Choices, July 4, 2013

I just finished watching an episode on "Switched At Birth".  The episode was titled: "He did what he wanted".  It touched briefly on the subject of cochlear implants.  There was a scene played by Sean Berdy, a Deaf son angrily signing to his TV Deaf Dad, "So being deaf isn't good enough for you,"?

The turf wars between Deaf and people who are deaf have been going on since Mother Nature and Father Time.

You have some Deaf folks passionately saying they would NEVER choose to hear with something "artificial" like a cochlear implant.  Well, there's nothing artificial about hearing.

God made ears for humans, and ears serve a purpose.

I grew up deaf in a Hearing World.  I am still in a Hearing World and I am still deaf, in spite of being able to hear bilaterally with cochlear implants.  Deafness has been a part of my life for a very long time.

I have a hearing family.  Many of my friends are hearing. I have Hard of Hearing friends, I have deaf friends and I have Deaf friends.

I'm not about to reject my long-standing hearing friends or my hearing family or my Hard of Hearing Friends or my deaf friends or my Deaf friends who have been my friends through the test of time. 

I know who my friends are. Hearing, Hard of Hearing, Deaf or deaf people like me who grew up in a hearing world.

See, as a bionic "cyborg" friend put it recently, it truly is about choices.  It really and truly is about the CHOICE to have a cochlear implant, as much as it is about the CHOICE to be Deaf and embrace Deaf Culture. It is also about the CHOICE to hear with nothing: no hearing aids, no cochlear implants, nothing.

I made a personal choice to hear with cochlear implants and I have absolutely no regrets.
None.

I have more choices before me post-cochlear implants than I did before I was implanted with cochlear implants.

These past few years post-cochlear implants, have been so life changing, I could not have dreamed this.

This is what the 4th of July represents to me:  The choice to hear.  That to me, IS freedom.

Amazing. For that, I am truly thankful for the freedom to hear.