Category Archives: deaf_hoh

Oct 23

Another Busy Weekend

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Mood: Fine
Listening to: Weekly Radio Address for 10/21/2006 and Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd
Eating: breakfast bar, chocolate milk, cranberry juice, and coffee
Watching: multi-colored leaves falling from trees outside the window

I was hardly on the computer at all this past weekend, maybe just to check email. We were just so busy with other stuff, which I’ll share after the jump:

Friday night we went with some friend from our family group at church to Parky’s Farm at Winton Woods. They have “Halloween Nights” right now, with a hay maze, puppet show, magic show, hay rides, rock climbing, and more. It got cold and it had rained the day before, so the ground was a little muddy.

Saturday morning we woke up and watched “Last Holiday” with Queen Latifah. Great movie.

Saturday afternoon, Keisha and I went to a Halloween gathering for some kids in the local schools who are deaf and hard of hearing. We made caramel apples, iced cupcakes, and made ghost lollipops.

Saturday evening we went to the home of a woman from church. She has two adopted kids from China, and she’s getting ready to go on a mission trip back to China to help kids who have been born with cleft palates. We went to their home because we’re going to be taking care of the kids while she’s on her 10-day mission trip.

Sunday morning we went to church, and after that, Keisha and I went to the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park production of “ACE”. It was the first time for both of us, and we had a great time.

Related tags:

journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm

Oct 08

Talking with the Official Mom This Evening

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Keisha Talking with Nana
Tonight we talked with the Official Mom of Journey Inside My Mind via SkypeOut. We have the laptop speakers connected to the stereo system so that everyone could hear my Mom. Keisha, Jennie, and I talked for close to an hour, and I took some pictures, which will be on this post momentarily.

What’s great is that Keisha, who is hard of hearing, could hear her Nana very well and talk with her as though she was here. Technology is amazing that way.

Aug 15

God Knows the Plans He Has for Us

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Last night I wound up tucking Keisha into bed around 10:30 PM. It’s summertime, and we’ve often let her stay up late. We spent the hour before her bedtime reading another chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5). We kissed Jennie bye as she left for work around 10 PM.

She got ready for me to tuck her in by brushing her teeth and taking her hearing aids out, as she normally does. As I tucked her in, she said she wanted to have some music playing while she fell asleep.

I turned the CD/karaoke machine on, and she said she could just barely hear it. It sounded quite loud to me. She wanted it turned up louder. I told her it was already too loud for this time of night.

Then she said something that broke my heart: She said she wished she could hear like Jennie and me, that she wasn’t hard of hearing. I told her I wished she wasn’t hard of hearing, too.

I asked her if she remembered what we’d studied in the Bible on Sunday. Then I reminded her that we’d read Jeremiah 29:10-13:

10 This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I told Keisha that God has plans for her, with her hearing loss. We don’t really know exactly what those plans are right now, but God DOES have some great plans in store for her.

Then we prayed together. She asked God to help her be grateful for where she is. I prayed for God to help us both to be encouraged and wait for him to reveal his plans for her life.

Then I told Keisha that I wished her to have “sweet dreams”, full of princesses, princes, unicorns – “Ponies?” she asked – yes, ponies, and all that other good stuff.

Jun 13

Sign Language Classes Coming

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Mood: charged
Listening to: Salient – “Immortalize Me”

Jennie, Keisha, and I have a great opportunity to take some sign language classes this summer starting tomorrow night. This conflicts with some meetings we have with folks from church, unfortunately.

Here’s an excerpt from an e-mail I just sent to fellow members of our family group:

Hey there, brothers and sisters! I hope you’re doing well.

I apologize in advance for the length and personal nature of this e-mail, but I hope you’ll understand by the time you’ve finished reading it.

As you may know, our daughter Keisha is hard of hearing, something we’ve known for over 6 years. Communication breakdowns are so common, and Keisha, even though she has an interpreter at school, isn’t able to understand what’s being said because her sign language knowledge is so limited.

