I'll bury you in my sound

First off, I shouldn’t have to explain my CI (cochlear implant) to anyone. 

No, having the procedure wasn’t my choice, and unfortunately I was only one of many children to have been implanted without consent.  Do I wish I’d been allowed to make the decision to undergo the operation myself?  Yes.

With that being said, there’s nothing at all wrong with deciding to get a CI, just like there’s nothing wrong with deciding to abstain from the procedure.  A CI is a tool that can be used to foster easier communication with a particular community:  a CI is a way to experience environments and situations differently.

It’s terrible to assume someone’s chosen to get one because they don’t want to be d/Deaf. 

Someone who sees mine and thinks that isn’t going to be worth my time anyway.

Whole

My sound processor was repaired yesterday evening.  I spent almost every moment after said repair reintroducing myself to noise:  to the laughter of friends, their voices in person or ringing soft and sleepy through speakers.

Before I left to go see the technician, I typed excitedly to one of those friends, “Hopefully he can fix me!”

Her reply came quick as a flash:  “You aren’t broken.”

—-

At some indeterminate hour much later, I woke to the snarl of thunder outside and lightning’s snickery strobe in my bedroom window.  Hard on the panes, rain roared its orchestral tppa-tappa-tpp and I rolled my cheek into my pillow, considering:  smiling too.

Reaching up in the dark then, I turned off my processor and yawned into the sudden rush of silence, “Not broken.”

Anonymous asked: Wait are you deaf?

I was born deaf.  After some trial and error with surgeries, though, and the eventual addition of a cochlear implant, I (at this moment) have about 40% hearing in my left ear on a good day.  My right ear, meanwhile, does not function in a typical manner:  the hair cells in it sometimes work, which means (essentially) that it can detect sound but not process it.  It cannot differentiate between a dog’s bark and a human’s voice; it can only tell me noise is happening and also disregards volume.  If you would like to experience this yourself, find a radio station broadcasting nothing but static.  Next, press your ear to the speaker.  Bueno.

Sometimes my hearing does still go out entirely.  I am extremely sensitive to changes in pressure.

I identify as little-d deaf or hard-of-hearing.  =) 

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

EDIT:  Since people are asking, no, I did not choose to have the aforementioned surgeries.  My parents made the decisions regarding those procedures.