Growing up Deaf - Part 5

Hearing loss diagnosis

However, the first five parts of this serial don't quite answer the question of how I was found to have a hearing loss. As I said in part 1, I was born hearing, then it started going downhill when I was age 5, learning to talk before then. A doctor's letter mentioned the mumps, and a blood titer test indicated the mumps as well, essentially my proof.

Mom would call for me, and I would be looking around for the source of the voice. The funny part was that I had learned to lipread to an extent before they found out about my hearing loss. This was around the time I was going to kindergarten. Then I find out years later that I went to kindergarten for not one, but two years. Mom told me it was due to their thinking I had missed a lot of stuff due to my declining hearing. The good part about kindergarten was that it was within the apartment complex where we lived, so it was a short 5-10 minute walk by myself.

Today, that same kindergarten is now a community center and the playground is still standing. The only thing that's stayed the same is the high fence, while the play equipment has changed.

I'm not sure when it stabilized around a profound loss, probably around my teens or a bit later before college. It's not changed much over the last 20 years despite getting new BTEs. But I do know that it will happen sometime when my hearing loss will worsen.

But of course, the hearing tests that came two, three, maybe more times in a year could easily drive some kids to not want to have them. I know I'm not the only one who knows most of the spondee words, words that audiologists commonly say and have the tested person repeat after them. All of this in a soundproof booth of some sort, with the audiologist being in the other room behind one-way glass. If you were one of those kids like me, you were able to watch the audiologist carefully, somehow, and fake them out with a well-timed raise of the hand to claim you 'heard' the sound. Depending on the audiologist's skill level, they may be able to tell that you tried to fake them out.

"Say the word hotdog." "Hotdog" Lower volume some. "Say the word cowboy." "Cowboy." Lower the volume some. "Say the word baseball." "Hotdog." "Say the word ice cream." "You scream."

What are your experiences with this kind of thing while growing up?

Next - Getting Hearing Aids.