, and tubing blends in with your skin tone. Models like these often have the best sound quality and some are even compatible with Bluetooth technology.

Behind the Ear – Cleaning is easy with this model, which has a curved shape that mimics the shape of your ear. It feels as discreet as it looks because it fits so closely behind the ear. But there’s no need to worry over using extra care with this kind of hearing aid because its solid structure makes it especially durable.

Comfort Styles – Function meets fashion with these models that discreetly fit partially into the ear canal without sacrificing high performance. Most are custom so that the in-the-canal part will fit as comfortably as possible.

Cosmetic Styles – These are the smallest and most difficult-to-see hearing aid options out there. They’re best for someone with an active lifestyle that can’t be bothered with a hearing aid that whistles or needs adjustment. Most are custom molded and fit completely in the ear canal, which means that others near you won’t be able to tell that you’re wearing a hearing device.

Visit a hearing aid center if you think you may be experiencing hearing loss and take advantage of a free hearing test to help determine what kind of hearing aid will best suit your needs.

The GED of IEP's- A Guest Post

2010-07-21T18:20:00.001-05:00

The following is a guest blog post, as written by "Moxy", a fellow teenage girl with hearing loss. I'm sure she would greatly appreciate any comments! Are you interested in writing a guest blog post? Post a comment or email me with the topic you would like to write about, and I will get back to you.

So, you've accepted that your child has a hearing loss. Your kid is enrolled in school, and there's talk of an IEP. What can I tell you about your IEP? Not a lot that your audiologist, teacher, or teacher of the deaf can't tell you. I'm not an expert on IEPs. I've sat in on my own IEP meeting once, which, in my opinion, was horrible. It was the first one that I was asked to attend, and I basically sat there, missing class, while teachers, my mother, a school psychologist I had never met, a hearing teacher/psychologist I had met once before, informally, sat and spoke about me as if I wasn't there. I, if you can't tell, am not a fan of IEP's.

A quick background, however, so you know where I'm coming from. I'm a hard of hearing high school student. I wear hearing aids and use an FM system in class (for those uninitiated, the FM is a wireless microphone my teacher wears like a lanyard. There are small "boots" on my hearing aids that pick up the signal. This is supposed to give me the effect of the teacher speaking directly next to me), and I enjoy long walks on the beach (Not really, the sand/ocean "white noise"/ocean spray isn't great for hearing equipment).

The IEP is what, essentially, requires that my teachers wear my FM. It also explains where I should sit in the room, what conditions might be adverse to my learning [Read: bad lighting, uncarpeted rooms, large classes, heavy facial hair/accents], and what (if anything) additional I may require [FM use, captioned media, extra time on testing (I don't get that one either)]. "BUT!" I can *almost* hear you saying, "Isn't your IEP a lifesaver? Doesn't it mean you can relax, knowing you'll have unrestricted access to communication and information, just like everything else?! What a breakthrough!?" But the IEP is not this. Often, unless a teacher knows they will be meeting with my Teacher of the Deaf, they don't read my IEP. On the first day of school this year, I had one teacher ask if "the hearing aids are all, or do you have anything else going on?" What?! My TotD-provided printout, carefully hi-lited with the needs specific to each class, determined by a conversation about this very act of explanation... didn't cover this.

However, being a fairly confident teenager in my own right, I laugh it off, say no, briefly explain my FM (I'll already turn it on when I give it to you, if you need to, you can turn it off, here's how, I can also turn it off from my hearing aids, so if you forget it's fine. Just remember to turn it back on, or, if you for some reason take it off, to put it back on, so I don't have to awkwardly/embarrassingly interrupt the class, telling you I've been lost for the last 5 minutes because you forgot), and take a seat. You seem content. You reply, after a minute, to let me know if you can do anything, whatever. It's all good.

Which is why, a week later, when I walk into the class to see the paused opening credits of a movie, I sit down and relax. In my world, everything is captioned. The TV I watch at home has those friendly black lines scrolling at the bottom of the screen. I'm still on auto-pilot, eyes flickering to the bottom of the screen. The film begins rolling, and I hear garbled noises as a heavily accented actor delivers his lines. I look to you, wondering if you've simply forgotten. You see me trying to grab your attention, and apologize, saying there aren't any captions. I nod my head, but inwardly, I'm screaming. "WHAT about the IEP?! What about the Internet, all of those script sites? What about the e-mail address for my Teacher of the Deaf (TotD) I gave you, on the IEP recommendations sheet, who you're supposed to e-mail if the movie isn't captioned?! Was I speaking English!?" I sit, fuming for a while, trying to pick up random pieces of info. At the end of class, you assign an essay on the movie, due the next day. Ha! I think to myself.

Which is why you're surprised, the next day, when I hand nothing in. At the end of the class I approach you, reiterating everything about necessary captioning. You nod, agree, whatever.

The cycle begins.

Keeping in mind how often movies are watched at my school, this might happen twice a month. When the TotD approaches you, everything's good, I'm a good student, no, my hearing loss doesn't seem to be effecting me at all.

My parents, friends, and TotD know this to be untrue, however. You're simply resistant to my attempts to advocate, so I silently fume in your class during the rest of the semester.

Don't get me wrong, the IEP isn't evil. It can be downright helpful, but not in the ways I think it's meant to be. Something, for example, that isn't on my IEP, is group projects. I hate them. I hate them because I can be control freak-ish (that's me, overcompensating for my hearing loss. If I control the group direction, then I'll know what's going on), which leads to me doing a LOT of work. Which is OK, I will do my best for a good grade. But the IEP seems to signal to you that I'm hard of hearing. So, when I approach you, quietly, during class, and ask that our group be able to work in the hallway because with all the other groups talking, I can't hear the person sitting next to me, you allow us. We'll sit in the hallway and get stuff done. Hey! I can hear! But that IEP, yellow flag that it is, let's me ask this of you. It helps.

I had to ask myself why I wanted to write this a few times, during the process. I don't discourage anyone from getting an IEP, if it is appropriate for them. I just advise you that an IEP isn't a magical band-aid. It doesn't make hearing loss (in this situation) go away. It doesn't take it out of the equation at all. Advocacy is still very important, and if you're a teenager reading this, don't be afraid to shoot off an e-mail to your teacher, saying "Dear Mr. Teachy-mc-teacher, I can't deal when you don't do this and that. If you could do this-and-that, or perhaps hook me up with alternate whatever, I can deal. If you've got questions, feel free to hit me or my TotD up. TTYL, frustrated hoh/d student". If you're a parent of a hoh/d kid, don't be afraid to contact the teacher, and/or the totd. Trust me, your kid will thank you for it later, no matter how embarrassing it is at the time. The embarrassment might also teach some self-advocacy. And finally, if you're a teacher? Listen. It's not all your fault. Being hard of hearing/deaf (hoh/d) student is just half of the game. We need to be able to have open communication to make things work.

Quick MAJOR thank you to your fav blogger PinkLam (or MissPink, as I've seen it ;P) for letting me temporarily hijack her blog for a moment. Note that this post is not a reflection of her, or her opinions. She was kind enough to let me stick my nose in this whole hoh/d blogging :D Keep reading; I will.

Comedy, Deafness, and Political Correctness

2010-07-16T21:42:00.000-05:00

One thing that I've increasingly noticed on the internet is the argument of political correctness. Not only in terms of names used to describe people (hearing-impaired vs. deaf vs. hard-of-hearing), but also in terms of joking- what's okay, what isn't. I do think part of it is due to the fact that over the internet it's very hard to interpret tone of voice for tongue-in-cheek or sarcastic comments.

What really struck me is how widely opinions vary. Is it ever okay to make fun of a disability? Does having the disability give you the excuse to joke about it? Are these jokes ever even funny? A month or so back I was reading about Joan Rivers's new documentary, "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work", and it briefly touched the subject. At one of her shows, Rivers made a Helen Keller joke (which, my deafness aside, I never really found them to be particularly funny. Can't say that I'm offended by them either), and a man in the audience was outraged, yelling at her that he has a deaf child and was offended by such a joke. "The comedian tears into him, informing him her mother was deaf and howling, 'Let me tell you what comedy is about — comedy is to make everybody laugh at everything and deal with it!’" - as quoted from this site.

Most of the time, I try to not take a defensive, sensitive standpoint. More often than not, people will say things that offend people out of pure lack off knowledge, not necessarily ignorance or out of intent to harm.I am not a big fan of stand up comedians. I do believe that it can be okay to laugh at our struggles, since they certainly aren't going to go away. Here is one joke I've heard a few times regarding hearing loss, and I do think it's funny in a cheesy humor sort of way.

A concerned husband went to the doctor to talk about his wife. He said to the doctor, “I think my wife is deaf because she never hears me the first time and always asks me to repeat things.”
“Well,” the doctor replied, “go home tonight, stand about 15 feet from her, and say something. If she doesn’t reply, move 5 feet closer and say it again. Keep doing this until we get an idea about the severity of her deafness.” The husband went home and did exactly as the doctor had instructed. He started off 15 feet from his wife in the kitchen as she was chopping some vegetables.
He said, “Honey, what’s for dinner?” He heard no response. He moved 5 feet closer and asked again. No reply. He moved 5 feet closer. Still no reply. He finally got fed up and moved right behind her, about an inch away, and asked again, “Honey, what’s for dinner?”
She replied, “For the fourth time, vegetable stew!” -Taken from Only Funny Jokes

As I've mentioned before, I'm Jewish. Living in Texas, people from time-to-time are shocked and as pretty strange questions. Sometimes people crack a little innocent joke, and I do sometimes find them funny. I think the key is knowing where the line between offensive and hilarious lies, and not overstepping it. (For those wondering, here is a little key of the difference between amusing and stupid. Jewish guilty mother jokes=funny. Big nose jokes= can go either way. Holocaust jokes= waaay overstepping the boundary.) When it comes to serious disabilities that I am not personally affected by, I would never dare make a joke about it. I don't think it's fair to joke when I haven't lived through the day-to-day struggles of a particular disease or disability.

I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks. Is there a time and place for these jokes? Do you think people can be too sensitive, or are others just being too ignorant?

