Life half silenced
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Carigan Wiegand
March 1st, 2015
Photo Illustration
Sometimes I get frustrated when sound skips right over me, but part of being hearing impaired is learning
patience along with teaching it. (Photo Illustration by Carigan Wiegand).
“I don’t get it, she’s always ignoring me,” my mother’s shoulders slumped.
The doctor pivoted in her direction, “She can’t hear you.”
I sat; my fingers rubbed the ugly black arms of the chair. I watched my mother’s mouth drop open. Her dark
eyebrows furrowed together as I met her eyes through the tiny window of the room.
No! I wanted to scream at them, I’m fine!
I glanced at the happy yellow duck sitting on a desk in front of me, the happy yellow sun poster on the wall,
and the happy yellow-shirted audiologist.
I’m broken.
It was in first grade when my mother first noticed something was wrong. She grew tired of me either ignoring
or not answering her so at doctor’s appointments she would complain about my behavior. During a routine
hearing test offered at school, I sat in silence with big headphones muffling my ears.
I waited patiently as the operator pushed button after button.
Is something supposed to happen? I wondered.
After a minute or so, the man looked up at me, puzzled. He thanked me, wrote something down, and sent me
back to class.
During recess, the other kids in the testing room pestered me.
“Why didn’t you raise your hand?”
“Are you stupid?”
“Can you even understand me?”
I tried to follow their lips while they all spoke at the same time. But I didn’t have time to distinguish whether
their rounded lips meant an “o” sound or a “w” sound before another person tapped me on the shoulder to ask
another question.
When my mother received the test results, she whisked me off on that fateful day to the audiologist.
I was almost completely deaf.
Obviously, I was not aware of my “disability” because I went on with life. I learned to speak as I began to lose
my hearing. By the time it was almost completely gone, I had taught myself how to read lips. I never
understood that is not how other kids listen.
Later, I prepared myself for surgery. I sat incoherently while the doctor droned on about possible side effects. I
never paid his warnings any attention. Other doctors crowded around me with large needles and tourniquets.
Their mask-covered mouths leaned over my head and watched me like an animal in a zoo. I could only see
their eyes. By then, the sedative already flowed through my veins and my tongue weighed too much to move.
I couldn’t tell them I changed my mind. I couldn’t tell them I wanted to go home.
I watched the blue, gloved hand bring an anesthetic mask down to my face. I couldn’t lift my arms to push
them away. My limbs felt numb. I tried to fight the drug, but fell under its spell of sleep a few minutes later.
Now I’ve been through similar ear surgeries three times.
Three times they failed.
The first time, it fixed my hearing. But a couple years later, my eardrums deteriorated as a side effect. Two
more surgeries failed to fix what the first caused. I am now completely deaf in one ear, and can only hear with
a hearing aid in the other.
Doctors still insist on operating again, but I refuse. If nothing so far has given me my hearing back, I don’t
think anything will.
I’ve accepted I am slower to respond than other kids my age.
I’ve accepted I miss out on what my friends are laughing about.
I’ve accepted that someday my world will be completely silent.
I always tell people hearing aids are the same as glasses, but I think that’s a way to lie to myself. With glasses,
people can see the same as others. No matter how strong hearing aids are, I will never hear the same as others.
But that’s okay, I may not have the power to hear all the gossipy whispers and laughs, but I do have the power
to shut them off.