Life without hearing. Dealing with a Handicap.

Those of you who know me know that I was born with a hearing loss although I am not completely deaf my comfortable hearing level is between a jack hammer and an airplane engine.  Those are not really loud to me just normal sounds.  Like the running car motor next to you.  It has been difficult to deal with and I have struggled in areas of social and educational learning over the years.  I have always been excellent with one on one conversations if I could read lips, but get into a social group and I can't follow along.  It is a thing of "Better to be quiet and be thought a fool then to open your mouth and remove all doubt."  The same was how school was, I struggled to find the proper combo between learning and socially fitting in.  My problem was shame.  I always felt it was a sign of weakness to show my "handicap".  What would my friends think but more importantly how would those I didn't know react.  Would I be mocked or not?  Would I be avoided? Would I be pitied? Or would I just be accepted as doing my best?  It was hard to be a teen ager with such a handicap.  Most people didn't know.  I developed the "life of the party" attitude and talked a lot, listened a little, drank a lot and experimented with drugs.  The drugs and drinking were my excuse to say "Man I was so far gone last night, I don't even remember you saying that."  Still to this day, people ask if I remember them from school and tell me their names.  I will be honest with you, I might remember you if I saw a picture of you but most people I never learned their names.  There is no way I will remember you from a name. It's something I still deal with today and find myself saying, so I don't hurt their feelings, "Oh I was so plowed in high school I don't remember much."
     It isn't easy going back to school at 40 (well this summer I will be 40, but close enough) I sit in a class with kids half my age and feel like an alien from a different world.  Part of me really enjoys it.  I am at a place in my life where I no longer care what people think, say or act.  I look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and am happy with what I see.
     Why don't I wear hearing aids you might ask.  I can't afford them, I am a single father of three, a student, running my own business which is still in the starting stages.  I can't afford 3,000 for a cheap pair.  So I just do my best.  Well actually I do a little better then that now.  I bought an Ipod touch 4th generation to help with school and work.  It had a voice recorder that I started using to record my professor's messages.  It worked well but required I take another hour or two to listen to the message again, 5 hours of school became 10, 8 became 16. So on and so forth.  That wasn't working as well as I would have liked.  Then I found the lifesaver.  A little app on Itunes called "ehear" it takes sounds though the mic and amplifies it into the earphones, which I have to crank up to hear, but yes I CAN HEAR! For the first time in my life I can hear in class.  It's awesome it really is.  I actually started participating in class discussions. No fear of looking like I fool because I know where the conversation is going.
     It as I said was awesome.  Life with hearing.  Dealing with a handicap with the help from apple.
Very cool,
As always in Christ,
Jim
P.S. as I said I am a single dad, running my own business.  These blogs are part of that.  You see those adds all around here.  Those are my money makers.  Please support my sponsors, they support me.