AG Bell (2)- Friday Afternoon and Evening

2010-07-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

On Friday afternoon, we were given the options to listen to listen to some of the speakers. They gave us a list of sessions that they though might be interesting to teens, and we signed up for the ones we wanted to go to. I went to three and they were all very good. Here is a brief summary of them:

Teen Tales of Hearing Loss
Presenters: Melanie Paticoff, James Barden, and Patrick deHahn
I have blogged about Mel Paticoff before, and was interested in hearing the session that she was leading. It was basically a panel led in a question and answer format, which were both pre-written questions and questions the audience came up with. It was nice to hear other teens perspectives, although I suspect this was more interesting and helpful to the parents of tweens and younger kids who were wanting to know what their children would be going through in the future. They touched on a variety of topics from school (both guys had attended an oral deaf school when they were younger, then transferred to a mainstream school); the decision to get cochlear implant(s) (One had been implanted when he was 5 or so, the other when he was 11/12. The former chose to go bilateral when he was a teenager, but the latter doesn't want to go through surgery again); and explaining hearing loss/devices to your peers. It was all very well done and planned, and I do think everyone got a lot out of it. One person mentioned it would have been nice to get the perspective of a girl teen with hearing loss, and I think that is a good point. From the looks of the program, it sounds like they had planned for another person to be on the panel who was a girl, I assume a conflict came up.

College Life 101
Presenters: Mark Leekoff, Ari Sagiv, Dorie Shapiro, Lindsey Rentmeester
This was another panel, and since I attended the same session at the last convention, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect (although it was all different people). It's fascinating how one person's experience can be vastly different from that of another. Most of the panel from the 2008 convention, if I recall correctly, said that while they didn't outright state their hearing loss when applying for college, they mentioned it in their application essays. One person on the 2010 panel said that they did not want to disclose their hearing loss, a couple of people said they did, and one even went as far as saying that it would be dishonest not to disclose it. I do think he had a point there, and he went on to say that if a college doesn't want you with your hearing loss, you really can't expect them want to give you accommodations. That being said, the panelists still had issues with accommodations even if they did disclose their hearing loss. One girl remarked on the irony of being in an Audiology program, and having the school come to her and question her need for CART and other assistive services for her hearing. I don't think she said the name of the Grad school, but she ultimately made the decision to leave for another school that she felt was a better fit. It also came to light that even with the ADA in place, people won't necessarily follow it. One guy was saying that in an interview (for medical school, I believe) the interviewer actually asked him "I know that many people with hearing loss have multiple other health problems. Do you have any other health issues I should know about?" This, I came to find out, is illegal and a huge red flag. The only thing that you are allowed to be asked in an interview regarding hearing loss or any other disabilities is "Do you have any disability that would interfere with your ability to do this job?" The interviewee does have the option of bringing up and talking about his/her hearing loss as much as desired, but it is not required. I learned a lot from these speakers.

Health Care Professionals: Learn from our Experiences
Presenters: Stacey Carroll, Ph.D., ANP-BC; Christopher Lehfeldt, DDS; and Lindsey Rentmeester, Au.D.;
I was really looking forward to this session, since I had not ever met someone with hearing loss in the medical field. The panel featured a deaf dentist, nurse, occupational therapist, and audiologist. They also planned on having a deaf physician there, but he ended up having a family emergency and was not able to make it. There was a wide age range, from (these are my estimates) mid 20's to 40's. They all had great stories to tell, and the vast majority of the people that spoke had experienced an overwhelming amount of adversity and doubt when going into the medical field by teachers, bosses, and employees, but were greeted with open arms by patients. I found this to be very interesting, as I would have thought gaining a patient's trust would be the biggest problem.

The occupational therapist told about her first rotation as a student, in which she was placed with a teacher/boss who pretty much from the first day told her he was going to fail her because of her hearing loss. She described her frustration with working with someone determined to fail you, and how discouraged she became, even taking some time off after to decide if it was still something she wanted to do. She ultimately persevered, but this really demonstrated to me how much harder we (people with hearing loss) have to work to prove ourselves.

The nurse spoke about only the students with the 30 best GPA's getting into nursing school. She had an extremely good GPA, and recalled her professor calling her into his office to tell her she wasn't going to go on to nursing school. She was a little bit confused, and asked if she had not been in the top 30. "No, that's not it." the professor had said, "It's just that you're... 'unique.'" She went to the dean of the school (who, by some stroke of luck, happened to have a deaf son) who assured her that he would handle it, and she obviously ended up getting in!

One thing I found really exciting is that they have developed transparent surgical masks (patent pending), and are just waiting on a manufacturer. This is great news, not just for health care professionals with hearing loss, but also for patients with hearing loss. I cannot tell you how many times I've had to remind my dentist or orthodontist to "take off the mask, please" when they are talking to me (this is typically when one or both of my CI's have been knocked off in the chair!) They passed around the mask, now I'm wishing I had taken a picture. The part that goes around the face/lip area is transparent, but the part that goes under the chin is made of the same material as typical surgical masks, as is the part that hooks around your ears. I really hope they are mass manufactured soon, as there is a huge need and consumer audience.

After a long day of speakers, one of my friends from the past convention, her mom, my mom, and myself rushed to catch the shuttle to go to Downtown Disney. It was really cool, with a bunch of shops and restaurants lining the path. There had been some confusion as to what time the Opening General Session started that evening, and we ended up missing it, so I can't comment on that. We got there right in time for the Exhibition Hall grand opening/reception. This year, they were clever and gave out "game cards" with 9 of the exhibitors names' on them. Each card was different, and the idea was to get stamps from all 9 of the exhibitors on your game card. You then placed the card in a drawing, and were entered to win one of many great prizes (an iPod; all expenses paid for 2 people for the next convention in Scottsdale, AZ; a ton of books from the AG Bell bookstore worth hundreds of dollars, and more). Of course, in the process, the exhibitors would try to get you interested in their products. We didn't win, but I still loved the idea.

I explored the exhibit hall with a couple of my friends from the teen program, and they really did have a lot of things in it. There was a lot of free stuff! As always, the 3 CI companies had gigantic areas as opposed to a tiny booth that most other companies had. We received a lot of goodies from Cochlear- from cookies to beach balls to tote bags. We also got our picture taken with Kayci the Cochlear Koala, but we had to leave before it was printed. (if any Cochlear employee still has the pictures and wants to email it to me, please do!)

Orlando/AG Bell (1)- Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

2010-07-02T23:26:00.000-05:00

I'm baaack! I thought you guys would like a short summary of each things we did, from a teen attendee perspective.

The convention didn't officially start until Friday, so we spent the first two days there exploring Disney. On Wednesday evening, we went to Magic Kingdom. I'm not a huge fan of rides, so we mostly marveled at the things there were to see. They also had a parade, which was pretty cool. (I would put some pictures up, but Blogger is frustrating me and not allowing me to do so...)

On Thursday morning we went to EPCOT, which was pretty neat. I went on a couple of rides, but mostly explored the slow-moving futuristic sorts of things. We briefly went to the side with all of the different countries and cultures, but wanted to get back to the hotel soon after. The hotel provides a free shuttle that only came every hour, and we literally ran around the entire park so as not to miss it. We were sticky and sweaty and gross, but we made it! That evening I met up with my four close friends that I made from the last convention (2008, in Milwaukee). It was amazing to be able to see them again, and we talked for hours and hours. We had planned on watching a movie together, but around 11 we decided that we probably wouldn't have time!

On Friday the teen program began, and I was looking forward to it. At the last convention, I thought the teen program was great, and the people who ran it were really on top of things. I wish I could say the same for this year, but I was honestly a bit disappointed with how they ran everything. My friends and I decided to go to the teen program a little late, since it started early and there was nothing really planned for that day. When I arrived, I was surprised to find the entire room dead silent. There were about twenty teens there, but most of them didn't know each other and the "sitters" simply sat at a table in the corner and spoke to each other. This was a stark contrast to the teen program in Milwaukee, where the sitters did everything they could to get the teens to interact with each other, and we all became friends with each other. This time it took a little while for everyone to warm up to each other, but it happened within a few hours.

Next post- Friday afternoon sessions and activities

Brace Yourself

2010-06-22T16:41:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I leave for Orlando to go to AG Bell's biennial convention.I'm really looking forward to meeting up with old friends, as well as making some new ones. I haven't heard of many other bloggers/readers coming to the convention (sounds like everyone is still recuperating from the HLAA convention in Milwaukee!), but if you're going to be there then do stop and say hello! My email is on the sidebar if any of you would like to email me about meeting up. I'm going a few days early to explore some of the Disney parks and meet up with some of my friends from the last AGB convention. From the looks of weather.com, it doesn't sound like we'll be outside too much...

At least it's cooler than Texas?

On a completely unrelated note, I no longer wear braces! Getting 4 hours of sleep last night was definitely worth it ! :) Brace yourself.. (oh, I just love puns!)

The picture is small, but no braces whatsoever!

FDA Approves Rechargeable Batteries for the N5

2010-06-15T16:22:00.001-05:00

I just received an email from my audiologist that the FDA has approved the rechargeable batteries for the Nucleus 5 processor. Here are some of the details:

Cochlear will begin shipping rechargeable batteries starting this upcoming Monday to current Nucleus 5 recipients. People who already have the N5 will receive two standard rechargeable batteries in their primary processor color.
These shipments will take 8-12 weeks
All new Nucleus 5 system orders will begin shipping with a rechargeable battery kit effective June 21, 2010.
Starting July 1st, Cochlear will change it from two rechargeable batteries to three, adding a compact rechargeable to new patient kits. These will not be included in the rechargeable battery kit shipped to patients who received their Nucleus 5 prior to July 1st.
For those who would like to purchase the compact battery, Cochlear will be running a special promotion offer on the price of rechargeables, bringing it down to $99 from July 13th-September 30th
When using rechargeable batteries, the Nucleus 5 Sound Processor is the world’s ONLY submersible sound processor.

However, the newsletter recommends not using it in swimming that involves going underwater, under a high pressure nozzle, or when using soap or shampoo.

I know this is welcome news too many! I probably will not be using the rechargeable batteries too much, since I already have a pretty short battery life. I'd be interested to hear if current recipients will be paying the money to get the (amazingly tiny) compact batteries.

Hospital Volunteering Tip #1

2010-06-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

As I'm spending half of my summer volunteering at a pediatric hospital three times a week, I thought some of you would be interested in hearing some of the experiences I'm having there. Most of these do not relate to hearing loss in anyway, but are humorous, heartwarming, or even sad stories that I thought others would be interested in hearing.

"I'm not completely sure where it is...but I'm sure I can find it!"* is never the appropriate response from a volunteer to a mother frantically searching for the ER that her child is in. Especially when said nervous-looking volunteer has been given the responsibility of bringing the mother to the ER.

