Seeds of Disquiet: One Deaf Woman’s Experience

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--------------2---At first the family doctor thought my sickness was one of the flu viruses making the rounds in the community. But when my temperature continued to shoot up and I started to hallucinate , he knew I was grappling with something more serious. It was an anxious time for my family, but there were pleasant moments for me. As my body lay in bed, I felt weightless, and I imagined myself floating above my room, watching everything that happened with fascination. I was out of school for nearly four months while recovering , from November 1958 until February 1959. Twice I was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where I had tests, spinal taps, and consultations. My mother stayed with her sister Marilyn and came to see me during visiting hours. She tried to keep me occupied with books and toys. I hated the hospital. It was frightening to be in a strange place and not be able to understand what was being done to me. The boredom, the lack of exercise, the endless poking and probing by a succession of strange people, and the fear at being separated from my family made me very anxious. Doctors discovered that I had a permanent, profound hearing loss. Whatever feelings my parents had about the news, they either hid or could not share with me. They busied them12 Seeds of Disquiet selves with the task at hand-trying to cope with a child who had been suddenly deafened. Oliver and Evelyn Woodhouse were all smiles when they came to visit me during my recuperation at home. There were days I could barely move, and I was sometimes in pain, but Uncle Ollie would pick me up effortlessly in his burly arms. He and Auntie Ev amused me and took my mind off the aches and unrelenting boredom. Many years later, my mother confided that one of her great sorrows was knowing that I would never again hear music. On one of our visits to Mass General, she heard Christmas music being played. When she saw that I was totally oblivious to the carols I had loved, she was devastated. She left the room so that I would not see her tears. I had been surrounded by music since the day I was born. My family didn't have the trendiest of clothes or the neighborhood 's best landscaping, but there were always funds to spare for the current hit records. The years before I lost my hearing were bathed in the many moods created by music. I was a loyal fan of the Mickey Mouse Club and my favorite singer was Rosemary Clooney. Gayle and I had planned to follow in Gram McIntosh's footsteps, and we had been taking piano lessons. It was at the piano that I first began to notice the fading of my hearing. The keys became hollow-sounding and disembodied, as if I were playing the piano from a great distance. My parents had been told by several doctors that I should be sent to a school for the deaf in Portland, Maine. A social worker, however, gave them conflicting advice. Mom and Dad still remember his words clearly. "Raise her as normally as possible ," he said. "If she goes to the deaf school in Portland she will be out of the real world." Choosing to follow the social worker's advice was a decision strongly reinforced after my mother met a recent graduate 13 Seeds of Disquiet of the school for the deaf. He was twelve years my senior, but we were reading at almost the same level. My parents had no faith in a school that had been able to teach him so little. The school system in Lisbon Falls agreed to send someone to work with me at home so that I could stay with my original class. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Demjanovich, graded me "Satisfactory" in all categories on my report card that year, just as Mrs. Jones had. But in those days, grades weren't given for subjects-they were for social objectives like school attitude, promptness, sportsmanship, and taking criticism profitably. Clearly I was turning into a good "comrade." Deafness had made me something of a lost soul. Overnight , without hearing to reinforce it, my speech became all but unintelligible. And I couldn't automatically learn speechreading , so I was cut off totally from my friends, family, and...