~Originally posted at OpenDiary on 7.7.13~
Honestly, I'm really not sure. I went to the oral surgeon on Friday, and yes, they removed a part of my tongue for biopsy. It's been angry all weekend, and most of today. When they handed me the prescription for painkillers I didn't intend to fill it, let alone take any. I'm been popping 'em since Friday and doing a lot of sleeping. I didn't realize how much I move my tongue until I couldn't move my tongue. It's loads better now though.
Back to the offended issue; this should technically end up on my "Deaf Girl Problems" series, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. This is the first time I have ever met the oral surgeon, so of course I had to explain why he had to remove his face mask to talk to me. The explanation led to the inevitable questions that everyone asks: "When did you lose your hearing?" "Can you read lips?" "Do you know sign language?" Blah, blah, blah, we've all been asked these questions a million times before. Later on, during the surgery, he made a comment to the assistant about my deafness. I missed the beginning of it, but I assume he was explaining to her why he had his mask off when she came into the room. The part that followed was "yeah, she used to be completely deaf but then she had surgery and now she can hear. Isn't that a miracle?" Then the rest of the conversation was a muffled lot of nothing. Don't know why I was able to catch that at all because I could tell that he was talking low enough that he assumed I wouldn't, I think it might have been him using lower tones to 'whisper' that I hear better, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I pretended I didn't hear it and just kept staring at the ceiling, and at the time the only thing that really struck me as odd was that out of everything they said I only heard that one sentence. Later on as I drifted in and out of drug induced sleep I realized that while I know it was completely beign, it slightly offends me that I should thank God I'm not completely deaf. I don't. There are times that I wish my parents had let me remain Deaf, and sent me to a Deaf school.
Right now I feel like I'm in this weird place in the world. I'm half deaf in both ears across all tones, I have horrible constant LOUD tinnitus. I consider myself deaf. I call myself hard of hearing a majority of the time because people don't understand that all hearing loss is a degree of deafness. People assume that deaf only means profoundly deaf. I respond to sound, and it confuses people. I'm finally getting a "deaf accent" but overall my speech is very, very good. I've worked hard at it. I'm learning asl, but I'm not fluent, and I'm not a part of the Deaf community. I'm culturally Hearing. I'm certain of all of this, however I feel like I live in-between the two worlds. At restaurants, parties, social functions, I had might as well be sitting at home alone with my cats. I understand nothing. Actually, that's one of the reasons I like my sisters boyfriend, and cannot wait for him to become a part of our family. He gets it and makes an effort to include me when even my own family forgets and unintentionally leaves me out. He's a bridge; and before someone misinterprets that I'm not interested in him, and I love him and my sister together. It's just that he's a little weird too, so we band together when otherwise we would both be sitting alone staring into space wishing we were just back home.
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