*I found it about 10 seconds later, after a slight panic. I now know exactly where it is located, thankyouverymuch

Defying Science

2010-06-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

So, there's a slight bit of controversy over the effects of having two cochlear implants versus just one plus a hearing aid. I personally believe that they both have their pros and cons, but my own experience has led me to believe that it's much easier conversing in background noise with two implants, and music only sounds better. With a hearing and a CI, it always felt like it was just amplifying the background noise- and that's coming from someone who had a lot of residual hearing. In addition to that, I've found it to be practical not having a "good" side, and I think it's given me confidence in social situations. However, I did find this article to be interesting. I am not sure how reliable the study was, and to be honest, I take it with a grain of salt. For those of you interested, the abstract concludes with

"Although the bimodal cochlear implant group performed better than the bilateral group on most parts of the four pitch-related tests, the differences were not statistically significant. Evaluation of the subject with normal hearing in the contralateral ear showed that the addition of low-frequency sound, even when unintelligible and limited to below 150 Hz, significantly improved cochlear implant speech recognition with a competing talker. Conclusion This research adds to the existing studies that show no significant difference between bimodal and bilateral cochlear implant users."

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of other bimodal but now bilateral users, as well as others. I certainly don't think I'm alone in my experiences!

a big mush of information

2010-05-29T23:06:00.000-05:00

Remember how I said that I'm occasionally indecisive?
Well, I wasn't lying! I still have an announcement, just not the original one that I had planned.

So, recently I had time to do some reflecting. And, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the right choice. I'm giving up orchestra.

Don't get me wrong- I've enjoyed it these past four years. I've learned so much about music, and I have no doubt that playing the violin has allowed me to have an even greater appreciation for music.

And yet..
It's been a bit of a love/hate relationship. While I enjoy playing it, I'm not particularly gifted at it. In addition to not feeling like I'm progressing, I also tried to think of the benefits of staying in orchestra. Last year, I had to write a plan of the classes I would take throughout my four years of high school, to see how I would get all of my credits in. I only had enough room to take orchestra the first two years of high school. That would mean, more than likely, that I'd be quitting after next year. The violin just isn't something I can see myself doing throughout my adulthood. It's more of a hobby than a passion. And, yes, it does look good to colleges if you stick with a musical instrument.

I recently did some reflecting on that too. When it came time to signing up for classes for next year, many of my friends decided to sign up for an AP elective class, almost exclusively for the GPA credit/points. I thought about it, and I figured a lower GPA is worth having a social life (and sleep, for that matter). I'm still taking plenty of challenging classes, just not bogging myself down with them. I decided to take a class (which is supposedly quite easy, but very interesting) about medical science, which is something I'm very interested in. I had no doubt about sticking with French, of course.

So that left me with one more elective class. At the time, I signed up for orchestra. I changed my mind a few weeks ago, and that was when I began the frantic search for another class to take in its place.

Well, I was going to tell you that I was taking sign language instead. That, make no mistake, it wasn't some symbolic gesture of me trading in music for ASL. I was going to say that I can't give my opinion about a language, a culture, that I've never truly experienced. An exciting adventure, to try something new.

And then..
I went to talk to my counselor. I explained everything, and told her that I felt ASL was pretty much the only other alternative class I could take. She asked me if there was anything else I was really interested in.

I told her how I love to write, and I really wanted to take yearbook. I was disappointed how I made my decision too late, seeing as the deadline to apply was nearly a month ago. Well some emails, a few rushed references, and an interview later...

I will be on my high school's 2010-2011 yearbook staff :)

And, for what it's worth, I just might consider taking violin lessons outside of school. It's still an option, and I've yet to completely decide. Also, this doesn't mean I won't ever take ASL...just not this year.

....I wonder if I should change the blog name?

Adorable

2010-05-29T17:12:00.000-05:00

*Note to viewers* Don't bother going on YouTube to read the comments unless you feel like reading a debate that is completely irrelevant to the cuteness of this video :)

Free Batteries, News

2010-05-17T23:08:00.000-05:00

A reader of this blog who I've become pretty good friends with shared some links with me about free hearing aid batteries. I thought I'd pass them along to anyone who may be interested.
*Disclaimer* I have never used, nor do I endorse any of the websites mentioned for free batteries. I advise anyone to take caution when giving out information to an unknown site. If anyone has experiences with these sites (good or bad), please let me know so that I can edit this post appropriately.

FreeHearingAidBatteries.net
Energizer

If you have other sites where you've gotten free battery samples, feel free to share!

Now there are only three long weeks left until summer! I could say "wow, this year has flown by!" or "I'm going to miss being in school everyday, and getting absolutely no sleep!" , but we all know that would be a lie!

I'm very much looking forward to this summer. I'm volunteering at a local pediatric hospital again, which should, at the very least, keep me busy. I had a bit of an eye opener while working there last year. I must say, I've come quite a long way in the past year, and am much less anxiety-ridden about using the phone. I'm also attending the AG Bell Convention in Orlando, and am very much looking forward to seeing all of my friends that I haven't seen in two years! I'm not sure what else I'm doing... We may go on a short vacation (but we're staying in the country this year!) I'm taking an online PE class- ha, talk about an oxymoron. Not exactly exciting, but it's one more credit I can get out of the way. I'll also be taking the majority of my driving lessons, so that I'm able to get my license on time, in less than four months! :D

I have a pretty big announcement coming up. It's neither good nor bad, just a change that I have no doubt will surprise quite a few of you. I am waiting to share until I am 100% sure I'm making the right choice, but I've thought long and hard about it, so I think I am. My teenage brain can occasionally be indecisive, so I'd rather wait until all is said and done. I'm hoping that when I choose to announce it that no one jumps to any irrational conclusions :) Hint: The announcement is not about me changing schools. I'm still staying where I currently attend. So, stay tuned!

Why yes, I am bragging

2010-05-01T00:04:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have those weeks where it seems like nothing is going your way? And you just want to go sit in a corner and cry?
Well that's how this past week was for me. And the week before that. I don't want to go into a long rant about it, but there were a lot of things that I had been hoping for..that just didn't happen. Then I got (and still have) bronchitis, and I kind of felt like locking myself in my room for a while. We've had a week of TAKS testing, but the freshmen only had one test (while the sophomores had 3). That meant half of my week was spent sitting in class doing nothing. Absolutely nothing, except watch movies that were rated G or reading. Which can really old after a while. And, to top it all of, my Friday evening was spent in the school cafeteria taking a practice AP exam.
So, to put it mildly, I wasn't exactly wild about going to my classes today (after 3 hours of sitting in silence, that is).
I walked into my French class and looked up at the board. "National French Exam- Top 10% scores", the board read. There were 5 names.
Mine was one of them.
It felt awesome.

" While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done" - Helen Keller

For those of you wondering, the National French Exam is about 50 % listening. The listening portion is typically played for all of the kids at the same time using a CD player. It's difficult for me to understand voices in English (let alone in French) through electronics so I got special permission for the script to be read to me by the teacher administering the test. I don't get any extra repeats, just a live voice that uses the FM, as well as that I can lipread if need be. That's also what I do for all of my French quizzes and tests, and I can assure you I wouldn't be doing nearly as well if I hadn't asked for this accommodation.

Announcement....and a contest?

2010-04-26T22:52:00.001-05:00

First and foremost...
DeafTeens.org is up and ready for viewing! Take a look around. I can assure you that many hours of planning and perfecting went into this website.

The other thing that I wanted to share with you all is that Phonak is having a contest for FM users under the age of 19. There aren't many rules or regulations, but there are plenty of prizes, which include camcorders and an iPhone. All you have to do is make a video about how your Phonak FM helps you, upload it to YouTube, and submit the video to MyPhonakFM@phonak.com. Interested? You can find more information at MyPhonakFMandMe.com. There aren't many videos up on YouTube yet, but you've got until August. The videos that are already are GREAT. I honestly don't know they're going to pick a winner, because I know I love all of them. They are so creative. Here they are, with captions..

This video doesn't (yet?) have captions, so there is a transcript underneath.

*Music*

This is Andrea reporting to you about my Phonak Inspiro FM system.

There are 4 things I like about my FM. I like to talk into the microphone. It helps me hear my voice. It makes my teacher’s voice sound clear. When it is loud the volume goes up and down. I can take it to different classrooms like speech, computer, and music, but not gym. It is easy to carry. I listen to the story without using the headphones. I can see how it attatches to my hearing aid, and I can do it myself. If I didn’t have my FM, I couldn’t hear better. I couldn’t hear my teachers. School would be hard. I think my Phonak Inspiro is—wait. My phonak and Me.

Question 1:

Well, I like to speak into my microphone.

Question 2:

Well, it helps my, um, teacher’s voice clearer.

Question 3:

School would be hard.

And then?

Not concentrate because it gets harder, and harder, and harder, and I don’t get it!

My Phonak Inspiro changed my life!

Never a Dull Moment

2010-04-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

This post was written about a week ago...

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've probably noticed that whenever I get myself in a sticky situation, my dog is there. I'm sure there are some people out there who, from reading these posts, think I spend too much time with him. Trust me, I have plenty of friends...but whenever something happens, they're not there, but Zach is :)

So last night around 8, I was getting restless from studying and thought I could use some fresh air. I grabbed Zach's leash and he raced towards the door for to go for a short walk up and down the block. It was getting dark outside, but everything was still visible. The street and sidewalks were empty.

Whenever we get to the end of a block, Zach likes to cross the street and walk back on the other side of the street. Problem is, he darts into the street at his own whim and without warning. So, when he did this, I noticed a car coming. It was a good distance away, so I just ran across the street with Zach before it got near.

I didn't think much of it...until the car stopped, directly across the street from me. I couldn't see the inside of the car, but the person just sat with his headlights on. I figured the person was waiting for a friend or something, even though the car looked unfamiliar. I kept walking, when suddenly the car honked loudly. I jumped, and walked faster, just in case. My dog started dragging the pace, and the car started creeping along behind me. I pulled out my phone and pretended to be having a conversation, since I figured it made me look slightly less vulnerable. Zach kept pausing to go to the bathroom, and I finally figured not getting kidnapped was more important than Zach peeing for the 18th time, and dragged Zach by the leash as we ran towards the house.

I stopped in front of my house, and the car stopped across the street. I raced inside and locked the door. The car remained sitting outside my house for a minute, and then sped away.

Zach barked, staring out the window for a solid hour afterward.

It freaked me out.

A Year with Two Ears

2010-04-03T10:56:00.001-05:00

Yup, that's right. I've been bilateral for a year, and what a year it's been! Rather than write an entire novel about it, (when you consider I've written over 70 posts in the past year), I thought I could just post some flashbacks. So, here's a post that I posted back in July.

April 3rd, 2009. The big day.

I managed to survive the two and a half weeks between surgery and activation. I was super excited to get my new side turned on, not just because I wanted to hear better, but because I was told it would help with this annoying chirping I was hearing. At that point I was willing to try anything, so that came as a relief!

