Say What Now?

I got a Baha hearing implant!

2011-03-03T00:03:00.011+10:00

On 7th February, I had surgery to implant a titanium screw into the skull bone behind my right ear. A small abutment (looks like a clothing press stud) was then attached to that screw. Once the implant and bone fuse (a process that takes about 3 months), I will receive my sound processor which clips onto the abutment and my hearing will be much improved.

I'm a member of the Baha users support forum and this following testimony will be included on the website soon...

How do you sum up a lifetime of being deaf in one ear?
My hearing was first tested when I was very young. My parents took me to see a family friend, a top ear specialist here in Australia, as they noticed I wasn’t responding to them if they were on my right side. It also became clear that I had no ability to locate the source of sounds. If someone said my name I would look all around me until I could see them. At first my parents thought it might be glue ear, but tests soon revealed that I had profound sensorineural deafness in my right ear. Apparently my cochlea and hearing nerve decided to be antisocial and didn’t want to talk to each other from day one! Well that was a bit rude of them wasn’t it? Haha. My parents were told that it would be a case of waiting 20 years or so for new hearing technology to be invented. Conventional hearing aids were of no use to me. You can’t amplify sound that isn’t there. That was in about 1988.

Fast forward to 2006 after many years of rusty lipreading skills, positioning people on my left side out of habit, and asking “what?” so many times that I’d be rich if I got a coin for each time I said it! I was tired of asking people to repeat themselves. I was tired of walking into noisy places (like a restaurant) and hearing all this muddled, indistinct speech. I was tired of concentrating during conversations so much. I was tired of being tired. There had to be something better than this.

2006 was the year I discovered there were a few devices that could help me hear better. The first of which was the BAHA implant (trialled using a test headband). I decided not to go ahead with surgery as I wasn’t sure the device really worked for me, though in retrospect I’m not sure that the processor was working properly, but I’ll never know for sure. Instead I went with a crossover hearing aid system (CROS – contralateral routing of signal). The behind-the-ear hearing aid in my right ear has a microphone that picks up sound and sends it wirelessly to the receiver hearing aid in my good ear, creating a perception of sound on the deaf side. I was 20 when I first heard sound in a new way. I could definitely hear and understand more with my hearing aids.

4 years later in 2010 I decided to have a second go at trialling the BAHA, which was like my hearing aids but using bone conduction instead of sound travelling through air. This time I tried out a new BP100 processor which I thought was pretty fancy pants! I trialled it for 1 week, but I had already made my choice to say yes to the surgery in the first half hour! I was ready.

On February 7th, 2011 I had my BAHA surgery under general anaesthetic and stayed overnight in hospital. Soon after, I did a little experiment. I blocked my good ear to see if I could hear anything with my implant (before I get the processor). I can't hear speech or the tv yet, but I could faintly hear the shower running and my mum tapping a spoon against a drinking glass. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself!
Getting hearing aids and now a BAHA implant has helped me to accept my hearing loss and not be shy or self-conscious about it anymore. My friends and family have always supported me and they continue to walk with me in my journey to better hearing. For that I cannot thank them enough.

On May 9th 2011 I will get my BP100 processor. If what I heard during the trial is anything to go by, then for the first time ever I will be entering a world full of so many rich colours, only it will be in sound instead. Thank you for reading my testimony. I will update it after I get my magic box! =)

Compliments

2011-01-24T01:11:00.002+10:00

Doing some reading, I was recently reminded of a few compliments I have received in the past about my hearing aids, and they were so lovely I've never forgotten them.

Kids are curious that's for sure. They are not insulting, they just have a natural curiosity and want to know more about things, so I never mind at all when they ask me things, like this next example:

Exhibit A
I once got a compliment from a 5 year old boy I babysat one night. For example:
Boy: what are those things on your ears?
Me: I explained that they were called hearing aids and that they help me hear the world better etc.
Boy: my friend at big school has those. they're cool!

Exhibit B
About 5 years ago I worked as a checkout chick at a supermarket. I had recently gotten hearing aids for the first time. This lovely woman and her 7 year old daughter would always come to my register to buy things. One day the mother said that I was a great role model for her daughter (as she wore hearing aids too and now had someone to look up to). That was such a nice thing to say! =)

Last year I started decorating my hearing aids with various sticker designs (which is evident from one of my earlier posts). My friends and family say they look cool and I find it fun to jazz them up a bit. Why not have some fun? =)

I'm back!

