Pieces of Me

October 5th, 2012.  Yes, that is correct.  My surgery for my first implant will be October 5th, 2012.  I am excited about it! Now after tomorrow, October 1st, 2012, I will be four days away from my surgery!  My MRI scan looked good and my ENT doctor gave me the go ahead for the surgery.  Buuuuttttt.....here's the kicker, due to how my insurance runs, I first needed the Medical Clearance from my Primary doctor, whom I do not like so much. Well, as of September 28th, 2012, my doctor said my blood work looked good and gave me the green light to go! Yippee!  So in the meantime, I will continue with my daily routines such as yoga, walking, Pilate's and the exercise ball.  I have been staying functional and healthy and keeping in shape.  After surgery, for about four weeks, I will not be able to do any of those things as I will be taking it easy to heal properly.  However, when I do get the okay to start back up, I do have a few workouts in min...

As I have previously wrote in my blog about going for the Cochlear Implant, I am striving to do more with my own life. Being hard of hearing and turning late deafen is not something anyone wants to go through, but it happens.  As I have been struggling for the last few years here in Buffalo, NY, I just find that the area I am in does not want to hire people with disabilities unless they are backed by an agency.  I find the practice to be unfair and discouraging.  I never ever in my life used an agency in helping me secure a job.  I have taken advantage of getting help with my educational studies but not for finding a job since I did pretty well on my own.  Yet, circumstances changes and not everyone is accommodating.  So life gets easily frustrating on a lot of days. While I am still learning about trying to find ways to gain employment, living off a fixed income is really killing me.  I usually am able to keep a balance between everything but as p...

In my tab attached to this blog you will notice "CI Journey".  This tab contains the updates on my journey to getting my first implant.  Since I haven't been blogging as much, life can get busy for this single mom and even I need to take a break from cyberspace as it can get a bit overwhelming. For those of you who read my blogs, I am a single hard of hearing mom who is becoming late deafen.  I originally lost my hearing at the ripe old age of four - the age of language development - due to an "unknown" childhood illness.  Since then I have been wearing hearings aids for a good 25 years now.  I did not go to any special schools growing up.  I had to deal with regular schools- trust me they had no idea how accommodate a hard of hearing student.  Keep in mind, when I started Pre-K it was 1987-1988 before the ADA (American Disabilities Act) of 1991 came into play. I can't say I gained many friends during my childhood.  It was not e...

The title of this post speaks for itself to an extent.  However, I will reflect upon how uncomfortable I have been these last few weeks. I have been brought up in a christian/catholic like home.  I know catholics have among one of the strictest guidelines in how to live your life according to The Word of the Bible.  However, it is not so bad once you understand how consequences play a huge role in how it can change people in more than one way.  In my case, I play more than a dozen roles in different people lives and honest to God, I hate it. I was raise to be a housewife, primary caregiver, the head of household, the bookkeeper and more.  These are skills that are not taught to young girls anymore.  All these things taught me about having self-respect, built up my self-esteem, self-confident, and more.  Most of all it taught me how to be independent of others.  I value my independence more than anything for a few good reasons.  One of the...

Things have changed in terms of moods and emotions lately.  I know where my loyalty lies but for one to question my loyalty to them, hmmm....it only makes me wonder if they truly respect the position I find myself in.   Trust me, I avoid including people in my life for a reason and I honestly don't feel like explaining the why especially now. My loyalty will always lie with my blood relatives, no questions asked.  As for those who have know me for more than a decade I do consider them extended family, but for those who have known me for less and decided to "volunteer" to make me and my son a part of their family, I'm sorry but I seriously have a problem with that. I am my own person and my own individual.  I take pride in my own work and making a name for myself on my own terms.  I do not associate my name with anyone else's and I usually keep it that way. I usually don't ask for help or ask for advice, I was raised to solve my own problems and come up w...

Today I just bid farewell to my grandmother as I laid her to rest on top of my mother who went before her.  She lived to be 93 years old. Today I got to see faces I have not seen in years, almost a decade for most.  Driving into my hometown was like a trip down memory lane and driving past my old home, where I was raised by my grandma only gave me a sense of hope that betters days are yet to come. It has been three years since I last saw my grandma.  She was still moving around and talking, making sure she was on the move.  The one thing about her no matter what she always took home with her and today we all know she is home with the Lord. I have not been writing as much due to life events taking its place.  However, it is in my experience that no matter what, I am always thinking about what events in my life taught me to be the person I am, the woman I am today.  I smile today because I know deep down inside  I have grown from all the ...

Tonight I attended a local meeting and I learned something about myself.  I am helpful, more helpful in educating and knowing the resources that are out there for hard of hearing and deaf individuals.  I'm no expert, but I think I come pretty close to it. I lost my hearing when I was just four years old.  As I was thinking back to that time and up to today, even I was offended by my own hearing loss because I feed off of the hearing individuals who were always around me.  I was never around other hard of hear or deaf individuals.  Now as I approach the age of 29 I am still new to the hard of hearing and deaf community.  I feel left out due to losing my vocabulary in ASL, (BOOOO!) I know.  Now, I am thinking about signing up for a few ASL classes and hopefully get some practice in so that I may interact with those who have used ASL all their life. When you grow up in a "hearing" community, you get used to being left out or picked on or even taking o...