The day my implant was to be turned on was also the day of a big orchestra competition. The biggest competition our class had ever played in, to be exact, so I was determined not to miss it. That's another reason I was excited to get my left side turned on; the violin sits on the left side of your head so it was sounding quieter than what I was used to. Anyway, I went with my class on the bus to the competition, and as soon as it was over my mom picked me up and we drove off to the audiologist! I ran into the hospital bathroom and changed out of my orchestra clothes, then went and sat in the waiting room, anxiously bouncing in my seat while simultaneously repeating the mantra, "high hopes, low expectations" in my head. Yeah right!

The audiologist came out grinning. "Are you ready?" Like she had to ask!

I walked into her office, me and my lonesome self. My parents never come into the room for my mapping sessions, and this time was no exception. I sat down on the chair and we quickly hooked up the processor to the computer and the mapping process began. Only this time it was much more difficult than usual because I was distracted by the noise INSIDE OF MY HEAD. Once we finally went through all of the "fat" electrodes (the only ones you map) the time came. She turned it on. I knew it wasn't going to be an earth-shattering moment, since it wasn't like I'd never heard sound before. At both of my activations we left the cameras at home. It just puts too much pressure for it to be dramatic! I'm not an extremely emotional person, so there really wasn't much to see.

"Can you tell it's on?" asked the audiologist

"Nooo?" I said nervously.

That was the moment of my activation, intimately shared by me, my audiologist, and the observing student. Touching, right?

She turned it up.

"How about now?" she started talking about the weather. "What does it sound like?"

I could tell I was hearing something, but it was more "feeling it" than hearing. That's normal, my audiologist told me.

"Whenever you feel ready, take off your old side and listen to it with just the new side. Take as long as you need." she continued to talk.

I took a deep breath, and flicked off my right coil.

Wind chimes. It sounded like wind chimes.

To read other past posts about my bilateral journey, click here and here.

Spreading Awareness- That's Just the Way We Hear

2010-03-29T22:42:00.000-05:00

Many of you guys have probably heard about Mel Paticoff. She's the creator of HearingExchange Teens on Facebook and the author of Sophie's Tales, a cute little book about Sophie, a dog who has a cochlear implant. She has several family members with hearing loss and is currently studying deaf education. For last year's Better Hearing and Speech Month competition, she created a music video with her family called That's Just the Way We Hear. It was to the tune of the Jonas Brothers' That's Just the Way We Roll, and won first place in the contest! It even has captions, so that all of its viewers can fully enjoy it. Here is the video:

DoSomething.org is holding a Battle of the Bands competition to fight to keep music in schools. For this competition, Mel and the rest of her crew decided to remake the video. Here is some info about the video included on their Battle of the Bands site:
Why is music education important to you?
Music education is so important to us because it can make a HUGE difference in the lives of kids with hearing loss. If no one takes the time to introduce them to music, kids with hearing loss might not develop the same appreciation for music as hearing kids do, even with amazing cochlear implant and hearing aid technology. Yet, if they do learn to love music, it could improve their lives in a lot of ways! It will improve their auditory listening skills and social skills in big ways. We feel that this is definitely where music education money should be spent first...
Anything else we should know about your Battle of the Bands video project? We want you to know that our dream is to re-record the video with the Jonas Brothers. They have done a phenomenal job of raising awareness about different causes including diabetes, Down Syndrome, and "going green." We really hope they will consider adding hearing loss awareness to this list! It would be a dream come true to hear "That's Just the Way We Hear" played at one of their concerts, on JONAS, or on the Disney Channel. We also want to remind you to turn on the captioning! Unlike many videos found on YouTube, we took the time to make our video accessible to EVERYONE by adding captioning. Now everyone can understand our message loud and clear!

And here's the new video (also captioned)...

In order for the people in the video to achieve their goal, we need to vote for their video! It's very simple, just go to http://www.dosomething.org/bands/entry/sophies-tales and scroll to the bottom where it says "Login to rate this video." and click on it. If you don't already have an account, press "Create New Account" and come up with a user name and password. Once you do so, a confirmation email will be sent to you. After opening the link in the email, you will be able to rate the video at the bottom of the screen. Be sure to give it 10 guitars, and help Mel win the contest!

Mmm Hmm

2010-03-27T23:36:00.000-05:00

Lately, my mom has been insisting that I need to go for a mapping for my CIs. I will admit, 95% of the time, she's right and just notices before I do. But, going every two weeks kind of gets old, and my allergies are causing my hearing to fluctuate a bit, so I'd rather stretch it out as long as I can. My mom doesn't seem to understand this, so I asked her why she and my dad won't go to the audiologist to get their hearing checked, since they don't seem to be hearing too well themselves. My mom told me she was hearing just fine, and that she can tell that I'm having trouble hearing. (which I'm not!!) Anyway, she called me up on the phone earlier today when I was home alone. The conversation went like this:
Mom: We'll be home soon.
Me: Okay.
Mom: What are you doing?
Me:Not too much, just getting some homework done.
Mom: (yelling) LESLEY, CAN YOU HEAR ME? I ASKED WHAT YOU WERE DOING. ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T NEED TO GO FOR A MAPPING?
Me: I SAID I WAS DOING MY HOMEWORK!
Mom: Oh.. I guess I'm the on who has trouble hearing!

(Source: http://www.zazzle.com/i_may_be_left_handed_but_im_always_right_tshirt-235180049815931732)

Perspectives

2010-03-26T23:12:00.000-05:00

I can't help but occasionally wonder how big of a deal my hearing loss is for the people around me. Is it something that makes people act differently around me, or do most people not give it a second thought? This week I've gotten some insight on that, and thought I'd share.

A couple of days ago, we had (yet another) fire drill at school. The way they do fire drill at my school, is that regardless of what class the fire drill is in, you have to go and find your study hall class. Each class has a designated spot on the massive football field. However, I have absolutely no sense of direction, and when you're trying to find your way amongst 2,000 other teenagers, it can get pretty insane. So, with this last fire drill, I began wandering aimlessly around on the football field, hoping to see a familiar face. After doing this for a few minutes, I deemed the technique ineffective and decided to just stand in one spot, in hopes that I'd finally spot someone. No sooner had I stopped wandering than I saw one of my best friends (who is in my study hall) running up from behind me. "Hey, we're over there (points to area across the football field). I tried screaming your name, but then I realized that probably wasn't such a good idea..." (implying I probably wouldn't hear it)

While I don't want my hearing loss to be the first thing people think of, I'm glad it entered my friend's mind in that situation. Occasionally, when walking down the hall (which, between the blaring music and the obnoxious kids can create a deafening noise level) a friend will start talking to me as I'm concentrating on not dropping the 30 pounds of books I'm carrying. I don't always hear them speaking initially, and will occasionally be given annoyed looks when the end of their oh-so-important story is met with a blank, confused stare. They're pretty good about getting my attention first, but I guess it can sometimes be forgotten.

This year in my AP Human Geography class, I've befriended the girl who sits in front of me. It's the only class I've ever had with her, but we've grown close since we take a lot of the same classes and have some of the same interests. When she walked into the classroom today, she looks at the board and groaned. "Look at the second bullet on the board..." she said in an annoyed voice. I looked up to see that we were going to have a pop open-note quiz over the video we watched yesterday.

I began to laugh. She stared at me, confused, for a few seconds. Finally, it came to her and she screamed, "Ahh, no fair! I wish I had a hearing aid!" :P Someone else looked over, confused about why she would say such a thing.

"The video didn't have captions, so Mrs. B gave her a copy of her notes since she can't hear the video. She has all of the answers to the quiz!" Half the class then eyed me enviously, and I innocently shrugged. I was grateful that my teacher has finally gotten into the habit of giving me video notes.

Apparently no one took very good notes over the video. Our teacher loves giving quizzes over insanely specific (but pretty irrelevant) material. We got the quiz, and it only had ten questions, all of which were specific (some of the questions asked how much certain workers earned a day..what's the importance of that? The video was about China!) The sort of ironic thing was that a third of the answers weren't even in the teachers notes. (My teacher told me the answers to those.)

On a completely unrelated note, we had an orchestra competition today. All 3 levels of my school orchestra straight 1's (the best score) from all of the judges :)

Shameless Promotion/Request

2010-03-20T10:58:00.000-05:00

Okay, faithful readers, you always come through when I need you to. Don't fail me now!

As most of you know, I'm assisting with David's Project and I've been pretty involved with the blog and Facebook page (there's a link to it on the right hand side of this blog). I think it's a really great thing, and if you haven't already submitted your story, do it! We're hoping to have the final site up by April 1st. The blog is not the website that we're working on, I realize that's a bit confusing. We've got a site that is currently being worked on by a web designer, and we've also received some great tips and ideas from the wonderful Rachel Chaikof. Her input helped us decide how we (by we, I mean the 5 teens with hearing loss that are helping to build this site) want the website laid out. One thing we've decided that would be absolutely wonderful is to have pictures of people with hearing loss from a variety of backgrounds. We're thinking a slide show of sorts. However, to have that slide show, we need the pictures from somewhere. That's where you come in.

Have any pictures of you, your child, infant, or teenager with hearing loss, and would like them to be featured on this new website? Please send them in! Important details:

You don't have to have a story to send in pictures, and you don't have to have pictures to send in a story, but both are welcome, either alone or separately!
If you choose to send in the pictures, you can send them to me at pinklam94@yahoo.com or directly to David at davidcluff2012@gmail.com,
For any pictures you send, we request that you also type or write the following, just to prevent any issues should they come up,

"I (your name) give permission for my picture to be featured on the website David's Eagle Project"

I realize typing this seems pretty pointless, but we didn't want to make you sign some long liability/consent contract.I also want to make it clear that there are absolutely no profits being made off of this website, and any pictures you send will be used for the project site, and the project site only. We've got a lot of exciting tricks planned up our sleeve for this website, but it needs participation to be the best it can be! If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact either of us at the emails written in the 2nd bullet point.

Thanks for your help! Don't let me down ;)

the tinnitus that wasn't

2010-03-19T00:33:00.002-05:00

My spring break is almost over. The idea of going back to school makes me start hyperventilating (I'm only exaggerating slightly.) I think I speak for all the students and teachers of the world when I scream, "IS IT SUMMER YET?!"

Anyway, I was home alone on this lovely spring morning, since my mom and sister had some college meeting to attend, and my dad had work. I'd just finished ~~draining the Pacific Ocean~~ taking a shower, and my dog excitedly ran up to me, with that I've-really-gotta-pee look in his eyes. My hair was wet, so my CI's were off.

I ran to the back door, with a smile on my face, laughing at the fact that I'm basically my dog's slave. As I shut the door, I noticed a strange sensation in my left ear.