2011-01-06T13:33:00.003+10:00

Hi all. It's been several months since I posted, owing to lots of stuff going on! I'm hoping to blog more often as I know some of you have been wondering where I've gone!

The biggest piece of hearing-related news is that I'm having surgery in february to get a BAHA bone conduction implant placed in my skull! This will replace my hearing aids and it looks like this:

Here's some more info:
http://www.umm.edu/otolaryngology/baha.htm

New Facebook Page

2010-10-31T21:06:00.005+10:00

I just created a new Facebook page called Brisbane Deaf and Hard of Hearing Social Group as I noticed there is a lack of social groups in the area! It's for chatting online as well as meeting up for social activities in person.
Click on this post title to see the page!

Audiology reports

2010-09-06T02:47:00.002+10:00

I know a few of you were after some documentation of my audiology results, so I decided to scan in some stuff!

Results from 30/06/06 - right before I got my hearing aids

Most recent results from 16/11/09 - nothing's changed over the years. Still deaf as a post on the right!

It's been a while!

2010-08-31T15:50:00.007+10:00

It's been a while since my last post here. I moved interstate recently so blogging has been on the backburner! I've got a few different things relating to hearing loss that I've noticed over the past few months, so I'll share them here.

1. I went to a Subway sandwich outlet last week in Brisbane and to my delight, they had a touch screen ordering system. This is very user-friendly for people with hearing or speech issues as all you have to do is touch through the options, select your roll or wrap, select the ingredients you want on it and then it spits out a piece of paper with your order clearly written and how much it costs. I wish they had these everywhere because I had trouble understanding people in the noisy food court with all that background noise around! It also makes the process much quicker for everyone. I often have trouble ordering food in noisy environments as I can't hear the words clearly, so this ordering system is a great way around that. Some smart person has come up with a great idea, so hats off to them! =)

2. I discovered an awesome new assistive listening device (ALD) that I would love to buy, but sadly it's still in the early stages. The (not at all questionably named) Vibering Sensor is basically a device that determines sound direction for people (like me) who are hard of hearing or deaf, or who missed out on the standard hearing package at birth as I did. I know I've mentioned this before, but you need 2 ears to work out the direction a sound is coming from and how far away the sound is from you. As I have 1 ear that works, I guess my brain is the hard drive that could use a speaker system upgrade! haha. People invent cool gadgets all the time and I reckon this one is going to be a lifesaver if I can get my hands on one.

Here's what the website says:
"The deaf of the world are not just being deprived of music, a sweet whisper and a simple phone call. They are also lacking the ability to be fairly warned of impending danger from out of sight sources. Designers Kwang-seok Jeong, Min-hee Kim and Hyun-joong Kim really deserve a round of silent applause for this inspired design. “Vibering” is an ingenious way to help the deaf, by fashionably housing a sound detection and identification system to be worn as a pair of rings and a wristwatch. The rings are to be worn on both hands and are the ears that not only listen for sounds emanating from behind, they also determine distance, position and vibrate according to source. The wristwatch aspect, identifies the sound wave and presents this info to the wearer in an easy to read display. The watch is programmed to listen for certain key phrases from humans like “Excuse Me..”, your name being called and any number of car noises including the most important one, a car’s horn. This device concept could not just be a major life enhancer for the deaf, it would most certainly save lives."
http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/06/03/stereo-listening-rings-two-rings-to-rule-them-all/

3. Finally, I saw Claire Hooper (from Good News Week) do some stand up comedy on saturday night. One of the audience members was a sign interpreter for deaf kids, so Claire got on the topic of sign language. She only knew how to sign 3 things. They weren't useful but they were funny! Here's the phrases she signed:
"I'm behind this wall!!"
"So, Steve tells me you're blind"
"And that's how I lost my arms!"

Ups and downs

2010-07-12T16:16:00.006+10:00

Everyone has good and bad days, no matter who you are. For those of us who are hard of hearing or deaf, sometimes communication can be difficult, but hopefully we don't let it get the best of us. I'm a 'glass half full' kind of person and always try to see the optimistic side, but sometimes I just need to vent.

I guess I want to find out some way to improve things beyond lipreading and using hearing aids.
I'm tired of asking people to repeat what they say to me.
I'm tired of sometimes missing out hearing the punchline to a joke and watching everyone laugh. By the time I ask what the punchline was, the moment has passed.
I'm tired of ignorant people assuming that I'm stupid or less intelligent because I wear hearing aids, or that something is wrong with me when I misunderstand what someone says and try to guess.
I'm tired of ignorant people assuming hearing aids are just for the elderly, or that when others notice my aids, they mention that the only people they know who wear them are their grandparents etc. I would really like to meet some other young people like me who wear hearing aids, but I don't know where to start.
Sometimes I'm just tired of missing out on life.

