Top 10 Reasons for Learning Sign Language

Ear Science Institute Website

I've been hanging around the internet lately and my story pops up again on the Ear Science Institute Australia's website. You all know the story, even I'm getting bored with it, but a bit of publicity is good if it can help someone else.

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Team Sports - I've done it!

Team sports present a minor problem for deaf with cochlear implant people. There is the worry of not hearing the whistle when you've done something wrong, not hearing your team mates calling you, and then there is the worry of the device itself. Mostly sweat getting into it or getting hit by the ball or being knocked off. 

Despite these worries I started playing netball this morning and it went really well! I'm not saying I'm a great player (far from it) but my cochlear wasn't an issue. I tucked it into a head band and told my team I was deaf and that was it. I could hear the whistle OK and just asked anyone around me what was going on and they were great. Easy. Now I can tick team sports off the list - smile!

Three Month Review

I had my three month review yesterday with my amazing audi. She tested all sorts of things but the end result was to drastically reduce the stimulation rate on my auditory nerves. What does this mean? God knows, but what I did get was that the computer (which controls my implant settings) had set my nerve stimulation rate at 900. This isn't actually that high but it was causing my nerves to react negatively when they had sound passed through them (the constant "dong" sound). My rate is now set to 250, significantly less and wow, what a difference! No more nervous breakdowns for me! Well, not caused by over stimulated auditory nerves anyway.

The wind in your hair .......

I know you read this with a romantic sort of whimsy but alas that is not the case for me. Wind and cochlear implants DO NOT go together well. There are two little microphones on top of the processor that sits on the ear. These microphones are very sensitive so when the wind is blowing outside most of what I hear is, well..... wind. It sounds a bit like when a TV reporter is outside on a windy day and you can hear the wind blowing in the microphone. Only for me the wind sound is in the brain and makes it hard to listen to speech.
Yesterday was an example. I'm down at the beach, windy day, with my son and another child from his school walks up and starts talking to me, telling me a story. I had no idea what he was talking about and there is no point saying pardon over and over again as I was never going to understand him with the wind blowing in my cochlear. So I just looked interested, smiled, and said "oh that's cool". Afterwards I asked my son what he was talking about. This little boy was telling me how his mother ate chicken the night before and got such bad food poisoning that she had to go to hospital. Oops, maybe smiling and saying that's cool wasn't the right response. Luckily, kids are very forgiving with deaf adults :)

A little joke

A concerned husband went to a doctor to talk about his wife. He says to the doctor, "Doctor, I think my wife is deaf because she never hears me the first time and always asks me to repeat things." "Well," the doctor replied, "go home and tonight stand about 15 feet from her and say something to her. If she doesn't reply move about 5 feet closer and say it again. Keep doing this so that we'll get an idea about the severity of her deafness." Sure enough, the husband goes home and does exactly as instructed. He starts off standing about 15 feet from his wife in the kitchen as she is chopping some vegetables and says, "Honey, what's for dinner?" He hears no response. He moves about 5 feet closer and asks again. No reply. He moves 5 feet closer. Still no reply. He gets fed up and moves right behind her, about an inch away, and asks loudly, "Honey, what's for dinner?" She replies, "For the fourth time, vegetable stew!

(Reference: http://www.start-american-sign-language.com/deaf-jokes.html)

Deaf Tradies - the best kind .......

The Block is a renovation show in Australia and this week they introduced one of the carpenters as being deaf. Here is the clip to watch:

Deaf Tradie on The Block - click here to view video