Pieces of Me

In the recent months, I have learned more than I ever could possible learned about my own "disability" and how I'm not the only one who has to go through the motions of living in a predominant hearing world.  As I am educating myself, researching and reviewing different perspectives from people who have been hard of hearing all their life, deaf all their life and people who loss their hearing later on, only to learn the harsh reality that many who had a hearing loss been dealing with for years.  The reality of it is still harsh, in my opinion, and I believe its due to lack of public understanding, acceptance, and mostly noted the IGNORANT statements made by those who have no clue what's its like to live with any degree of hearing loss.  I even hate to say this, but even people who are highly educated and respected, are ignorant to those who suffer hearing loss across the board.  If no one is in the Hearing Health Field as professionals they won't ...

I have not being on my desktop to write as much as I used to and have been writing more in my hand-written journals.  My computer is getting old and sometimes while I'm typing up a blog it tends to either froze up and restart the page again or shut down on me completely while losing my thoughts that have already been written down.  So if you are a reader of this page, forgive the absent of more up to date materials. As I have wrote in the past, I was recently a recipient for Cochlear Americas Nucleus 5 Processor with the CI422 implant electrodes.  My surgery was on my right ear on October 5, 2012 and my activation was on November 19, 2012.  I'm still going through adjustments and it's going to take some getting used to.  I am also trying to find my match in the adjustment settings where I can hear clearly without struggling too much.  But only in due time with rehabilitation will I be able to find that medium, that match. I have also been absent from ma...

Now, I'm not trying to come off like I know everything so bare with me in this note. Yesterday, a senseless crime took place on an elementary school grounds leaving twenty little children dead along with six adults plus the gunman himself.  Before this, there was Columbine; Gabby Gifford, A federal Judge and a young child attending a outing among others;then we have a open fire in a Movie theater, we have Virgina Tech, then we have the Mall shooting.  Everyone is screaming GUN CONTROL!  But I must ask you to take a step back and think. Our founding fathers who laid out our Constitutional Amendments and the Bills of Rights did not intent for guns to be used in such a senseless way.  Now, we all know that the second is "The right to bear arms"- it was intended for military use, sports, hunting and protection.  Now, I think the "protection" part is the part where I feel some has abused it more than the other reasons intended for the rights to b...

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...