All this makes me think of my childhood. I'm taken back to a time where playing games was the norm as I was a kid. Take "Marco Polo" for example - that game where you try and find another person in a pool with your eyes closed. If you're in you say "Marco" and the person you're looking for says "Polo". I hated that game, basically because winning it relied solely on something that I do not have - directional hearing. I used to have to "cheat" and dunk under the water, looking for the other person with my eyes open. It was either that or I got teased and ridiculed for not finding the other person, and my role as the person in was retired.

Most people have directional hearing. I do not. Being able to know what direction a sound is coming from relies on 2 functioning ears. The sound arrives to one ear a split second earlier than the other ear, so you can gauge not only the location of a sound, but how far away it is. As I was born with one deaf ear, it's literally an impossible task. If someone calls me and I can't see them, I will literally spin around in a circle looking for them until I find out where they are. Unless someone creates some great miracle hearing aid or implant etc. that can fully restore directional hearing, I will never experience this, but I accepted that a long time ago. I just rely on my vision to cross roads and watch out for cars etc. There are some things that I will never be able to do, but that is life. It's best to learn to accept that and establish manageable and realistic goals in life.

All this being said, the best way to improve communication is to get the attention of a deaf/hard of hearing person before you begin speaking. I clearly remember last year being at a shopping centre with some friends in the city I have just moved to. One of my friends had obviously been trying to call my name because she then walked into my line of vision and tapped my arm to get my attention. I realised she must have been standing behind me and I generally don't hear people unless I see them, especially if they are behind me.

So rule of thumb, if I can't see you I probably can't hear you either!

Myths and Misconceptions

2010-07-05T02:04:00.002+10:00

I am still surprised at how many people out there still think that getting hearing aids instantly restores full hearing. This is the biggest misconception out of all the ones out there so I thought I'd include a list of some.
My hearing is improved when I wear my hearing aids. I hear more, however, I still find it very hard to understand conversation in background noise because the hearing aids amplify someone's voice AND the background noise as well. It's like turning up the juice on everything, so I definitely still have to lip read etc.

MYTHS ABOUT DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING PERSONS
MYTH All hearing losses are the same
MYTH All deaf people are mutes
MYTH All deaf people use hearing aids
MYTH All deaf people use sign language

And from http://hearinglosshelp.com/weblog/seven-myths-hearing-people-harbor-concerning-hard-of-hearing-people.php

Seven Myths Hearing People Harbor Concerning Hard of Hearing People
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Hearing loss is typically misunderstood by the general population. Thus, it is not surprising that many hearing people have bought into the following 7 myths regarding hearing loss and the people with these losses.

Myth No. 1. Hard of hearing people are less intelligent than “hearing” people. Thus, they attach this social stigma to having a hearing loss. This myth is so deeply ingrained in the general population that even today most hard of hearing people refuse to wear hearing aids for fear of being thought stupid. The truth is, hard of hearing people are just like other people. Some are smart and some are not. Don’t blame any perceived lack of intelligence on hearing loss. Place the blame where it should be—on communication difficulties.

Myth No. 2. Wearing hearing aids returns hearing to normal. Not true. Hearing aids can improve hearing—typically reducing the hearing loss by half—but never bring it up to normal. Thus hard of hearing people still have a hearing loss even when wearing their hearing aids. They often need to supplement what they hear by using assistive devices, by speechreading and by using other effective hearing loss coping strategies.

Myth No. 3. Hard of hearing people have selective hearing. They only hear what they want to hear, but they can hear if they really want to. While it is true that hard of hearing people do indeed have selective hearing, it is not because they don’t pay attention. Rather, it is because their ears do not hear certain frequencies of sounds. They have no choice over which sounds they hear and don’t hear.

Myth No. 4. Only old people have a hearing loss. Not true. Because of excessive noise exposure, taking medications that damage ears, ear infections and other factors, hearing loss affects children, adults and seniors alike. One study showed that on any given day, 15% of the children in elementary schools have a significant hearing loss.

Myth No. 5. When you have a hearing loss you somehow (magically) become a good lip reader. Thus, since hard of hearing people can read lips, it doesn’t matter whether they hear or not. Fact: lip reading, (now more correctly called speechreading) while invaluable, is far from perfect. Only about 30% of English sounds can be easily read on a person’s lips. That leaves the hard of hearing person guessing at the remaining 70%. While a few are remarkably good at this, no one is perfect.

