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When Batteries Die
- Gallaudet University Press
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137 When Batteries Die As recently as 2002, I would tell people I was deaf without my hearing aids. Now, with my cochlear implant, I say, “With my device on, I hear and understand about percent of everything spoken and know what most sounds are. But when the batteries die, or I take the device off, I am still deaf.” The CI fascinates people. Some wonder if I have a hole in my scalp for the device to hold on to the exterior (a visual that sends me to a chair to sit and not faint). I have a magnet inside my scalp that is permanent. When I put the voice processor on, it attaches to my scalp by a magnet. When I worked in a school, I made the children laugh when I would take the piece off my ear and let it dangle in midair from the magnet. All the years I spent explaining hearing loss to hearing people was a great training ground for explaining my implant and how it works. People are amazed I hear as well as I do. I stand amazed to this day as well. Unplugged Vacuum Doesn’t Do the Job January , All three of our children are grown to adulthood, two with children of their own. Not too long ago our youngest daughter, Mary, and son, Michael were visiting. It was confession time. Uh-oh . . . what were we going to hear? Mary confessed that she hated vacuuming when she was younger. OK, I thought, I don’t like it either. She went on to say that when it was her chore for the week, she used to run the vacuum without turning it on. But the tracks from the vacuum showed. We laughed and I said it must have been harder to vacuum with it turned off. She agreed. Other childhood confessions followed. Somehow , we all survived. Recently, I was reflecting on this confession time, glad our children realize the “error of their ways.” We, as parents , were far from perfect as well. That’s probably why our family stays close. We love each other in spite of our imperfections. How often do we make life harder than it needs to be? We struggle to push the unplugged vacuum across the rug. All the outward signs of a finished job are evident, but the job is not completed. We work twice as hard as we need to. It is a human condition. The “signs” are all on the surface. The dirt and dust remain in the carpet. In our souls. For many years I pushed ahead pretending that I could hear, pretending to understand. Why? Now it’s confession time for me, only this is very public. I wanted to be thought of as “normal,” “average,” “the same as everyone else.” I didn’t want to stand out as peculiar. Now I look on the word peculiar as unique; an individual. I like it and am comfortable being unique. I also cope with another invisible condition, Multiple Sclerosis. Some time ago I asked my doctor why I had all these weird problems . “You are not weird, you are unique,” he stated. I remember laughing. I was still pushing, in those days. I have stopped pushing to be the world’s version of normal. It is impossible for me to fit into any mold. A couple of summers ago, I was asked to sign some of my poetry at Deaf Poetry in the Park. I was so nervous. Would the Deaf accept me because I was not born Deaf? Would my hard of hearing friends think 138 Day by Day [3.236.252.14] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 05:46 GMT) I had abandoned them for the Deaf world? Would anyone understand what my poetry meant? Would my signing be OK? I fretted so. Then I received an e-mail from a friend, Pat Vincent, who quoted a famous person. He said, “Liz, all I can say is a quote from Popeye: ‘I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam’ and ‘Be just what you is, not what you is not. Folks such as this is the happiest lot.’ ” He went on to say, “Just be yourself and don’t worry about what others think.” That was tough, since I was just learning who “myself” was: “Too soon old, too late smart.” But when I got up to sign, I thought, “I yam what I yam...