Hard of hearing? Deaf? Hearing impaired?

I have had a chance to look at other blogs and have developed some ideas or blog topic ideas.

One is about how deaf people felt about themselves. So I read with interest how other deaf or hard-of-hearing people have described themselves.

I was born as a rubella baby. Meaning I lost most of my hearing before I was born. Some measle-inflicted couple visited my mother while pregnant with me in 1st trimester led me to my hearing loss. I have 80% loss in one and 90% loss in other. My parents didn't realize I couldn't hear until I was over a year old.

For me, my earliest recollection was wearing those gosh-awful boxy thing that you wore on your chest and a wire that is attached to an earmold that is probably as big as your ear. For me I wore 2. When they improved "technology wise"...downsizing that boxy thing into 2 smaller boxes...and wore it on my chest like a bra. Yes, and I wasn't even old enough to wear a bra!

Well...going from a deaf school straight to public school---being mainstreamed was a wild, scary adventure for me. I don't even think I went to kindergarten at all. Just straight to 1st grade.

My years in a public school were not the best but I believe I had the best schooling regardless of winging by, and yet to be sent to a special "resource" classroom which is set aside for special needs kids such as us. There were 2 other HH boys in my class (and I remember having a terrible crush on both of them too).

I finally got fitted with over the ear type of hearing aids when I was older. I can't tell you when that was. But I remember I was very self conscious about it and tried to hide it and be cool. But I was never cool enough for anyone. It, to me, was a painful experience.

My stepdad calls me hearing impaired. I have to make a correction on that. Either call me deaf or hard of hearing. Hearing impaired is more like, becoming deaf later in your life, or you jabbed 2 sharp sticks in your ears, losing your hearing kind of impairment. So most of the time I say I'm deaf. But when in a hearing social setting or workplace, I do pretty good with lipreading and hearing most sounds. People have mistaken me for hearing---but I don't always catch everything.

I have a newer type of hearing aid now. I was unable to wear 2 hearing aids at the same time---my hearing loss were not the same percentage...one was higher than the other and trying to set the aids at different levels led to many migraines and imbalance. So I've done pretty good wearing ONE hearing aid. This new hearing aid I know proudly wear is a digital in the ear type, not over the ear...but the earmold type. It's very nice, and very easy to wear. And picks up more than my old over the ear hearing aid ever did.

If my ears becomes older as I age, and become profoundly deaf, sure. I will embrace it. I have skills in speaking, reading lips (depends on the lips, too...), and ASL. So I have no worries there.

I remember telling one former supervisor once (he was a very nice guy too) imagine the world was normal if everyone was deaf and the only "impairment" is being hearing? He really thought a long time about that. And just merely said, "interesting thought."