Myth No. 6. If a hard of hearing person can’t hear you, raise your voice at them. The truth is, most hard of hearing people need you to speak up just a bit, but they really want you to face them, then speak slowly and enunciate clearly. This is because when you lose some of your hearing, you hear people talking, but often you can’t understand much of what they are saying.

Myth No. 7. Hard of hearing people understand sign language. Therefore, in order to accommodate people with hearing loss at meetings, you just need to provide a sign language interpreter. Fact: of the 70 million people with hearing loss, fewer than 1% know how to sign. Hard of hearing people typically need to use, in addition to their hearing aids, various assistive devices and real-time captioning (CART).

And one bonus myth—Myth No. 8. If you speak normally, you obviously can’t have much of a hearing loss, therefore you are really faking it when you speak properly but say you can’t hear. The truth is, the vast majority of hard of hearing people speak normally. Some people that have more severe hearing losses and don’t wear hearing aids talk louder than normal. Other people with profound hearing losses speak in a flat tone (deaf speech). And surprise, some people with severe to profound hearing losses speak perfectly normally too. I’m one of them!

Amusing slogans and funny stuff

2010-06-12T02:02:00.002+10:00

I'm on a Facebook group called "Deaf in one ear? Yes". One of the posts made there was about funny slogans/bumper stickers and the like related to single sided deafness. These people have some amusing ideas!:

"Single siders do it still asking you to repeat yourself"

"Pardon?"

"I'm deaf, not stupid"

"Single siders always choose the right side"

"Dolby Sound is for losers, Mono all the way!!!" (haha I really like this one!)

"No I can hear you, I am just ignoring you!"

A t-shirt with an arrow that says "walk on this side!", or a t-shirt with an arrow pointing at your deaf ear saying "idiots stand here" (or maybe both on the same shirt?).

And now for my personal favourite. One clever woman suggested a pair of earrings. One for her good ear that says "may I help you?", and the other one for her deaf ear that could say "out of order - please use other ear"

Hahaha the things people come up with! I so want to make a pair of earrings like that now!

Getting creative!

2010-06-05T20:57:00.003+10:00

Wow it's been a while since I posted here! I thought I'd update things.
I felt inspired by a little creativity I saw on a blog by (e (see my blog links to the side of the page). (e decided to decorate her hearing aids with stickers you put on finger or toenails. I've also done this for nights out in the past using stick-on coloured rhinestones in blue, pink and purple. I bought some stickers at the newsagent the other day to add a bit of spark to my normally boring looking tan hearing aids. Here's the result!
ps. I wish my aids came in purple, or zebra stripes like Phonak Naida's have on them. That would look so cool! Sadly, my CROS aids only come in tan, so it's sticker time!

Is there a Hard of Hearing culture?

2010-04-01T19:47:00.006+10:00

So I was reading Shanna Groves' comments over at her Lip Reader blog (see link to your right under my blog list). She was talking about the concept of a hard of hearing culture, which I think is an interesting concept.

What makes a culture? To me it's a group of people sharing a collective way of doing things, with traditions and generally a common language. Take Deaf culture for example. In Shanna's blog she says "The Deaf culture is something its participants are proud of, a culture with a shared ASL language and communication style that goes back many years".

So a culture shares a set of common things. It has an identity. People who are hard of hearing may have different ways of communicating. I for one, communicate orally, use hearing aids, lip reading and I watch a person's body language and gesturing when they speak. I've also started watching movies with the captions on because I find it easier to watch without having to concentrate on every word so much.
There are lots of different ways to communicate - direct sign language, orally, having a sign language interpreter, lipreading, using various assistive listening devices such as FM systems and hearing aids etc.

Keeping all this in mind, does a hard of hearing culture exist, given the varying communication methods? If one does exist, what does it look like? What are the collective things that make it a culture? I think a culture can be built on the fact that there are things which are unique to certain people. Eg. I have never felt part of the hearing community because I don't have fully functioning hearing, nor do I feel a part of the Deaf community as I don't know how to sign (yet!) and I've never shared in that culture.
To make things more confusing, I generally hear well in quiet environments but am pretty much deaf in noisy ones with lots of background noise. I feel like I'm in the middle. Just some food for thought.

Time for a laugh!