My ever-present tinnitus sounded...different. Rather than the lovely chirping I'm used to, it sounded like a faint, high-pitched whining/ringing noise.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Whoop-de-doo. Bring out the marching band and parade floats. But, you see, when you've heard the same chirping for a year (it's been exactly a year and 2 days since my 2nd CI surgery!), it's a pretty big deal when it suddenly sounds different.

I briefly worried if that meant something odd was going on with my ear. No change is good in my book. I rubbed my ear, to see if it made it sound different. It didn't. I shuffled away from the door, pondering this change.

That's when I noticed it getting louder. I realized the noise sounded oddly familiar...almost like the alarm for our home security system. No...it couldn't be! I went over to the alarm keypad to look at the screen. You know, just to be sure.

I looked at it, only to be greeted with the words "ALARM. BACK DOOR OPEN"

I silently cursed my mom's fear of getting the house broken into, and quickly punched the 4-digit code that was engraved in my memory, while freaking out. The last thing I needed was the police coming over, with me (nearly) stone-deaf, dripping wet hair, and in my raggedy bath robe. I mean, isn't that how people get tased?

At that very moment, as if on cue, my mother and sister walked in, to see the horrified look on my face. My sister simply said "Wow, nice going." and walked away. My mom soon called the security people, and everything was settled and that all too familiar chirping returned.

Zach the Lhasa-Poo. He's not as innocent as he looks!

Don't forget to vote in the latest polls, found to your right!

Interesting Article

2010-03-18T01:04:00.001-05:00

In all honesty, I'm about to go to sleep and barely skimmed the article. The first few sentences looked promising, so I thought I'd share :P

If I don't find it interesting in the morning, I just may take this post down...

Designing A Tool For Operations On People With Severe Or Profound Auditory Loss

Is it best to know?

2010-03-15T10:04:00.000-05:00

I don't know what caused my hearing loss. I've had some genetic tests, and therefore I do know that it's not from Connexin 26 or Pendred Syndrome, which leaves roughly another million possibilities.

Growing up, I always seemed to have one medical issue after another. Whenver things were calm and healthy, an eerie "what's next?" feeling lurked over. Like now.. .Things have been going relatively well for the past year, with the exception of the complications I had with my second CI.

And sometimes, I sit and wonder. "What if.." What if the problems I have now turn out to just be the start of something much worse when I'm older? What if I have some rare syndrome or something? What if it's genetic? Do I want to know? What if my hearing loss was just caused by some sort of random mutation or from a medicine I took when I was younger? Would it really calm my fears to know that?

Or, even worse, if it's serious, do I want that to affect he way I view myself and color the way I live my life? Is knowledge really power, or is it just a weight pressing down on our shoulders? Are some questions best left unanswered, at least until the answers reveal themselves?

Obviously, I can't find out anything more, since all the tests have come up negative. And that kind of, sort of bugs me. I'm one of those people who needs information, I have to know every last detail.

I'd love to hear the perspectives of others on this. Did you find out what caused your hearing loss through testing, or did you choose not to find out? Did you not do any testing, only to wish you had when other issues were uncovered later?

Nucleus System 5- My Experience

2010-03-13T10:34:00.001-06:00

Well, I finally got my new processors on Tuesday. When they say it takes 6-8 weeks to arrive, they're not kidding! I did get pretty impatient, but the important thing is that they did come. Here are some pictures... *sorry for the blurry quality. These were taken from my phone, since my sister decided to steal my camera, even though she has her own....sisters!*

On the left if my pink Freedom (the beige thing is the FM boot), on the right is my brown N5 with the pink cover.

Left---> Right Freedom, N5 with pink cover, N5 with blue cover.

Brown N5 on my head- side view. Please excuse the messy hair, I just put it up to take the picture :)

The remote... I definitely think that's more of a personal preference thing. As someone who always has a cellphone in her pocket, it's no big deal for me to carry it around. It's pretty user-friendly once you take the time to figure out how to adjust all the settings. The only thing I wish they would add (possibly with future remote software upgrades?) is the option to have certain settings as "favorites" in the remote (similar to in a cell phone) that you adjust the most, making them quicker and more accessible to get to. Another thing is, it look like an Mp3 player. Or a cellphone. Or some combination of the two... What's the problem?

We're not allowed to use them in school, so I'm always completely afraid I'm going to get yelled at for having my "iPod" out in class, or even worse, have a teacher not listen to me and take it up. I don't adjust the settings too much, but I try to do it pretty discretely when I do- so far, so good.

AutoPhone- Would someone please enlighten me how the darn thing works? I know for a fact I have it, because my audiologist knew I wanted to try it out, and I saw her check off the little box for it. However, it's failed to come on every single time I've been on the phone (and I've used three phones- my cellphone, our landline, and my sister's cell). I can hear better without T-coil than when I manually enable T-coil, so I don't mind it now working.. I just want to know if there's a way for it to work! My audiologist said it's voice activated, so the person on the other end has to have spoken for a few seconds before it detects it. No luck!

The view from behind- It's much, much thinner than the Freedom. I really like how I can make it stand out with the covers, or I can make it blend in completely. From the front, you really can't see any of it (my hair covers the earhook), unlike the Freedom, which was pretty bulky and noticeable from the front.

Battery Life- With the Freedoms, I barely got a full day of battery life, so I was worried that I wouldn't get very much out of the N5 (which use 1 less battery). The computer estimated that my right ear, which has a very strong map, would last 16 hours. It predicted my left ear, which has an even stronger map, would last 13 hours. Not quite a full day, but close enough. Yesterday was the first day I actually got to wear them all day (Tuesday- I didn't get them until my 9AM appt. Wednesday- I had French Honor Society inductions in the evening, and changed the batteries before I went just in case, and Thursday I had a ton of reading to do and a very loud family, so the implants came off during my reading time). I put them on yesterday at about 8AM and I didn't get a single low-battery warning, even though I went to sleep at 12:30 AM. I'm pleasantly surprised that they actually appear to be lasting longer than my Freedoms did (weirdly enough, although partly due to my use of the FM boot on one Freedom). I know a lot of people really want the rechargables, but I never used them with my Freedoms, since they died during the school day, so I doubt I'll use the rechargeables for the N5 when they come out.

FM- There is not yet a boot released for the N5 for FM, so I have to use a neckloop with T-coil called the MyLink. While it's nice to have less on my ear, it's not exactly a fashion statement to walk around with a neckloop all day. I put the bottom part under my shirt, but I don't normally wear T-shirts, so a good portion is visible. I had to go a few days without the FM, and it made me realize there were come classes I really needed it for (French, my AP classes) but I also realized there were some that I could hear just fine without it. I think I may just "play it by ear" (heh..no pun intended) and only use the FM depending on what I'm doing in each class each day. When it's not in use, I can just take the FM off, so it's not a big deal.

Hearing- I was MAPped the same day I received the N5s, so my hearing is better than it was on Monday, but I don't know which I can attribute it to. I'll have to try out my Freedom again and see if I notice a difference, but I was told that, if I did, it would be pretty minimal. We'll see.

Funny story... I had taken off my FM neckloop in one of my classes, since we were just doing bookwork. The girl who sits next to me asked about it, and I lamented how I found it kind of annoying, but mentioned it was because I got new, smaller processors. I figured she's noticed since I'd worn my hair up the day before, but I lifted my hair up and pointed it out to show her anyway. "Ohhhh!" she exclaimed, "I was wondering why you hadn't wearing anything on your ears... I see it now!"

Hearing Loss in the Media

2010-03-05T23:17:00.001-06:00

Whenever deafness and/or CI's are portrayed in TV shows, it's usually with much fanfare (and oftentimes debate) from the hearing loss community. I was quite surprised this evening, while watching my favorite shows, that they had a short story line about deafness.

I LOVE Grey's Anatomy, which shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you. ;) I'm going to give my best summary I can possibly give with the knowledge that many of you have not watched the show before:

Background info: Dr. Sloan (AKA, Dr. McSteamy) is a plastic surgeon, at Seattle Grace-Mercy West hospital. He's upset that his ex-girlfriend (Dr. Lexie Grey) went and made out with Dr. Karev right after they broke up, and while he was with his single but pregnant daughter, who was in the hospital facing complications with her unborn baby. Soon afterwards his daughter fled, leaving an emotionally-invested Sloan devastated. Still bitter and alone, Sloan is taking out his anger by making out with every woman (drug reps, nurses, etc.) who will let him.

A woman who appears to be in her 40's comes into the hospital with her elderly mother, who has just been in a car accident. As the mother is being examined, we see and hear the mother and daughter shouting at each other. We find out that the mother, who lives with her daughter, "stole" her daughter's car and went out for a ride, even though she wasn't in fit condition to do so. One of the doctors interrupts the conversation, asking if it's necessary for them to scream everything.

The exasperated daughter replies, "Yes, actually. My mother is almost completely deaf and refuses to get a hearing aid or learn sign language, so we scream"

They decide to take the mother for a CT scan of her head, and I figured that was the end of the deafness plotline. However, after the scans of the mom's head comes in, they call Dr. Sloan to come take a look. After looking at the scan for a mere second, he immediately proclaims, "She's deaf." The other doctors ask how he knows this, seeing as he's never even met the patient.

Sloan explains, "She has otosclerosis. (points to inner ear area on the scan). I can make her hear again by repairing it. I'm just that amazing of a doctor."

They tell the daughter and mother, who are both elated at the chance to have their lives back, as the mother has apparently become very dependent on her daughter to "interpret" everything. After surgery is finished on the mother's knee, Sloan immediately goes in and begins working on her ears.

We then see the mother sleeping, having just finished the surgery. The daughter is sitting at her bedside, talking/flirting with Sloan. She tells Sloan how excited she is that she will finally be able to have her life back, and that she's miserable living with and taking care of her mother. Her mother suddenly awakens and says.

"What are you talking about? You were divorced and alone, and you needed ME! I never needed you for anything, I was the one taking care of you!"

Rather than getting angry, the daughter, in a super-cheesy-but-sweet-way, shouts "Mom! You heard that!"

They excitedly realize that, indeed, the surgery has restored her hearing. We never see the mother and daughter again, but later on in the episode, Sloan mentions to another doctor that he slept with his patient's daughter. I don't think we'll be seeing the mother and daughter again, since most cases in Grey's Anatomy only last for one episode.

I liked it. Since there weren't CI's involved, that eliminated many of the myths and controversies that usually get into shows that try to do a story about deafness. It was also nice to finally see a deaf person who wasn't your stereotypical deaf person: she was late deafened, could speak, and didn't know ASL. It seems the majority of shows that have a character with deafness tend to make them know sign language. I like that it showed the communication difficulties that come along with deafness, and I felt everything was portrayed well. I couldn't find anything that offended me the slightest, so that was good! If you'd like to see the episode online (complete with closed captions- thank you ABC!!) click here.

