Living life as a deaf person can be difficult, particularly when I was not born deaf, and when I’m not 100% deaf. I’m what’s called profoundly deaf, in a nutshell I am truly 100% deaf to a large percentage of different pitches (more than 50%) and the pitches I am able to hear have to be at least 140 decibels for the sound to even register with me – that’s the same volume as a jet engine! The truth is, a small plane could fly over my head and I would not hear it. So, I am deaf, but since I still pick up pieces of sound, not completely.
I’ve always had hearing loss or been hard of hearing, but it was never crippling. In school, I always asked to sit in the front even though I had perfect eyesight. I always had music and things on maximum volumes and when having a conversation I needed a person to maintain eye contact. Even though all of this was the case as far back as I can remember, hearing loss never occurred to me. It never occurred to me that I needed people to look at me because I was actually reading their lips, something I instinctively picked up and taught myself how to do. And that’s why I wanted to be in the front of a class etc. My parents just assumed I didn’t listen. I’m not sure why, because my family has a brittle bone disease that also causes severe hearing loss. And I have this disease, as does my mother and my brother. My mother is also hard-of-hearing, so why didn’t anyone ever think of following up? That’s a whole other story for another time. But the point is, no one ever questioned my hearing, and I never had a hearing test done.
