A personal account of living with deafness

On March 6, 1961, on a cold snowy afternoon in Camrose Alberta, I came fighting my way into the world. I was born premature, RH-negative, (a blood condition where my body was processing blood that was not compatible with my moms.) Prior to me, my mom had experienced two births, the first one being normal, but the second was a still-birth. She was concerned at the weakened inactivity of the third unborn and it was decided I would be delivered a month early by C-section in an attempt to save my life. Nowadays it is not as complicated as advances in scientific understanding were able to correct the blood difference. I was born and had major blood transfusions and recovered in an incubator for two months before I was well enough to go home. Medical practitioners have determined the excess oxygen in the incubator may have damaged the hearing part of the ear as there had been a history of blindness, deafness or mental disability in babies that were incubated for a time. Also, the deafness may have been affected by the complete blood exchange. I was watched for cerebral palsy - a possible side effect of blood exchange. There were no signs.

My parents discovered my deafness when I was under a year old. My mom shares the story of testing my hearing for the first time. She was suspicious I wasn't reacting like my sister and brother to sound. On this fateful day, I was playing in my crib while Mother was cleaning the room. Something fell from her hand, and the crash on the hardwood floor let out a loud noise. She turned to see if it had frightened me, but I appeared oblivious. I immediately was tested, and it was determined that I had a sensorineural bilateral severe to profound hearing loss.

Within a couple of years, my parents researched all they could to find the education they were wanting for me. They wanted me to learn to speak, to use whatever residual hearing I had. They resisted recommendations that I be put in a deaf institution. It was not an option for them. They made no hesitation to fit me with hearing aids that my grandparents paid for and then they entered me in a preschool in Edmonton, an hour drive from home, as there were skilled educators who worked with deaf children.