The Difference- Part 2

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 last three months, in bullets

• 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.

What I've been up to...

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! 

Perspectives

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 :)

The Scare- Part 1

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..

Good news is coming...

as soon as I have a spare few minutes to write about it! Stay tuned..
(Hint: look at the tags!)

Fortune

You could say I'm a superstitious skeptic. I like to find logical reasons for everything, but I also believe everything happens of a reason, even if that reason remains to be unseen for quite sometime. While some things are a mere coincidence, sometimes little things pop up, and you can't help but wonder...

This is what was in my fortune cookie after eating Chinese food for dinner tonight. For those of you that don't know, I'm kind of a medical freak (as in, obsessed with anything medical...) I think I've probably wanted to be a doctor since I could talk. I have a lot of random unconnected medical issues, and I could probably give you a good reference for just about any kind of doctor in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. My parents sometimes joke that I will someday discover some sort of disease or syndrome that I have, and name it after myself. Being around so many doctors has definitely fueled my passion for medicine (there we go with that everything happens for a reason thing...) and anyone that has known me for more than a week is well aware of my future job.

I am so saving this fortune.

Birthday Girl

You may have noticed a small very significant change in my profile.

No?

I am now officially the big one-five. Yes, I am fifteen! That means that in a couple of days, I will be taking the test to get my learner's permit. It also means a sharp increase in my mom's panic attacks,

Kidding! Well, sort of :)

To celebrate, I went out to dinner with six of my closest friends and had a great time. We did plenty of reminiscing and some gossiping, and I still can't believe how fast we're all growing up. The restaurant was pretty loud and noisy, but my friends are even louder, so it wasn't too big of a problem! I am due for a MAPping, so I will be going in on Tuesday. I did just get a new one a couple of weeks ago, but it soon became apparent that it needs some tweaking. Whenever I need a new MAP there are number of signs that make it quite obvious to me and my family, but I will write another post on that later. Anyhow, I get to sneak a peek at the new Nucleus 5, so who am I to complain!

Note to self: Never think it's okay to eat a cheese sandwich for lunch the day of your birthday party. Lactose intolerance doesn't take a day off, even for birthdays! (yes, I learned the hard way...)

So, I'm posting this video although it seems to be about naivety (and naive is definitely not an adjective I'd use to describe myself), and there are other Taylor Swift songs that I like even more. So why am I posting it? Well, because it has to do with the two main reasons I'm writing this post:

1. Being fifteen
2. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift? How could she possibly have anything to do with this post?

I know, I know- you're just dying from the suspense! ;)

Wellll, I got quite a few very nice birthday gifts. One of them I begged for hinted about months in advance...




TICKETS TO THE TAYLOR SWIFT CONCERT IN THREE WEEKS! *insert loud girl shriek here*

I love music. But if it's sung by Taylor Swift, that makes it about a thousand times better.

Can you tell I'm excited?

Where It All Began

Hello World!
I think it's only fair I begin my first post with a little background info about myself. So, here goes...

I'm currently fourteen years old and in the eighth grade. I love listening to music, and have been playing the violin for three years. I also enjoy baking, as well as writing. I am obsessed with anything medical, and am determined to be a doctor one day.

When I was three and a half years old, I was diagnosed with a moderate/severe hearing loss after my speech became progressively less clear and I would respond to questions with illogical answers. I was soon fitted with hearing aids and began attending Auditory-Verbal therapy twice a week. I benefited immensely from hearing aids and remained completely oral. I was never much different from any other kid, and have always been mainstreamed (both before and after my hearing loss was diagnosed.)

The cause of my hearing loss is still completely unknown. I've done some genetic testing, which revealed nothing, and there's no history of hearing loss in my family. My hearing always fluctuated slightly, but the audiologist told me it was normal. Then, when I was twelve, about about a quarter of the way through my first year of middle school, that all changed.

At first, I didn't really notice. Sure, I found it nearly impossible to understand my friends at school, but that's only because it's so loud, right? And then I'd be changing in the locker room after gym, only to find out the bell had rung two minutes ago. "Oh, you were just distracted," I'd tell myself. I'd just started to learn how to play the violin, but why couldn't I hear all the notes?!
Then, after going days without hearing the bell ring in a single class, struggling to understand my teachers, and dazing off when my friends spoke to me, because no matter how hard I tried, I just could not understand what they were saying, I knew it was time. Time to schedule another hearing test, that is.