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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