The biggest reason I blog is to educate. As I've illustrated several times by now, I am not great at taking opportunities to educate people on how to communicate with the deaf and hard of hearing. So blogging is a way to, I don't know, make up for it, I guess. I feel like I can explain things more clearly once I've considered the situation. I figure even if the person who needed the educating has long moved on, it was still a learning experience. And I end up educating myself in the process, too, as I figure out what I could have done better in a particular situation or even why I needed this accommodation or that one.
But even then, some things seem so obvious to me that I don't think they are worth mentioning. I wonder how many things are going untold to others because I assume they know about it. Or how many things about my own hearing loss I am overlooking because I just don't think about it. So... what would you want to know? If you could sit down with a deaf or hard of hearing person and ask any question without worrying about if it was offensive or silly, what would you ask?
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Wow. I know I've thought of things that I want to ask Julia when she's older, but of course at the moment I can't think of the whole list.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember being able to hear? That's on the list.
Tonight Julia asked me when she can get her hearing fixed. It made me a little sad, but I do hope there's something out there for the both of you in the coming years.
Would you consider an implant or stem cell therapy to improve your hearing?
Good questions! I have lofty goals of starting something like a "What would you ask" Wednesday feature thing, so I aim to answer these questions in a post soon!
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was a preteen, I asked my mom if I would be hearing by the time I was 14. I don't know what was so important about the age of 14, but for some reason, I really expected to be "fixed" by then. Fourteen came and went and even though I was older and wiser by then, I was still a little disappointed.
I'm not so disappointed today, though. Hearing loss is hard, but it's good to do hard things. We're better people for it, I think.
Thanks for your questions!
Ahem, if a certain English professor were to speak regularly and awkwardly over sexual topics and your interpreter blushed easily, how do you think that would work out? I still associate signing with The Sound and the Fury, by the way.
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