Do You Hear What I See?: Not fearing the unheard

10 Reasons Why it can be Advantageous to Have a Hearing Impaired Child

10. S/he doesn’t hear the high-pitched bell on the Dickey Dee ice cream cart that comes around every day of summer just before dinner time.
9. S/he can be summoned from across a crowded room with the "silent scream" ("GET OVER HERE NOW"!)because of lip reading ability.
8. S/he sleeps through incredible thunderstorms while camping. Children in all other campers/tents are whining, crying and screaming.
7. Working parents don't need to worry about doing housework at night while s/he sleeps. Go ahead and vacuum under the bed.
6. Opportunity to look really silly chasing your child down the beach with flapping arms, because hearing aids don’t like sand and turf.
5. No need to worry about decorating your house for years, as the walls are covered with vocabulary lists, pictures of words you are working on and object labels for those important pre-reading skills.
4. You can use the child's closed caption decoder to watch television while talking to long-winded relatives, comforting a fussy (but loud) baby or vacuuming the carpeting.
3. In the early years, you will gain the incredible ability to keep up a running monologue for hours at a time. "Do you want some juice? Yes, I want some juice. Glug, glug, glug; the juice is pouring." This is even more fun when practiced in public places. For instance, the grocery store, "Do we need some apples? Let's get some apples. Crispy, juicy apples, yummy." This Auditory-Verbal procedure will draw stares from passersby, especially if you have forgotten that the child is not with you at the time.
2. Loud party (complete with ear-splitting music) at totally rude neighbor's house doesn't wake him/her at 2:00 a.m.
1. Very close parent/child bond formed by all those hours of doing Auditory-Verbal therapy and riding to and from the thousands of ENT/audiologist/pediatrician/AVT therapist appointments.

I'm proud of myself.
I'm proud of all that I can do, despite the hardship.
I'm proud that I can do what I fear.
I can live and function in a world that doesn't notice that I struggle.
I can do it all, and still be sane....
I noticed today that I have risen above, above my own fears.
For that I am proud.