Those who've started reading my ridiculous blog only recently may not know that our oldest boys, Intrepid and Gutsy, are hearing impaired.
Or hard of hearing, or deaf, or whatever.
Whatever you want to call it is fine - I'm not one of those people who takes offense when someone doesn't know the politically correct nom du jour for a disability.
Sorry, I mean a type of challenge for the differently-abled.
Um, I mean...
Ugh. This is what happens when I tell people I'm part
Ffter several years of being a proud mom to deaf children, I still don't exactly know what to call them. The boys aren't completely deaf, after all: They have a moderate loss, which means there is enough residual hearing that they can function quite nicely with hearing aids. Furthermore, Gutsy's class is equipped with a soundfield system, which amplifies the teacher's voice. A nice bonus of the system is that it's supposed to help all the kids in the class by making it easier for everyone to tune out background noise and focus on the teacher.
Heck, if we had had a soundfield system in chemistry class, I might have actually learned something, instead of thinking the elements were different types of weather.
The boys have a bilateral sensorineural loss, which means the loss is in both ears, and that many of the little hairs in the cochlea that pick up sound and send it through the auditory nerve into the brain are dead, or missing. This likely happened before they hatched from my womb and is genetic in nature. I've been assured that no amount of prenatal gorging on Peanut M&Ms could have caused this.
My guilt is alleviated.
***
I used to worry all the time.
Would they make friends?
Would they get teased?
Would they be able to learn in a regular class?
Will they have a hard time dating in the future?
Will they be severely limited in their career choices?
Will they go completely deaf?
If it's a mom's job to worry, then I've been a workaholic. Keeping up that pace of concern involved a great deal of chocolate and crying. Mostly crying, but the chocolate played a great supporting role.
In the last few years, Intrepid and Gutsy have had months of speech therapy, dozens of hearing aid adjustment and repair appointments with the audioprosthologist (say that three times fast), several hearing tests, meetings with our wonderful support person from the oral school for the deaf (they attend regular public school but receive outside support from the MOSD), and not nearly enough trips to their very attractive ENT doctor.
Lately, two things have happened: I've cut chocolate from the cast list, and I no longer lose sleep over my little gremlins' pointy ears. They have shown repeatedly how people with a hearing loss can not only take part in the hearing world, but absolutely thrive in it. They amaze me with how well they've adapted to nearly every situation. And, just as importantly, they've shattered any stereotype I may have had about the hearing impaired. The grim picture I imagined of life as a deaf person has been replaced by the colourful, fun, chaotic and, dare I say, fairly normal lives of these two boys. In fact, I sometimes forget they're hard of hearing until I hear the T.V. blaring and see a pair of hearing aids sitting on top of the microwave (a favourite resting spot, for some reason).
This morning we had their audiology appointments; they used to be every six months so we could monitor the loss and see if it was progressive (meaning it would keep getting worse). However, we've now scaled back to a yearly visit because, if it is progressive, it's not happening yet.
I'm pleased to report that, once again, the boys' hearing is stable. As much as I'm sure they would continue to thrive if completely deaf, I'm beyond thrilled they can still hear me yell at them to please stop fighting and just sit down, for the love of all things good and true, before I lose my ever-loving mind.
So, I'll be joyous along with my American friends celebrating their Thanksgiving (you do things really late there - maybe you should move Christmas into January to stay consistent). Yanks, If you're lacking any gratitude, please let me know. I have a lot to spare today.
