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Coming Home: A Journey of a Signer
out of my ears to the point they would be dangling over or on my shoulders. My mother could not pull them out as it hurt so she would take scissors and cut them off as close to my ears as possible. Yes, they were that thick. I believe this went on for a good two or three years. This was before I had even started school. I think this is why I had two surgeries to place tubes in, to help drain that. At any rate, it eventually stopped. As for her claims of me being hearing at first, I do not have a single memory of that. In fact, I have a very clear memory of being spooked so badly when my father had picked me up from behind. He is trying to calm me, and pointing at the camera in front of us. I still remember that picture and it still exists somewhere. It is of not quite a baby, not yet a toddler, with a tear stained face and my father looking at me. This was the day I had turned 1.
The official diagnosis was made when I was 18 months. From there, there was frantic activity happening. Speech therapy. Many medical appointments and procedures. A year long stint in an oral pre-school at Oklahoma. During the whole time, my father was a gentle but stoic man, not one to emote or even talk. He was simply brilliant and, I personally believe, far too enlightened for where we lived. I dearly loved him and felt accepted by him and he used homemade sign. He rarely attended the appointments but one my parents did attend together included a procedure of perforating both of my eardrums. Without any kind of anesthesia or painkillers. My father had to hold me down while I screamed so loud the whole floor heard it. After that, he told my mother, " No more of this! We are never doing this to her again!" I believe my father and mother had opposing views on me. My father was fine with my being deaf. He used home signs and may have even attended a class. My mother was deeply ashamed and always responded to others with this:“ Yes, she has hearing loss but speaks and lip-reads very well”.
Actually, I do not speak nor lip-read well at all, despite all the years and time invested. I was enrolled into the public school in town and without so much a thing done about my deafness. No interpreter, no aids of any kind. I was just simply treated as if I was hearing. This experience is full of traumatic experiences but I had a few good people doing their best to help. Two teachers who did their best to instill confidence; a basketball coach who forced the team to throw out numbers so I would know the plays; a softball coach whose wife I still stay in touch with. Far and few in between, yes, but they were there.
Stacy with her baby sister, Andrea, on Christmas Day I have three siblings, Karen who is 14 in 1981 ___ years older, Michael, 7 years older and then my baby sister that I like to call“ my twin born 5 years
late”. Karen, from the very start, used what little sign she knew and always doted on me. She never treated me any differently even after Andrea was born. I was just as loved. She cannot remember how she picked up the little sign she knew, though, and now signs better than ever.
Andrea was born after me, so she never knew any difference. She says she never even once thought about the fact I was deaf. It was simply a non-issue, which reminds me of Martha’ s Vineyard. I taught her the ABCs( I cannot remember who taught me but it had to be daddy or Karen) and she became very skilled at fingerspelling. Unfortunately, this led to others in the …
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The Power of ASL 6 Winter 2016 – Issue 4