2010-02-17T00:00:00.003+10:00

I saw this today and found it really funny. It's an ad from the 2008 American Super Bowl called Bob's House. It illustrates a popular joke in the deaf community.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffrq6cUoE5A&feature=PlayList&p=BD6D8E3E19C3BEE7&index=20&playnext=3&playnext_from=PL

Movies and tv shows

2010-02-02T00:08:00.003+10:00

This clip is from the American tv show called "Glee". It involves the Glee cast singing John Lennon's "Imagine" while Haverbrook Deaf Choir sign in ASL (American Sign Language).

It gives me goosebumps every time I watch it! Enjoy! (and be prepared to be blown away!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDBeceraGNs&feature=related

Also, I watched a movie recently called "Mr Holland's Opus". I had seen it before but not for a long time. The synopsis goes like this...
Glenn Holland is a musician and composer who takes a teaching job to pay the rent while, in his 'spare time', he can strive to achieve his true goal - compose one memorable piece of music to leave his mark on the world. As Holland discovers 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans' and as the years unfold, the joy of sharing his contagious passion for music with his students become his new definition of success. Written by {russell.boyd@dsto.defence.gov.au}

Early on in the movie his toddler-aged son, Cole becomes deaf as a result of acoustic trauma. Although it's a very emotional and personal movie (due to me being a musician who is half deaf), it's very well done and it has grown to be one of my favourites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c68Z7-qVu7g

Both these things spur me on to learn Auslan (Australian Sign Language), so I will look into starting classes this year.

Resources

2010-01-24T02:18:00.005+10:00

They say curiosity kills the cat, but so far I've found out a lot of interesting stuff on the web about deafness and hearing loss without consequence. Also, all the moggies in my street are just fine, so I don't think that statement rings true somehow!

I found this article which talks about single-sided deafness. "A day in the life" type story, which I have to say is the most accurate description of it I've ever read. The only major differences between me and this guy are that (Well I'm female to state the obvious haha), I'm not married, I never had any hearing in the right ear to start with, and I hear a smoke alarm loud and clear. Actually that's an understatement. Smoke alarms are so loud and high-pitched that I find it extremely painful to listen to them go off. I have to block my good ear if that happens.
Anyways, have a read. It's really well written!

http://tribalvillages.org/deaf-essays/single-sided-deafness.html

On another note, I found something amusing as well. This version and similar versions are floating around the net.

The Ten Commandments (for those who interact with the hard of hearing).

1. Thou shalt not speak from another room.

2. Thou shalt not speak with your back toward the person with a hearing problem.

3. Thou shalt not start speaking and then turn away from the person with the problem.

4. Thou shalt not speak in competition with anything else (running water, TV, etc.)

5. Thou shalt get the attention of the person before you begin speaking.

6. Thou shalt speak face to face whenever possible.

7. Thou shalt try to remove obstructions such as your hand from in front of your mouth.

8. Thou shalt speak clearly and distinctly (no mumbling.)

9. Thou shalt exercise patience when communicating with a hard of hearing person.

10. Thou shalt be supportive to that person.

My first post!

2010-01-19T23:45:00.003+10:00

Hi people! So this is my first post on my first blog. I've started to read up a lot on topics/discussions about hearing loss and deafness. There's some really interesting stuff out there! I thought it was about time I started a blog to keep track of this stuff, reflect on it and get feedback from like-minded people.

I probably should be sociable and introduce myself.
I'm 23 and if you want to get technical, I have what's called *takes breath* "Profound Congenital Unilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss".
Cool name right? but what does it mean? In simpler terms, I'm profoundly (completely) deaf in my right ear due to nerve deafness and have been since birth. How come you say? Nobody knows. All I know is that I have a busted inner ear (cochlea to be specific). Ok anatomy lesson over.

Since 2006 I've been wearing wireless CROS hearing aids (Contralateral Routing of Signal). They are behind-the-ear hearing aids (one on each ear). Basically they take the sound arriving on the right side of my head (my deaf side) and feed it into my opposite ear. When I have the aids in I can now hear just enough on my bad side to alert me to some sounds, and thus I turn around to see what's happening on that side.

I consider myself "half-deaf", "hard of hearing", "deaf" or that I "have a hearing loss" interchangeably. Depends on how I feel at the time. I personally don't like using the terms "hearing impaired" or "hearing disability" as the latter words are negative and place an emphasis on what we can't do rather than what we can. Some people use these terms for themselves. It's all about what you feel comfortable with really!

I'm gonna leave you with a little quote I like...

"Deaf people can do anything a hearing person can, except hear." — I. King Jordan