I Can't Hear You

I dont really remember when it was that I realized that I could not hear. I guess when you are born without hearing you never really realize what it is that you are missing. I remember as far back as 3 and even then, I remember seeing lips moving, but never connected to the idea that I was missing something. I also remember seeing a television and seeing the images but having no concept of what was being played on the screen. For me, everything was normal because I had no idea that something was missing.

I think my parents were probably more alarmed then I was. I remember very clearly now that I had an unordinary number of trips to various doctors. I now know that the idea was that I was being tested to see if my hearing was really gone. Again, for me, I had no concept that anything was wrong because in reality, when you dont have something to begin with, its really hard to miss it, or mourn for it.

I wont get too far into the details of what happened once it became clear that I was officially deaf, I will save that for a later blog. For now, I think I will focus on what it was like to be very young and not have a clue that you were very different from everyone else.

I think at a young age the hardest part was not having a clue when someone was sneaking up on you, or sitting in a room with your back to the door and not having a clue that someone had just walked in. That can be un-nerving to even the most hardened people. I learned over time though that my other senses were going to help me out. For example, I have an incredible sense of smell. I quickly learned the smells in my house. The smell of my room, the other rooms, the basement. I learned what my parents smelled like, their cologne or perfume, the hair styling product they used, the baby powder my dad uses after a shower. After a while I learned that I could tell someone was coming into my room just by the smell of their "marking". I say marking because that is what I call the scent that someone has.

I learned to spend more time smelling things, the flowers, the cut grass, the gasoline in the car, the rich smell of cooking in my kitchen. The holidays, especially Christmas were the best. I will spend a whole chapter of this blog on how a deaf person enjoys Christmas. I think you will like it. In short, I began to rely heavily on my nose to help me know when someone was behind me or to tell me when something was wrong when I could not hear it. For instance, a smoke detector was useless to me because I could not hear it but I can tell you, I can smell smoke far before the detector could LOL.

This part is going to sound crazy but I have a sixth sense on things too, I dont know how to explain it but I have a way of being dialed into those funny things that make the hair on your neck stand up. I learned to be dialed into my surroundings...I dont see dead people, I dont mean it like that, but I do have a weird way of just sensing someone around me, or sensing when somethng is about to happen to me. For example, I have dodged many a car that would have likely run me down for my not paying full attention just because something in my gut told me to get out of the way. Weird eh? I bet anyone could do it if they wanted...I just do it out of necessity LOL

Okay, so we have covered some more ground today, talking about my sense of smell, my sixth sense, and being diagnosed as deaf.

In my next entry, I will cover the smells of the holidays and how a deaf person has Christmas...its a little different really. I will also talk about how I communicated, that it, learning to sign. And I will probably touch on making friends.

Onward!