We met with a deaf therapist last Saturday and talked about the frustration we’ve all felt from the communication hardships we’ve experienced. She said that the single-most important thing we could do to relieve this frustration is for all three of us to get some sign language training as soon as possible.

We are fortunate to have been contacted by the Cincinnati arm of Deaf Initiatives, and they are having free sign language classes throughout the summer. Unfortunately, the classes coincide with our midweek meetings on Wednesdays at 7 PM. The first class is tomorrow night, 6/14/06.

At this time Jennie and I both feel that the communication needs of our family outweigh our attendance at Wednesday family group meetings. I struggle writing this, because we all thoroughly enjoyed being with you guys. We want to participate in the family group, but we’re going to have to do so, at least for the next few months, outside of the Wednesday meetings.

To that end, we would love to receive via e-mail the lesson notes and any other correspondence – especially via phone and in person. :D

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments. And please pray for God to use this time to enable us to superbless others, too.

Within 7 minutes, I got this reply from J., one of the family group members:

I believe that you are absolutely doing the right thing. Who knows who might meet and inspire as well? We will pray that this is a great time for you all as a family as well. I have been fortunate to be able to schedule most of Anna’s appts away from Wed, but things do come up from time to time.

I’ll share more here or in another post later on.

May 27

I Can See You Signing on the Phone

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Mood: really good
Listening to: JIMM 49 – Kill My Pain
Eating: LaRosa’s Pizza
Weather: Clear, 66 degrees F

We got a videophone for Keisha Friday. This is a useful substitute for a TTY machine. We can call other deaf and hard-of-hearing people and sign back and forth to them. In addition, we can use the Video Relay System (VRS) to call hearing people. With the relay system, we sign to an interpreter, who relays what’s being said between the two parties.

One challenge for us is that our sign language is at best rudimentary, while these interpreters are really good. Keisha and I made a practice call to Jennie’s cell phone, but it was weird because we weren’t sure if the interpreter was talking to us or if it was Jennie. Then we realized that the interpreter was just doing her job, relaying what’s being signed and said.

Our hope is for Keisha to be able to call other deaf and hard of hearing children she meets over the summer. It also serves as an alternative to talking on the phone, or Keisha trying to understand what’s being said on the phone.

Speaking of the regular phone, we got an amplified receiver, and we’ve used it a little so far with some success. Well, if you count a 25-30 minute conversation Keisha had with her Nana – I guess it was very successful.

Apr 07

How to Prevent Hearing Loss

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Living with hearing loss is something our daughter does every day; she was born that way. Yet I know I and many others are doing things that may eventually lead to hearing loss in the future, if we don’t change certain things about how we live and listen.

This article from Wired News shares some suggestions and advice on how to listen to music, whether in your home, in the car, or on your iPod or other portable listening device.

Wired News:

Mar 23

Hot Wings

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Mood: hot, teary
Listening to: audio from a Deaf/Hard of Hearing conference we attended last weekend
Eating: Hot wings from Buffalo Wild Wings

Jennie brought home some Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. OMG! The flavors she brought home were

  • mango habanera
  • asian zing
  • spicy garlic
  • blazin’

When Jennie called to ask how hot I wanted the wings, I told her I was willing to go as hot as we could go, even to burning another hole. What I meant by that was that, if it’s hot going in, chances are it’s going to be hot coming back out.

I’m reminded of when we lived in Dayton. We lived really close to this restaurant called B.C. Rooster’s. One of the flavors they had was called “donkey”. It was really spicy – in fact, it was about the hottest we could handle.

It wasn’t until we sat down to eat the blazin’ ones that I understood what was potentially meant by the term “donkey” (think of synonyms).

So, we opted for a bit of – dare I say – “fun” self-punishment.

Update: It’s been several hours, and I’ve been “punished” again, if you know what I mean.