Friday, July 20, 2012

"Never Give Up"

My son LOVES Dora and goes around the house chanting one of her phrases "Never Give Up."  It's really cute to hear him say it.  He's been developing this new skill to be able to replace words with others in his vocabulary.  So when he learned the song "My flag, my flag" for Independence Day, he went around the house singing the tune but changing the words to "My blanky, my blanky" or "My slide, my slide." 

The other night, I was laying down next to him reading him a book.  After the book, I started to get up.  He put his arm around me so I couldn't get up and started chanting "Never Get Up, Never Get up."  It cracked me up.  Last night, way past his bedtime, he tried getting up and I told him if I had to get up and put him back to bed I was going to shut the door.  He again started chanting "Never Get Up, Never Get Up" as he went running down the hall back to bed.  I just think he's so clever for using this phrase but changing it to meet different situations.

Then I realized something this morning.  I can hear the subtle change between "never give up" to "never get up."  That's not something I would have caught before.  I would have thought the whole time he was chanting "never give up."  I would have missed his developing skill set!  Sweet!

Friday, July 6, 2012

Debilitating Deafness

Recently I took a last minute trip to California to say goodbye to my grandma who was in ICU and not expected to live much longer.  I'm grateful I had the chance to say goodbye before she passed away.  I was able to spend quite a bit of time with the extended family, something I have not done in years.  Being with them kind of broke my heart.  I have one aunt who has normal hearing.  The entire rest of the family has profound nerve deafness.  They can not hear a thing.  They couldn't hear the doctors or the nurses or each other.  My mom and my aunts and my uncle just were lost about everything.  Sometimes they thought they heard something right but in reality they had totally misinterpreted.  And the information being exchanged was very important.  So of course everyone was super loud and resorted to writing notes back and forth on the white board.  The family could not understand me when I spoke.  I tried signing with them (I took 4 semesters of ASL when I was going to college but only remember some of it).  None of them know sign.  It was just a sad, stressful situation to be in for everyone.  When you visit someone in ICU you have to pick up a phone and talk with a nurse.  You have to answer their questions right for them to let you in.  But you have to hear questions to answer them, right?  Because of the prevalance of hearing loss in the visitors that week, the nurses stopped asking us questions.  They just opened the door for us.  I'm sad that the current technology was not available to my mom's family in their prime.  I wish I could give them all a CI.  They don't want one but I still wish I could give them one!

Grandma Virgie

My mom and the extended fam
It's really quite shocking how strong genetics are.  My sis now has a hearing loss.  My brothers don't yet but they could still develop it.  I suspect one of my nieces has a hearing loss and I'm sure my children will develop it.  We are just going to keep perpetuating this weak gene.  I truly hope, though, that my generation and those younger will be able to utilize all of the amazing technology that is available so we can still function in a hearing world.