I also realize that I've started two completely different series of blog posts that I haven't finished. I probably should stop doing that, because I start losing interest on that topic and begin to write about something else. Rest assured, the posts are coming!

(How do you guys like this? We had to create a monogram that reflected us using photoshop in my desktop publishing class. I like how it came out and thought it'd be a good signature for each post :) )

The Scare- Part 1

2010-03-01T23:33:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: If you're looking for insights on hearing loss, this is not the post to read. However, if you're looking for insights of a freshman girl, who just happens to have hearing loss, and to hear about one really eventful day, you might be interested in reading this. This is completely true, and occurred this morning.

Along with the other 99% of the world, I hate Monday mornings. And this one was no exception. It wasn't a particularly bad morning, though. I'd just left orchestra after a pretty entertaining rehearsal, and was now in my 2nd period class.

We were working on group projects, so our class met in the library. Upon the ringing of the tardy bell, I noticed the absence of one of our group members, who I'll call Jill. I didn't think much of it, until she walked in late and whispered something to the teacher. She then dashed over to another member of our group, who I'll call Sara, and began whispering into her ear. I watched as the smile she was wearing collapsed, and the color quickly drained from her face. There was a look that couldn't be described as anything other than sheer panic. I watched her discreely pull out her phone and start frantically texting.

No sooner had the girl arrived to the library, then an administrator came and took Jill out of class. I wasn't particularly concerned. She probably caught someone cheating, or saw someone doing drugs. Sure, it's not something I'd ever do, but it's an everyday occurrence at my school, and probably most other public high schools. I then watched Sara walk over to our teacher, who was sitting just a few computers away from us. They talked for a good 5 minutes, and I tried my darndest to lipread. I couldn't get anything.
I noticed the other members of our group starting to float towards the teacher and eavesdropping on the conversation. They then began to say their own two cents, so I figured it wasn't a private conversation anymore. Jill became back, and was talking to them too. I inched my chair towards them.

"I wouldn't worry about it. It's probably just a rumor. People say things they don't mean all of the time." I heard my teacher say.

"Wait... What's a rumor?!" I asked, desperate to hear the latest gossip.

My group and teacher looked at me, but no one spoke.

"Would anyone like to share this information with me?" I said, half kidding.

Jill finally spoke up. "Someone told me that there's going to be a shooting today."

A shooting. That certainly didn't happen everyday. My mind was suddenly inundated with a million thoughts., and I began to notice the frightened looks on many of my classmates' faces.

To be continued..

Support David's Project

2010-02-27T23:27:00.000-06:00

Calling all kids, their parents, teens, and adults with hearing loss!

I have a wonderful project to share with you, and it calls for your participation. David Cluff is 16 years old and has bilateral cochlear implants. He is extremely involved in his community, and even started a Cochlear Implant Teen Support Group at his local hospital. David is also working towards becoming an Eagle Scout, part of which involves doing a big project.

For his project, David has decided to make a website for people of all ages with hearing loss and share their stories. He wants it to be a place where deaf teens can help each other, as well as for people to read the experiences of others with hearing loss. David's blog site can be found here.

There is also a Facebook fan page for the project, which can be found here.

If you would like to participate, go to one or both of the websites mentioned above, and email David at davidcluff2012@gmail.com with your story. I encourage everyone (even the lurkers) to participate!

Thanks guys :)

Perlman

2010-02-26T20:37:00.000-06:00

I got very little sleep last night. In addition to having a huge test today, I went out last night. Where, you ask?

Why, to see the famous Itzhak Perlman!

At the moment you are either thinking "WOW!" or you have a very confused look on your face. That's okay. None of my friends knew who he was either

He's one of the best violinists EVER! He was born in Israel, but I believe he now lives in the US.You can read more about his accomplishments here.

It was amazing. I had to leave at the intermission because it was late, and I had to study. We had front-row (as in the VERY FIRST ROW) seats, which was pretty cool. Howevere, they were at the very right edge of the stage (where the Cello section of the orchestra sits) and the violinists sit toward the left area of the stage. If they dropped a cello, it would've landed on me :P. After the first song (out of 3) they moved him and I could only see his foot from the angle I was sitting. I could hear him great though, and put my left ear on my music program for even better enjoyment (I thought having it on both ears would be a bit too much) Anyway, it was really cool. Not only did he play really well, but he conducted the rest of the orchestra during the songs he played! How awesome is that?!

There's another thing about Mr. Perlman. It's not the first thing many people mention it when talking about him, since it's irrelevant to what makes him so amazing. As a child, he contracted polio and now must use either crutches or a wheelchair to get around. He used crutches at the performance I attended. He struggled to get on the platform which he had to perform on. After 5 minutes of him trying various methods of getting on the platform, and with the rest of the violin section looking quite nervous that he would fall, he made it in his seat. He turned to the audience, laughed, and gave a thumbs up.

I just love his attitude. He displays such intense emotion while he plays, you can see that he feels the music within.

I looked up some of his quotes, and stumbled upon this,

" Sometimes the wheelchairs don't arrive, the chairs are broken, or there's only one leg rest. There's an awful lot not being done. If we talk about it enough, someone will make it improve. "

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Perlman. I couldn't agree more.

live and learn

2010-02-21T23:35:00.000-06:00

The following was a text message sent out to a few friends shortly after I returned from practicing driving with my dad. This was only the 2nd time I've driven on the road.

Note to self: When driving, don't get into the wrong lane as you're turning onto a street. This may result in an onslaught of cars honking as they try to brake before hitting you head-on, as well as a screaming and terrified father.

Yes, we're just fine(a collision did not occur!), although I've never experienced an adrenaline rush quite like that one. Don't think I'll be making that mistake again..

Unexpected Twist

2010-02-15T10:24:00.000-06:00

The day came, and we were armed and ready. Both of my parents went to the meeting, which is a pretty big deal since usually it's jut me and my mom. My dad went around asking each person their name and job description, and there was a strong feeling of tension in the room. My dad, a lawyer, was being quite successful at being intimidating. That is, until he asked what an IEP is... Then everyone in the room started revealing their true selves, as they no longer saw him as much of a threat.

My parents began talking about the unfairness of the evaluation and handing out my audiologist's letter. My dad requested an independent evaluation.

"No. That's not necessary," said the lady who was mostly in charge of the evaluation So, apparently they can say no.. Guess we weren't expecting that to happen..

She then went on to say that in Special Education, in order to show a need for further services, you cannot be making any progress with the assistance/IEP currently in place. With the A's/high B's I currently have, that doesn't demonstrate that I'm failing to make progress.

"I have no doubt that you have to work much harder than everyone else, but that's just the way the law works."

My parents urged me to tell my story, from my point of view. (I'd already done it at every past meeting, but they wanted the people who performed the evaluation to get a better understanding of what I go through)

I told my story about how frustrated I was at the school. How I felt as if sometimes, I didn't even need to go to school because I missed so much of the discussion, it's worthless. That I didn't understand why they were fighting tooth and nail to prevent me from having something that could actually help me. I told them how tired I was. Tired of trying to keep up, tired of fighting- just tired. Sometime during those sentences, tears started streaming down my face. Ugh, I hate crying, especially in front of people I don't like. Yet, that's what happened at every single meeting ( I would then swear I'd never attend another one, only for the whole thing to start all over when there was another meeting.)

"Oh! I wish I'd known you were this frustrated when we'd done the evaluation. This changes everything." Everyone looked up at her...was she kidding?

"I had no idea this was taking such a toll on you and that you felt you needed it so much." Yeah. Because I just asked for CART because I thought it would be fun to fiddle around with...? (note sarcasm)

The lady then said that while I don't have an educational need, that she could put down that I have an emotional need and get me CART that way.

As, I'm sure you can imagine, that was the most bizarre 5 minutes of the meeting. Heck, that was the most bizarre 5 minutes of my life! Pretty sure this song started playing through my head..

(pause music at the bottom of the page)

Not so fast..

"But," she continued, "you'd still have to change schools."

Change schools? You see, they don't offer CART at my school, and aren't planning on it, no matter how much I beg/plead/cry. But, they do at another school that is about as far away as my current school from my house. This other school is a mainstream school, but it's smaller and has a fairly large deaf ed program. They send all the kids in need of CART or interpreting services there. Apparently it's cheaper/more efficient to have it all on one campus.

This meeting was halfway through the school year. I'd finally been adjusting to my new school. Now they wanted to toss me somewhere else? As much as I struggled at my current school, I have a great group of friends, and nice teachers. They just want me to walk away from all of that?

So, that leaves you where I am now. The decision making process. A little bit has happened since then (technology-wise), and I will post more on the pros and cons of each school.

But, for now, my wonderful reader, I leave you with that. I would really appreciate any more input you have, with regards to the current situation. What do you think...What would you do?

*I'm experimenting with my blog banner at the top. Still haven't been able to make anything I like, since I don't have any tools like Photoshop or InDesign at home. If anyone is generous, gifted in the design department, and would like to design something (for free) then it would be completely awesome!*

Preparing for Battle- High School part 3

2010-02-13T09:38:00.000-06:00

Before having a meeting, my parents wanted to make sure we knew what our rights were, and that nothing (else) would be unfair. Oftentimes on blogs, when I see parents talk about their kids struggling (often because the kids themselves haven't been around enough kids with hearing loss, so they feel "different,") I recommend AG Bell. Join, I say. Go to a convention, it will be a tremendous help for both parents and children. It's not because I'm some crazy die-hard oralist with an agenda (and really, most of the people in it aren't either!) It's because AG Bell has been such a help through all of this- both parens of people I met who have been through it before, as well as a lawyer who belongs. For almost no pay, they've helped us tremendously and given direction when we had no clue where we were going. Not to mention the conventions are tons of fun, and if you would like to see my smiling face, then come to Orlando!

From the lawyer's perspective, he told us it would be really difficult to win any sort of lawsuit based on educational need. Apparently, there was once a very big court case similar to mine, and the school district won. Plus, we don't really want to go the legal route- it's messy, expensive, and would just waste more time. Like Kim said, they had broken the law from a civil rights perspective.Not so much for the denial of CART, but for the ridiculous evaluation and the fact they provided almost none of the previous accomodations (captions, video notes) until it was months into the school year. He also said we had a right to an independent evaluation, and to request one. We planned to go into the meeting and request it.

