Tania Says

As I write this I am in Cappadocia, a historic area in the heart of Turkey where mountain people built their homes high up into huge stone cliffs around 400-1100 AD. I am staying in a cave (no joke) after a long day of hiking through gorgeous valleys. Over the centuries the wind has created some pretty amazing effects, eroding the rocks into crazy shapes you could never imagine. It’s the kind of place that makes you think. And I’m definitely thinking.

On September 9, exactly one month from today, I will be getting a surgery for my cochlear implant. I never thought I’d actually do it. All of my life I have run away from everything it means to be deaf, and have only recently undergone a huge change and embraced my disability. Until this year, I never wanted to get the implant because I saw it as a major outward sign of something being ‘wrong.’ Because having a disability is a bad thing, and keeping it hidden is the best way to go. This is what I used to think, and this is why I never, ever wanted to get a CI until now.

So what changed my views? Well, lots of things. For one, I lost more hearing in my right ear, or ‘good ear’ (which still has a profound loss) last December, which prompted me to think, “I need to do something about this in case I lose even more.” A cochlear implant was the obvious answer. Another factor in my decision was that the profession I am seeking to enter, journalism, relies completely on my ability to communicate with others. Again, the cochlear implant will help me in this case. Though both of these were very good reasons, neither of them made me actually want the CI.

What changed my mind the most, and actually got me to go to my audiologist and ask for the CI, was a group of kids. In mid-March, I was given an assignment for my journalism class to “prepare a multimedia presentation on a topic of your choice.” This was a terrifying project for me, because technology and I are not friends (see post below). I chose ‘deaf culture’ as my topic, because I knew nothing about it but thought it might make for an interesting presentation for my class and maybe I’d wind up with an ‘A’. But the project ended up changing my life the day I set foot in the deaf classrooms at Hale School in Crestwood, IL.

Hale has a pretty big deaf program, spanning from preschool until 8th grade. The students have a wide range of hearing loss. All use sign, but all use their voices as well. The classrooms are unbelievably deaf-friendly; there is one teacher for every 3-4 students, a combination of sign and speech, resource and speech pathology teachers, and a whole bunch of kids who just understood each other. I had never seen a deaf classroom before, so this was all like a dream world to me. Communication just flowed so seamlessly, much unlike the constant confusion I have encountered all my life in mainstream/”hearing” classrooms.

But what got me the most was that these kids were happy. They had crazy-colored ear molds and bright cochlear implants on display for the whole world to see. The philosophy behind the instruction at Hale was to take pride in one’s deafness. The students’ hearing loss was just a small part of their vibrant personalities - when I saw them in class, I didn’t think “deaf kids,” I thought “happy kids.” And I kinda wanted to be like them.

And so, here I am. One month away from something that will change my life. I wonder what will be different…maybe I will be able to hear birds, or fire alarms, or the annoying rustle of kids opening candy wrappers in a movie theater I’ve heard so much about, but have never heard for myself. Maybe I won’t have to keep my phone on vibrate and actually get to download a cool ringtone on iTunes. Maybe people will stop thinking I’m stuck-up because I “ignore” them. And maybe a future boyfriend could whisper a steamy secret in my ear that I’ll actually understand.

So many maybes, and so much anxiety as the date comes up quick. A week from today I go to Greece, and on Sept. 2 I will go home to Chicago. A week after that, on Sept. 9, I get my CI surgery, and 6 days later I will be moving in to my sorority house at Northwestern. And two weeks after that, my CI will be activated, the day before I try out for the dance team. Welcome to my crazy life!