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.

Sophomore Year- Week 1

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!

Lipreading Fail: A Frightening "deaf moment"

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.

Hospital Volunteering Tip #1

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

Is it best to know?

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?

It's Not Easy

More to come, eventually.