My audiologist was also quite angry about the report, and thought it would do some good to have a hearing test to prove that I have trouble hearing in a classroom environment. I think this was some sort of newer test- not any of that HINT stuff with annoying white noise. This test had both male and female speakers (with extrememly random sentences) and the backgroumd noise was actual people speaking, as you would find in the real world (a classroom). With my concentration solely on listening (not on comprehend/understanding, or writing things down) I made somewhere around 75%. Apparently it's a pretty difficult test and most CI users score significantly lower than that, but it was still pretty telling. Most people with average hearing score 100% on the test, without having to put so much effort into it. Don't you think it would make a huge difference if you missed a fourth of everything said in the classroom? My audiologist thought so too, and wrote a letter to the evaluators that we brought to the meeting.

Wow, I'm just dragging this out aren't I? Promise, the next post will be about the actual meeting!

Too Smart for Assistance

2010-02-12T17:58:00.000-06:00

I had corresponded with Sara about my school situation a while back, and she reminded me that I left out a bit of the evaluation. Here's her comment.

"You should post the rest of this story. The insane part is that they don't think you "need" CART or anything because your grades are so good. They don't get that you can be SMART and still STRUGGLE.

I was in the same boat, but I sadly don't have any advice since we never got anywhere with getting me CART until I was taking graduate classes..."

Which was another aspect of it. I'm pretty sure they took one look at my grades, and scoffed at the idea of giving me services. A large part of the evaluation was weighted on my grades and test scores (apparently the words "commended" and "superior" don't exactly scream "Needs help!") My grades certainly aren't/weren't bad, although they'd be better if I actually learned a thing or two in class. I might actually get some sleep with CART, instead of having to learn what I miss on my own. Maybe I wouldn't be so frustrated, maybe I could actually relax, if I'm just given equal access to material.

Full disclosure- we got our class rank for our time in high school so far. I'm told that in most places GPA and class rank are not that big of a deal. Well here, it's kind of a huge deal. After each test, people actually sit there and calculate out their GPAs. The pressure to do well and rank better than others is enormous. I'd rather be measured against my own success and improvements than that of everyone else. Anyway, I wasn't planning on looking at mine. After half of my friends ended up being ranked in the top 10 (not the top 10 percent. The top 10 people. Out of 820. That's like...insane.) I went home and looked. I'm in the top 6%, which is nothing to sneeze at. Could be better, but it's not like kid swith hearing loss are held to much of a standard at my school anyway.

I'm going to start a new post about the meeting, since this one's getting long. Keep this in mind as you read the conversation that goes on between me and the others at the meeting..

White Fluff

2010-02-11T22:41:00.000-06:00

My yard is filled with inches of white, fluffy snow. For those of you that don't know, I live in Texas.

The place where it's flat. and hot. And it's weird if you don't say "y'all" in everyday conversations.

I woke up, and the grass was covered in a thin layer of snow. It hasn't stopped, and the past record of 1" of snow has been shattered. It's at least 4" and is predicted to get up to 7". How crazy is that!?

We still had to go to school. Every single other school district in the area closed. However, ours is infamous for having really bad judgement when it comes to bad weather days. It's supposed to completely freeze over tonight. Thankfully, not long after getting home, it was announced that school would be cancelled for tomorrow (Friday) giving us a 4 day weekend, since we already have Monday off. Awesome! My friends and I have been planning for this all week, and if the roads aren't too bad to drive on, we'll be seeing Valentine's Day tomorrow. I need this long weekend!

Pictures to come :)

Oh, and on the CI front..
I picked the brown processors. I sent in my backup brown Freedoms (I was very happy that we only had to send in the processors, not the controllers) and they should be shipping the N5s to my audiologist for mapping shortly. We were able to get some insurance coverage, with help from my center's insurance department. However, we're yet to be given an actual number on how much we'll have to pay out of pocket. Hopefully it will be a pleasant surprise, and not a shock!

Has anyone used the Bilateral Personal Audio Cable?

I ordered one, and received it a week or so ago. The weird thing was, one side (that you plug into your processor) was a good 3 inches longer than the other. I'm yet to understand the logic in that, and it's not like the length is adjustable. We called Cochlear, and they sent us another one to make sure the one we got wasn't defective. Nope, apparently they are intentionally making one side longer than the other...

So, if anyone has any idea why this is the case, feel free to share. And don't worry, I'll be posting more about the CART/School situation soon!

School/CART Stuff- Part 2

2010-02-06T00:19:00.000-06:00

Two days before the promised evaluation report was due, I noticed two women who were at the previous meetings about CART come into my class. I should probably note that we specifically told the evaluators that they should contact me or the teachers with the days they were thinking of coming, so as not to come on a test or video day, The teacher had told them they could sit in the back of the room. Right after the bell rang, my teacher said, "Oh, by the way, they're going to be taking a test for the entire class period. I hope that's okay."

One of the evaluator ladies got an angry look on her face, said, "No." and walked out. The other one followed.

Okay, then...

The next day, the two ladies reappeared in a different class. This class is one of my hardest, largest, most discussion-based classes. I expected them to come over and talk to me, or at least look at my notes sometime during the class. Why do that when you can simply sit in a chair for an hour?

The day they came, this is how the class went:
-We took a quiz over the previous night's reading
- There was a small amount of lecturing followed by a large amount of class discussion, which I struggled to follow and didn't participate in.
-We had to work on something individually
-We then had to discuss it with our table partner. It was really noisy, and the girl that sits next to me seemed to be much more interested in flirting with the guy in front of us, so I didn't get much out of that discussion..

The class ended, and the women left .As promised, the evaluation for CART was delivered to me the following day. I knew, from their one observsation, that the whole thing was going to be a joke. Here are some quotes from the evaluation.

"We did not see (LAM) enter the class discussion. She watched and did not appear to be confused."

"Socially, she appeared comfortable with her table partner. They did not appear to have difficulty communicating with each other"

"The cafeteria was very loud and she appeared to have no difficulty communicating. She was smiling and animated while conversing with her friends." No, I was not aware that they were watching me from across the cafeteria at lunch. The idea of it makes me strangely uncomfortable, in addition to the fact it's completely unrelated to the trouble I have in the classroom.

And, here comes the best part, which they said after stating their denial of CART,

"It is even possible that CART would be a hindrance to her during classroom discussions because of the lag time between the speaker talking and the captioner producing the printed word. She would be listening to one set of information while reading what was said previously. Taking into account the (ha!) quiet environment and her ability to use her cochlear implants to listen and speak, it was though that CART might be a disadvantage to her classroom access and performance."

Isn't it just absolutely amazing how much you can gather from watching me for an hour? Because, as we all know, it's not like people with hearing loss bluff or pretend to understand or anything. We just do our best to appear utterly confused and dumbfounded whenever we misunderstand or can't hear something.
(Please note the sarcasm...)

It just kills me how every single observation they made is about how I "appeared" to comprehend or I "appeared" to understand. They're judging my acting, not hearing, skills.

This occurred before the winter break. My next post will be about the meeting we had following this evaluation...

High School Fun

2010-01-30T09:45:00.001-06:00

I haven't written anything about school in quite a while, and it's been somewhat intentional*. Ever since the start of the school year, I've been struggling to hear in a couple of my discussion-based classes. The discussion is fast, and it's nearly impossible to run a single FM across the room when one of my classes is a double classroom with over 40 kids. Of course, this was only compounded by the lack of closed captioning and the struggles that every other freshman has- adjusting to the workload, reading, lack of free time, etc.

There were/are only two main classes that I was struggling in. They're college level classes, so I guess that's part of the reason so much of it is discussion rather than lecturing. I occasionally have trouble hearing/missing things in other classes, but I can deal with that. It's when I spend hours studying out of the textbook, trying to compensate the discussion I missed, only to score significantly worse than others who don't study at all, I get frustrated. It's not that they're smarter than I am, it's just that I'm sick of sitting in class feeling like I'm missing everything that's going on. Anyway, after much more than my fair share of meetings and tears, I asked if I could try out CART or C-Print and see if it would help me.

I'd already gotten the opportunity to try them out at various conventions and events for people with hearing loss. From these conventions, I also know various adults who are just past college age with CI's. I contacted a couple of them to ask if they'd struggled in high school, and they said they'd also experienced the same issues I had. They were able to get CART (often, after a long and hard fight with the school system) and it helped them dramatically.

The people from Deaf/Special Ed said that they'd have to evaluate me and determine that I have an educational need in order to access this technology. They sent a lady from Deaf Ed to answer any questions we had about the CART evaluation ahead of time. If it wasn't so frustrating, it would have been somewhat comical that this lady had absolutely no clue how the evaluation worked, and answered every question with, "You know, I'm really not sure..." The only thing we could get out of her was that they would come by and evaluate me, both with and without CART, to find out if it was giving me better access. Okay, then... They were allowed 45 days to complete the evaluation. After 41 days, and not a single person coming to evaluate me, my mom sent an email inquiring when we would find out the results of the report. "We'll have it ready in just a few days," they said. Seeing as they had yet to step foot in a single classroom of mine, I could definitely see where the whole thing was heading...

I've decided to break up the school thing into more manageable segments, since it's an unbelievably long, drawn out story. I'm sure you could figure this out from the fact that we asked for CART in September, and it's now almost February.

*I didn't want to just complain when I actually had no answers to share. There's also the fear of anyone being able to read this blog, but at this point, I really don't care.

I'm not crazy..

2010-01-11T23:34:00.000-06:00

yet :)

Ever since I've gone bilateral, I've noticed I've had residual hearing in both ears. However, it wasn't at all what I was expecting. I felt like I could hear surprisingly soft (for my level of hearing loss, not actually soft) low pitched sounds in my right ear, and can actually sometimes tell if my dog is barking.

With my left (2nd ear) I've felt like I can hear higher pitched sounds, and some noises that I'd never been able to hear before I was implanted. One day after I got out of the shower, I was watching TV with my sister, sans implants. Every now and then, I would hear a faint 'click' in my left ear. I asked my sister if she knew what the noise was, and she shrugged. I tapped her the next time I heard it, and she had a look of awe on her face. She instructed me to look away, and turn back around every time I heard the noise. I did as she asked.

What was this noise?

The smacking of her gum. This was a total WTP (my version of WTF, except in my group of friends, we replace all cuss words with the word 'poo') moment. Gum smacking- how weird is that?!

The weirder thing is, CIs supposedly preserve low frequency hearing (if any). I wasn't sure if I was completely imagining things.

A few days ago, after much kissing up and begging, my wonderful dad bought me my very own iPod Touch. I was scrolling through and looking at different free Apps, and saw one called uHear. It uses 3 different tests to assess your hearing, for free, all on your handy dandy iPod. One of the tests measures hearing sensitivity.

