The Best Device

 I touched on my idea of a best device during class time one day. I had forgotten to post what I shared, until I was nudged by an email.

When I think about the device that has changed my life, I think of Anna. My older sister was born profoundly deaf, this was discovered at age three. Of course, my mom had visited multiple doctors prior to this diagnosis, but they had all turned up empty. For some reason, they believed that my mom was a crazy first time mom, impatient with her toddler's progress and comparing her daughter to her friend's children. Not only that, my dad was gone a lot so people assumed it was an attention seeking scheme by my mom. Nope, Anna is deaf. The doctor that screened her scrutinized my mom, "it took you this long to discover this", that didn't sit well. Moms know.

Anna wore hearing aides, my family attended sign language classes, she enrolled in mainstream school. My mom took on the role of advocate, always making sure that Anna had all the tools necessary to her success. Alaska was a goldmine, in a lot of ways, they had a stellar program within their schools for the deaf community, then orders came. My dad excelled in the mountaineering courses and the ski schools in Alaska, they hastily pushed for his transfer. My parents weren't looking for an area with more to offer in regards to healthcare and doctors, they went where the Army sent them. We moved to North Carolina, home to one of the most prestigious research hospitals, coincidently. UNC awarded Anna medical care that was specialized and innovative. The audiologists helped my mom and Anna and our family understand deafness and truths about Anna's hearing, as it was a field they were developing and building on extensively. The more they evaluated her, the more they presented information about the Cochlear Implant. Anna was more than a perfect candidate for it. She had exceptional auditory speech, talent in lip reading and a very stable personality, along with a good supportive family. They pushed. My parents took a great deal of time researching, meeting with families, gathering second opinions, discussion things with Anna. Finally, Anna made the decision to move forward.

We always celebrated Anna's deafness, and in no way treated it as something to be fixed.
She got the surgery. Life altering brain surgery. We all adjusted to that change. Anna has a deaf studies degree with a minor in Native American culture. She has educated herself, and our family on the deaf community and the cultural impact that is associated with people who have opted for surgery. Anna is still deaf. She has never tried to be a hearing person. She is a deaf person, with a wearable device. The device is a hard thing to gauge, I'll never know what she hears. Whether it works well, or what her experience is. I just know that it was something. It changed our lives, not for the better, not for the worse, it just changed our lives. Now, as a family we did quit signing, but that was in the works well before the surgery, Anna did not like us to sign in public. (Something that she got over as she got older) I can still understand sign language, when certain people sign, like Anna and some of her close friends. And I can sign myself, I took two years of sign language in high school and participated in one of my high school's sign language plays. The CI did not eliminate the language from my life, or Anna's..it did not magically make her hear. It doesn't allow her to recognize my voice the way it sounds, it gives her headaches. For some reason my voice is really hard for her to hear, and by that I mean, she does not like it. There's something in my voice that hurts her, and from what I have learned, she hears my voice in a somewhat digitized format and the sounds captured are not appealing to her at all. Oh well, we manage. The CI is a small computer processor that sits on her hip, or inside her bra that connects to a wire donning a magnet that rests on her head where there is a microchip embedded in her brain cavity. Anna got this surgery at age 14. She just turned 27, more than ten years later the innovation and contributions to technology have vastly improved. Her surgery cannot be updated, or replaced because of the fragile nature of brain tissue, there is a possibility if they were to replace any of the technology her brain could collapse leaving her brain dead or dead. We opted to leave things be. Anna is not defined by her CI,she can stop wearing it at any time and let that little chip sit in her brain forever. We are happy with the decision and all agree that in the future if any of our children are deaf, we will really address whether a CI is the right route to go. But we, and me especially maintain that for some reason, it was right. Anna says the first song she ever heard was "She thinks my tractor's sexy" by Kenny Chesney. She hardly ever listens to music, and her radio only gets use when her daughter is in the car with her, and even then Anna chooses opera, or church music, not typical radio. However, she loves the song "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. She has a great talent in interpreting songs, especially at church. She signs the hymns, and I prefer that over anything else in the world. Is it the best device? No. But it's the best device.