Archive for June 2017

Celebrating One Year In the Hearing World

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Today is the day.

Today I am celebrating one year in the hearing world.

I am asked two questions very frequently, and today my friend Mandi asked me them again, so I thought I would blog about my answers!

Number 1: What made entering the hearing world so hard?

When you get hearing devices there are so many things that happen that people do not realize. For one, your brain needs to adjust to the new "sounds" that are coming in. They are not actually sounds, but energy that is being created by the device that tells your brain that your cochlea's are getting the energy they need to create sounds. Since mine are "broken" from birth, my brain does the work that my cochlea's would be doing.

Before hearing devices, my brain was trying the best it could to do the work to let me "hear" what the world sounds like. Reading lips, "filling in" where I did not hear, and plain old helping me navigate this big world with out the ability to hear it took more work than I knew I was doing.

When my hearing devices replaced my system for navigating the world, that changed the part of my brain that was doing the work. That change was a lot of work. Physically.

Learning sounds was a lot of work.

Every day for the last year, I have learned new sounds. Every single day.

Imagine living in a world for 50 years, not knowing many sounds exist. Then one day, hearing many many new sounds and having to learn what each one is.

That has been my year.

The second most asked question is what is my favorite part of hearing?

Communication.

I can communicate more accurately.

I heard my voice, my true voice, for the first time one year ago today.

I had no idea I had a sweet gentle voice.

As most know, I heard a deep and gravelly voice my whole life.

Being able to use my voice in so many other ways has been quite the experience.

Hearing what I truly sound like has been like a miracle.

I have learned so much about me now that I hear me.

It has been a wonderful year.

I am glad it is behind me though.

I look forward to learning more as I continue to go through this wonderful life.

And I look forward to using my voice for good in this world.

#deafHOHproud

Most of all, I am grateful for these wonderful peeps and their patience teaching me all I needed to learn this year. Without them, I could not have done all the hard work it has taken to transition from my wonderful deaf world to my wonderful hearing world.







#blessed