I thought it would be cool to try out, since I was curious about my residual hearing, since I've never had it tested. I know it's not completely accurate, however the reviews were pretty good, so what harm could it do to try it out?

This was my result:

I'm not crazy :)

Use it or Lose it

2010-01-10T00:19:00.000-06:00

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I used to be an amazing lipreader.

When I was in elementary school, kids would take turns silently mouthing things to me, and I almost always got it right. My best friend and I were able to have silent conversations across the room. Of course, they were one way conversations, since she could never understand what I said back.

With my hearing aids off, I could communicate with my family pretty well when I could see their mouth.

Ever since I've gone bilateral, my lip/speechreading skills have become absolutely pitiful.

If my sister wants to tell me something while my implants are off, it usually involves exaggeration of lip movements, some fingerspelling, and grand gestures. It becomes a frustrating game of charades.

I still benefit from seeing someone's mouth when they're talking, but without audio cues, it becomes really hard. It also becomes painfully obvious when I need a mapping, since I can't exactly get much out of lip reading.

Guess it goes to show how much less I rely on it.. It's pretty interesting. Anyone else have the same experience?

On a completely unrelated note...

I now have my learner's permit! :)
I took driver's ed over the summer, but I couldn't take my permit test until I turned fifteen. When I finally did, life got in the way, and I just didn't get around to it (until now).

On the last day of winter break, my driver's ed place finally opened (they had been closed for two weeks). My mom dragged me down there, with me complaining the entire ride that I was going to fail the stupid test. Half the people who take it fail on the first try, and I'd barely gotten to study. It didn't help that I hadn't learned a SINGLE thing in Driver's Ed.

After grading my test, the lady told me I scored the highest on the rules portion she's ever seen anyone make since she's worked there. Heh. So much for failing...

The New Year and New Ears

2009-12-30T11:32:00.000-06:00

This year has been an interesting one. It's been filled with plenty of highs, as well as its fair share of lows.

I've learned more about myself than I ever thought I would. I've dealt with challenges I never thought I'd have to face, as well as opportunities and chances I would have never imagined. I wouldn't have been able to make it without the help of my wonderful family and friends, who have stuck with me through the good and the bad, even when I was occasionally a bit irrational.

When I first started this little blog over 8 months ago, I wasn't expecting much. Just a way to express my thoughts and have them documented for future reflection. What it turned out to be was so much more.

Through this blog, I've (virtually) met people. These people have inspired me, helped me, and made me realize that I'm not alone in my experiences and frustrations.

I recently came across this quote:

"Every person is a new door to a different world."

- from the movie "Six Degrees of Separation"

and it really rings true to me. These people have taught me so much, and I don't think I can get through this post without thanking them.

I'll start with Michelle. I first stumbled across Michelle's blog this summer. She's probably one of the first people I really connected with through blogging. She left a really nice comment on my blog (I'm sure you could find it if you looked) and encouraged me to keep writing. After exchanging emails with Michelle, I realized she was probably the first deaf adult I'd ever had some sort of conversation with. And I remember thinking "Wow. She's just so normal." Now, I hope no one is offended by this, heck, I'm deaf myself. It's not like I was expecting some green person who spoke alien. I just thought it was cool how she was just some funny, spunky lady with a family and who'd held a job, and just happened to be deaf. I hope you guys get what I'm saying here...Anyway, Michelle has served as a great inspiration to me, and I'd better stop before I say something stupid! Thanks Michelle!

Next up is Kristi. Kristi is a year older than me, and I look up to her for so many reasons. If you go to her profile, you'll see that it simply says "deaf teenager (who aspires to inspire) with her own journey: a big fish in a small pond" And inspire, she does. I encourage any readers of this blog to check out her blog, it's great and she writes so poetically. She recently switched from a mainstreamed school to a high school for the deaf, and reading her experiences have really impacted me. She's made me question (in a good way) if I'm doing what I really want. Am I searching for the right things? Am I doing it in the right place? Those questions remain unanswered, but she is helping me find those answers. Who knows if I'll follow in her footsteps or pave my own path, but she's helped me more than words can express.

Writer Kid (M) is a couple of years younger than I am. I first met her through the Cochlear Community, and I sent her a message. She wrote back and told me that she'd read my blog and has one of her own. I clicked on the link not really knowing what to expect, but after reading a couple of her posts I was absolutely blown away. It was like reading the journal of a younger, smarter, more awesome version of myself. I kid you not, this is girl amazing and inspiring. She's such a joy to talk to, and she is basically my definition of "cool."

These three gals are amazing, and I just can't thank them enough.

On to the next order of business...

So, we've yet to receive word on whether insurance will pay for the new processors. After reading this post, I wasn't sure if I still wanted them! However, we spoke to some people at Cochlear who assured that, if I didn't like it, I could "trade back" and go back to my Freedoms.

Which leaves the most important decision left- what color? Since my last poll is running out (only 1 more day) I thought I would post a new one. What color do you think my new Nucleus 5's should be?

Now, I already know I'm getting brown coils, and I'm probably going to buy some of those nifty covers. I have an idea of the color I want, but I'm just curious about everyone else's opinion. I am not, I repeat NOT going to make my decision solely based on this poll. So anyway, feel free to leave a comment or vote-which color do you think I should get?

Christmas?

2009-12-25T13:33:00.000-06:00

Hi, my name is PinkLAM and I'm a blogging addict.

I think it's more out of not having anything better to do. Sureee, I could go (finally) take my permit test. Or practice my violin. Naw, blogging's fine. Besides, I'm a Jew, on Christmas, and everyone else is busy. Being social wll have to be put on hold too...

But who doesn't love...A PICTURE POST?!

My friend from IL joked that she sent me snow as her gift, since I couldn't make it there. That's honestly the best theory I've heard, because it never snows this much here. EVER.

*whew* I never realized it takes so long to put up pics.

This is when the snow first started falling...

I may be slightly too old to do this, but I was deprived as a youngster!

We went inside. The snow picked up a couple of hours later..

Snow heart!

I did, indeed, get to make my snow angel. The picture I got wasn't very good, but this is the one my sister made.

Happy Holidays!

Disappointed

2009-12-24T10:12:00.000-06:00

Imagine this scene, which occurred yesterday right around 9:30 AM: (I felt like speaking in third person. Deal with it!)

PinkLAM has just finished packing her carry-on, toiletries, and luggage. Everything is set to go, except her luggage is still upstairs. PinkLAM's mother refuses to carry such a heavy load down the steps (with good, medical reason), and PinkLAM's friends don't call her the lovable teddy bear for her awesome biceps. So, Mom and PinkLAM were awaiting the arrival of PinkLAM's dad, who was also going on this vacation to visit some relatives in the area, but still had a few last-minute work things he had to do. PinkLAM decides to chill as she impatiently waits for her dad to get there, excitedly texting her friend who she hasn't seen in a year and a half, yet is going to be before her very eyes in a matter of hours. She could picture it already: the mounds of snow which they would make snowmen out of, the delicious smell of baking cookies in the air, the branches of the Christmas tree each covered in some beautiful ornament, and her and her friend, happily sledding down a hill and oh-so-grateful to be reunited. PinkLAM briefly worries about her non-existent sledding skills, sledding being a feat she has seen on TV but never done (living in the state of Texas) but then pushes her worries aside. Everything will work out, it always does.

PinkLAM's father arrives at the house, with an odd look on his face. PinkLAM's mother promptly orders him to bring the luggage down the steps. As he's doing so, PinkLAM's father spoke the following, very fateful sentence, "I was a block away from the house when I got a call from the airline, they said to call about a 'cancelled flight'."

PinkLAM, as grateful as she was for the wonderful implant technology allowing her to hear this sentence, was hoping that just this once(okay, more than just this once...), her ears were mistaken. Nothing could ruin her visions- the reunion! the snow! the cookies!

PinkLAM ran to the computer to look up the flight status. She quickly typed in the flight number, and the words that appeared on the screen stab her like a knife in the heart:
Cancelled.

*I'm switching over to first person now, because I feel like it. Once again, deal with it :)*
Freaking out and frantic, I texted my friends, both the ones in Texas and the one living in Illinois. One of my best friends that I go to school with wrote back
"What?! They can do that?! I'm sure they'll like reschedule it or something-they have to!!!!"
My other best friend (the one living in Illinois) replied soon after:
"WHAT?! GRR..THOSE AIRLINE PEOPLE! I'LL FLY THE PLANE IF I HAVE TO!!!"

I'm sure that you, very intelligent reader, have now figured out that no, they did not reschedule the flight. No, my friend did not fly the plane, and no, I did not have my happy reunion.

To be fair, my parents called the airline which had later flights to Chicago that were still going. The airline people said that due to the weather(which was only getting worse), there was pretty much no chance of the flights going out, so it wasn't even worth trying. We instead booked a flight for this morning, about an hour ago.

Last night, my mom was watching the weather where they basically said "fat chance of getting out of Dallas tomorrow. We're getting hail and snow! Sucks for travelers who haven't left yet! Hahaha suckers!" (okay, maybe not exactly, but close enough)

Well, there went that plan. And I couldn't help but look up the info on the later flights. One of which I was supposed to be on, but we rescheduled to the earlier one to avoid the weather delays and cancellations.

Well, that flight arrived in Chicago. Yes, it was an hour or two late, but it still arrived. Oh, the irony.

I hate irony.

I am happy to report...

2009-12-22T23:09:00.000-06:00

another controller arrived this morning. Best part? IT WORKS!
Thank you guys for all of your supportive messages and comments. I'll reply to them individually when I don't have a desperate need to get some sleep.

I'm leaving for Illinois in the morning. A lot of unexpected stuff has gone on this past two days...Yesterday I woke up sick, and couldn't manage to stay awake for more than a half hour at a time. My parents were convinced there was no way I'd be able to go on this trip, but the human body is pretty amazing (and I'm sure Tamiflu helped!).

And, on top of that, there's supposedly an ice storm coming to IL tomorrow? I know, my luck just follows me wherever I go. ;) We rescheduled to an earlier flight, which has led to a mad dash of packing- I'm still not done getting everything together. And no, I did not procrastinate (okay, maybe I did..) but I had good reason! Yesterday I never got out of the bed except to go to the doctor, and today my parents were saying all along they weren't going to let me go. They finally decided to make the right choice this afternoon/evening. I'll post when I get back on Sunday!

And, I've realized that some people are probably more comfortable contacting me privately for one reason or another. For those of you who would like to email me, feel free to send an email to:
pinklam94@yahoo.com It's the best way to contact me if you would like a fairly prompt response, and I know that not everyone likes to post things publicly, so I think it's a good alternative.

Looking forward to hearing from y'all :)