Ignorance, Bias and Fear

There's a new show on the ABC Family Channel. It's called "Switched at Birth."  There were some inaccuracies on that show about cochlear implants - that cochlear implants was "brain surgery."  Well, excuse me, my surgeon didn't cut into my brain to implant the cochlear implant. The surgical incision was directly behind my left ear.

It has been more than nine months since I had my cochlear implant surgery, eight months since the implant was turned on.  I'm still deaf. I'm a deaf person with a cochlear implant.  I like the show, "Switched at Birth," but I wish the producers had gotten their facts straight before airing that episode in which Daphne's mother says getting a cochlear implant is brain surgery. Some producers will do anything for ratings. Still, "Switched at Birth" is a good show and I enjoy watching it.

I've never been a parent. I am the only deaf relative in my family. My siblings are hearing. My nieces and nephews are hearing. I speak and lipread.  My attempts at signing and fingerspelling is that of a five year old.  I admit to being just abysmal at sign language - especially fingerspelling.

Not everybody can speak and lipread coherently, I'll be the first person to say that.  I was reading a social network page, and on that page there was a comment from someone from deaf school days who suggested that hearing parents who force cochlear implants on deaf babies without their consent should have their "private parts' cut off.

I thought about that comment for a moment.  It saddened me. Then I thought about how much joy I get from hearing with a cochlear implant, and immediately my spirits lifted.
The last eight months have been so life-altering it is hard for me to put it in words.

I have made new friends.  I have more energy now, because I don't have to work so hard to lipread. I am no longer so physically drained from the work challenges in my office, that I go home and sleep for 13 hours straight.

I was already at the point where hearing aids were not helping me as far as understanding speech. Last April 2010, I tested within the physical limits of the audiogram. I am not a deaf person who grew up with deaf culture. My world, for the most part, has been in a hearing world. I am still the only deaf person in my immediate office. 

What I have come to understand over time, is that people who are deaf can be just as biased as someone who is a minority. You know it when someone says, "You are not black enough because you are trying too hard to be white." Well, there are deaf people who would reject me as being "Deaf," because my first language is not Sign Language, I speak, lipread, wore hearing aids from age two and a half until eight months ago. I can no more "hide" being deaf than someone with a dark complexion can hide his or her color.

I am too deaf for that. If I were what hearing society calls "hard of hearing," then yeah, I could fake being a hearing person for a while until someone figured it out.

My hearing journey has not been easy. Hearing with a cochlear implant as a deaf adult is challenging.  Not wearing a hearing aid in my non-implanted ear for the last eight months was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I put on my hearing aid in my right ear for about a week last month. Right away I could tell the difference in the fidelity of my ancient nine year old behind the ear hearing aid and the fidelity, quality of sound with the cochlear implant.  The quality of sound with the hearing aid was very poor compared with the quality of sound with the cochlear implant.  I took the hearing aid off and haven't put it back in since.

Bias comes from ignorance.  People tend to be afraid of what they don't know.  I think a lot of deaf people fear a cochlear implant because they are afraid somehow that a cochlear implant will make them less "Deaf."  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I am still a deaf person with a cochlear implant. The cochlear implant did not "cure" my deafness.  I am still deaf when I take off the sound processor at night and recharge the battery. I still depend on a dawn simulator lamp to wake me up in the morning.  I still rely on visual cues, probably because people who have been deafened at a young age tend to be very visual.

I am not to the point where I can talk on the telephone without the aid of captioning. While I can now understand words and some complete sentences, it is more challenging to hear speech in a noisy environment. I still use a data only Blackberry. The process of hearing with a cochlear implant is exactly that, a process. I will get a cell phone when I am confident I can hear and fully understand speech over a cell phone.

The decision to get a cochlear implant was very personal for me. It was a decision that was totally 100% mine.

I would never force a cochlear implant on anyone who didn't want a cochlear implant. I still plan on having my right ear implanted when the time and circumstances are right. My friends who have cochlear implants in both ears tell me it is like stereo "surround sound." 

Now that I have had my cochlear implant for nine months, I want to hear more. As for being 100% deaf after implantation? With my left ear, I had the cochlear implant done in what audiologists call my "worst" ear. I had so little residual hearing left in that ear, I  didn't miss it.



I can only speak for what is my own truth, what is real for me.

 I would be a liar if I said that I had never been hurt, experienced discrimination because of my deafness. I have never had an issue with being deaf. NEVER. What I have had issues with, is how people perceive my ability to be successful in a hearing world BECAUSE I am deaf. 

My older sister said to me recently, that she didn't fathom how deaf I was until I described in a earlier blog that with the cochlear implant, I could hear myself typing on the computer keyboard.  That just blew her mind, and it was a real aha! moment for my sister.

There was a co-worker, who has since left my organization, who once told me that shaking my head "yes," in a meeting made me "look stupid," and that I would be "better off," if I didn't shake my head, "yes."  Being hearing, the fool didn't have a clue that my nodding my head, "yes," was a perfectly natural, visual reaction for a deaf person. I just simply told him I would take his "constructive criticism" into consideration.  That seemed to please him and he left my office. I remember shaking my head at this person's idiocy.

Certainly I have been treated differently because of my deafness. ABSOLUTELY. That still hasn't changed because I have a cochlear implant. As soon as I start talking, people recognize that I am not hearing. Again, I am still a deaf person with a cochlear implant.

I am NOT going to use my deafness as my personal platform to impose upon people about what I think somebody should do. My deafness doesn't define who I am as a person. It never has.

A cochlear implant hasn't magically made my challenges as a deaf person go away. What a cochlear implant has done for me, it has greatly improved my quality of life.  I feel like I am hearing in High Definition.  People talk about how High Definition Flat Screen TV has really enhanced their television viewing.  Well, I'm hearing in technicolor, high definition and stereo!

Well that's my sermon for this Sunday!