Posts tagged ‘Being deaf sucks’
Hello Internet, family, friends, and those little teeny ants in the web! I’m back from another trip, only this time it wasn’t anywhere exotic as Aruba. Instead, this trip was full of happy quality time with family, which made the trip awesome. One of my gazillion cousins got married! I wish her a happy lifetime with her beau!
There were some crazy moments, but nothing I would ever be embarrassed about, because my family just ROCKS. We danced all night long at the wedding. Even my fiancé danced with tissues overflowing his pant pockets due to bad allergies, and I love him for that. My dancing was probably the butt of the joke, though. Because my tinnitus was flaring, I couldn’t wear my hearing aids. So, as a result, my dancing was probably out of tune! Maybe I looked like I had some kind of electric shocks all over my body. Electrifying!
I’ve got a funny story that I’ll throw out here. While we (bridesmaids, groomsmen, and newlyweds) had our pictures taken, I had a conversation and misunderstanding with another cousin about her dogs.
Me: What’s the name of your dogs?
Cousin: Dunkin and (crap, I forget her other dog’s name!)
Me: SUCK-IT?!!?!?
*laughter all around*
Cousin: Nooo, Dunkin.
Me: Suck-it? Whaaaaaat? I don’t understand.
Cousin: *fingerspells* D-U-N-K-I-N.
Me: Ooooooooooooooh. Haha I thought you said Suck-it. Can you imagine saying “Come here, Suck-it! Get your treat…”
Cousin: *laughs*
Me: You should have named your other dog Donuts. Dunkin Donuts!
Before y’alls think I’m crazy, go to the mirror and mouth the words Dunkin and Suck-it. Pretty similar when lip-reading, huh?
Aside from all the craziness, we have a new addition to the family. Meet Eston.
Seriously, Eston just blew me away. He’s so cute. He’s gonna have ladies lining up his door! CK and Alli, I figured you’d get a hoot out of the Yankees outfit! I don’t care about the Yankees or baseball in general, but this little dude makes me want to go to a Yankees game to cheer them on!
Since I am currently suffering from a frontal sinus flare up, I really wanted to lay down in silence and just de-stress. That’s all I wanted, just silence, my bed, a pillow, and rest. Once I hit my head on the pillow, I looked out the window to watch the pretty sunset. It was such a serene moment, but not much so when I realized I haven’t heard silence in eleven years. I stared at the sunset in disbelief. ELEVEN FREAKING YEARS! Wow. Where did the time go? This picture I found perfectly explains what is going on in my ears. (Not sure who the credit goes to?)
I am deaf, but I never have silence. Ironic? You see, I’ve been suffering from chronic tinnitus since my late teens when I lost more hearing. Just what exactly is tinnitus? The dictionary says it is “a noise that is perceived in the absence of external noise.” Unfortunately, the causes and cures for tinnitus are not well known. In college, I did a paper on tinnitus, which included interviews with other tinnitus sufferers. One of the things I discovered while doing my paper is that some researchers suggest and believe tinnitus could be that the brain generates its own sound when it is at work; a humming and ringing that are not usually noticed. WOW! This means I have a brain!! Thank god for that!
Really, tinnitus was hard to tackle at first. It put me through a major depression because it was so annoying to hear imaginary birds chirping, a non-existent helicopter, a roaring subway, or an electrical hum. Many details of my life had to be changed. I wanted to do what Van Gogh did – rip off my ears! Or invite Mike Tyson to bite my ears off!
Basically I went to a lot of doctors and underwent a lot of testing to see why I was suffering from tinnitus and if there was anything I could do. I was given some medication along with different remedies, but nothing worked except one thing, which I would later find out on my own.
That one remedy that worked was acceptance. After a long time of feeling cursed, I realized that in order for me to move on in my life and be the happy Sazzy I was, I had to accept the permanent noises in my head. At least until a cure comes along. Tinnitus became a part of me, and I was no longer bothered about it. Until tonight. All I wanted tonight was silence, and I couldn’t have it. It’s okay, though, I’ll go another eleven years with acceptance.
But still, MIKE TYSON, YOU NEARBY? Bring your teeth and bite my ears off!
Just a teeny little rant.
What happened to nightly music videos on MTV and VH1? I remember coming home from school back in the day and de-stressing with music videos. This was awesome for me as a deaf chick, because I could follow the lyrics on the TV by means of captions. I could become familiar with lyrics for my favorite songs and memorize them. Now, all this trash is on MTV and VH1 in the evenings.
When I stayed home from work a few weeks ago, I had my 40 inch TV blasting with captioned music videos. I had a nice, big view of Rihanna, Mary Bilge, Maroon5, and so on. Ahh, it felt so good – I was in a trance nodding along to the music and understanding the lyrics. However, my bliss came to an end at 10am. Why? ‘Cuz of trash. Trash. TRASH.
Because of TRASH, I now have to resort to online music videos. Unfortunately, those online videos have no captions, which really sucks ass. The only online music videos I understand are the ones I remember from the school-days because I memorized them. Goddamn, do I have to be unemployed to be able to watch captioned music videos on TV?! Or get a graveyard shift?
Project readOn is a great website that captions online media content, but the website doesn’t really focus on music. I definitely look forward to the day when all music videos online are required to be captioned! That’ll be the day I’ll jump so high that I could whip Shaq O’Neal in basketball.
I bet if I had captioned music videos blasting from my TV at night, I’d be able to clean like this. Yeah!
