I was born deaf - to be specific, I have bilateral congenital sensori-neural hearing loss and I wear two hearing aids. I rely a lot on lipreading and only watch programmes with subtitles. I have always grown up in the hearing world and mainly thought I could 'get away with it'. These last few months though, I've never felt 'more deaf' and I've had to confront my deafness in a different way. Instead of hiding that part of me, I feel I need to stand up and acknowledge my deafness and that it is an essential and positive part of me. I feel it's time for me to be heard. So I'm going to tell my story.
What triggered this blog was a series of issues that came up which included trying to pick up my prescription in Boots and all the staff were wearing face masks. Obviously we have been going through a period of lockdown due to Covid 19 and it has been recommended that many people wear PPE - personal protective equipment which includes face masks. Some people were wearing masks were clear at the store but the people at the prescription counter were wearing cloth ones. I explained I needed to lipread and the person concerned just leaned forward and spoke louder. I left feeling quite isolated and upset. A solution would have been to call over someone in a clear mask but because I was upset I didn't think to ask until I was safely home! I was talking to my mother about this and she described people wearing face masks as zombies and I find that to be true - there's no facial expression, you can't see if they are sad, angry or happy. You can tell so much by looking at someones' face - now they all look the same under a mask. Facial expressions really help when I lipread too, it really gives me context to what is being said.
A few weeks ago, one of my hearing aids gave up on me, I tried everything to get it working but to no avail. Because my hearing aids work with one another, the remaining hearing aid gives a distorted sound that I've now had to get used to. Getting a new hearing aid has resulted in a lot of problems but I'll talk about that in a future post.
I was talking to a good friend this morning, and she suggested that I write a blog, as I feel I have so much to say. I had posted some comments on facebook about my frustrations and many people said they hadn't even thought of the issues that deaf people would have. One of my lovely friends made my husband and I clear masks that we could wear when we went out. I'll talk more about that and my hospital visit in a separate blog.
Anyway, I just wanted to say a bit about myself and Ill be writing this weekly and if you want to leave a comment please do! (but be kind! đ)
