An eminent ENT (ear, nose, and throat) doctor once said to me at an informal gathering at a conference during the summer of 2013 …
“You have a bad attitude.” Why would he say that to me?
We were talking about cochlear implants, and he somehow asked me if I was considering one for myself. I said no. Hence his ‘bad attitude’ comment.
That doctor is not the first person and won’t be the last one to ask me such a question. But, his response to my answer is a sign of disrespect and suggests his unwillingness to accept that not everyone with hearing loss would want a cochlear implant, even with good reason. Also, many people (in my opinion, too many) have had asked me if I was considering having a cochlear implant or two over many years, and I have had to answer them not sure or no, because I have my own reasons. None of them have to do with wanting to protect Deaf Culture or having Deaf pride. My first argument is, if I’m happy with who I am or with what I have, why should I fix it? Yes, I am happily married to a d/Deaf person who has had a cochlear implant for over a year, and we have two beautiful daughters, both of whom are hearing. They have had challenges with the fact that they have deaf parents, but love has never been one of them.
According to earlier posts in my blog, I’ve been deaf since birth, which means almost 57 years. Yes, I’ve worn hearing aids for most of my life – they’ve helped me hear sounds as well as control my voice most of the times (sometimes, I’ve lost my cool and raised my voice without realizing it). Even I did not wear hearing aids during my whole college matriculation, because I said “Screw you” to my hearing aids after I graduated from Bronx High School of Science. Yes, I saw it as a symbol of my independence, and I was satisfied to be a ‘B’ student at Harvard, especially after seeing how differently courses were taught at high school and college as well as how hard my fellow college students would compete against each other. If I had worn hearing aids at Harvard, they wouldn’t make much difference in my grade average. Since my graduate studies at UPenn, I have been wearing hearing aids. For those who really want to know little details such as for how many years I didn’t wear my hearing aids, it was six years (four years college plus two years working before UPenn).
Some of you may ask, hey, if you can hear sounds with your hearing aids, why can’t you do as well as any other person with normal or typical hearing? My response is that it depends on what ‘hearing’ means. In my professional opinion, hearing means four mutually inclusive things:
- To hear sounds at all discernable sound pressure levels
- To discriminate distinct sounds
- To identify the sounds
- To comprehend the sounds
These are four stages of the classic sequence of auditory skills, but my hearing aids provide me only the first skill and nothing more (that was another important reason why I didn’t wear them at Harvard). I can’t consistently detect differences between distinct sounds, especially those spoken by different people with different dialects, accents, and/or personal touches. Thus, I still rely on my lipreading ability when it comes to spoken communications with my fellow human beings.
I am prelingually deaf, meaning that I could not acquire language skills through hearing and that I have had to use alternate means to acquire such skills. If I were postlingually deaf, I would’ve acquired language skills before losing my hearing. Yes, I had speech therapy lessons from 15 months of age to high school, but these lessons did not help me hear better. Instead, they helped me speak more clearly as well as improve my lipreading ability.
Even hearing aids at a young age do not produce a history of hearing. It is possible that if I wore a cochlear implant, I could discriminate distinct spoken sounds better, but cochlear implants themselves were crude assistive devices in the 1980s and early 1990s, as compared to similar devices in the present. And, I wasn’t confident or ready. Perhaps, if I had a technologically advanced cochlear implant at that time, I would have been much better able to participate in impromptu group conversations. This would have been much more beneficial to my professional career and also would enable more collaborations (and better proficiency in grant writing). But it didn’t happen, and it would be difficult for me to do well now with a cochlear implant. Why? Because I’m nearly 57 years old with very little history of hearing.
Another view on cochlear implants mainly comes from professionals in the field of Hearing Science. They include otolaryngologists, audiologists, speech pathologists, and even scientists doing research on different aspects of hearing. Don’t be surprised if I write that the scientists include those with hearing loss, mainly because they have their own cochlear implants and they have done very well, career-wise (a few of them have been profiled in www.deafearscientists.org; also see ref [1]). To give you an idea, some of us have been members of Association for Research in Otolaryngology for about 30 years, longer than anyone else with hearing loss being involved in such a field. Yet, I’ve published 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals, whereas several have published at least 65 papers. Would having a cochlear implant have made any difference in my professional career? Perhaps, but before they had their cochlear implants well into their careers, there were other factors involved, a subject beyond the scope of this posting.
Now, let’s talk more about the professional view. Criteria continue to be strict for any person considering cochlear implantation, and yet technology has been constantly improving. Surgeons have become more adept in inserting more advanced cochlear implants in people who need those devices, and professionals (e.g., audiologists) have become more adept and knowledgeable when it comes to activating and adjusting the devices as well as to training cochlear implant wearers. Consequently, it has become easier for cochlear implant wearers to perform better when it comes to hearing distinct sounds and to improving their ability to speak. They have often found their ability to communicate to be much improved, even more than what they would expect. It all takes perseverance, willingness and patience to work on one’s hearing, and good teamwork with professionals. Do I have any of these important characteristics? Yes, that’s how I’ve succeeded at numerous academic and research institutes, starting at elementary school levels. But, do I have the right attitude, that is, do I lack any doubt about having a cochlear implant myself? I don’t know, and it’s already a doubt itself.
I’ve observed and even experienced how much impact hearing loss can induce on an affected person at both personal and professional levels. It doesn’t matter whether a person with hearing loss communicates in spoken language or American Sign Language (ASL) or whether a person with hearing loss wears hearing aids or cochlear implants or neither – it’s been a hellish process for any person with hearing loss throughout life. Period.
There’s something else that is really personal to me. As I wrote earlier, neither Deaf pride nor preservation of Deaf culture is a reason why I’m hesitant to wear a cochlear implant. Again, if I’m happy with who I am, why should I fix myself? But that’s not the only point here. The other point is that I’ve been deaf all my life and that it’s been part of my identity. I see it as a disability, but I also see it as something I have overcome and will continue to do so for many more years without much assistance. Some may consider me culturally Deaf, because I’m fluent in ASL, because I have numerous Deaf friends and acquaintances, and because I have been to several institutes for the d/Deaf (Lexington School for the Deaf, Gallaudet University, and Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technical Institute for the Deaf). For further details, please see my other blog, “He is not Deaf.” In any case, the facts remain that I am medically deaf, that my hearing loss is a reminder of my successes and difficulties in life, and that life goes on, giving me more opportunities to succeed or at least try to succeed in overcoming obstacles that my hearing loss has presented to me.
A final note – this is a personal one to the eminent ENT doctor. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this blog, much less recall the incident, but if you do read it, I’d be very interested to learn whether or not this particular blog would encourage you to change or even discard your statement that I have a ‘bad attitude’ about cochlear implants.
References