Deaf, Hard of Hearing, but NEVER Hearing Impaired

I

"BEEP BEEP BEEP"

I wake up to the sound of birds chirping and my alarm clock. I sit up and look around for the alarm. It's nowhere to be seen. Just my luck, my cat had knocked it somewhere last night, so now I can't find it. Since it's a cordless alarm clock, it could be anywhere in my room.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP" The alarm won't shut up! I continuously search for it.

Next to my dresser? "BEEP BEEP BEEP" No, not there.

Under my bed? "BEEP BEEP BEEP" Nope, not there either.

Where could it be? I can't find it!

I yell out in frustration, "I wish I couldn't even hear that alarm clock!"

After relentlessly searching for it, I find the alarm clock in my cat's bed. "Stop stealing my things, Loo." I order the cat.

Maloo, my cat, is a short-haired white cat with peach coloured ears. She may be six years old, but she's still as playful as ever.

"Heather, sweetie... Is everything alright in there?" I hear my aunt call to me.

My aunt is also my legal guardian in case anything happens to my parents. Right now she's watching me while my parents are out. If I remember correctly, they were going across the border to the States for the day to pick up some things.

She opens the door to my room and I give her a smile as I turn to her. I place my thumb to my chest with the rest of my hand open. I then make a fist next to my head and shake it side-to-side slightly. My aunt is almost entirely deaf, and I am signing to her.

"Fine, Auntie." I speak at the same time as my actions.

We never used to use sign language; my aunt can read lips almost perfectly. Except in the dark, of course. When we learned of her hearing problems and that she would soon become completely deaf, we all insisted on learning how to sign.

Learning sign language was the best decision I made all year. It was really neat to learn. I also met some great friends who happened to be deaf. They were really nice.

I even use sign language at school. It's a great secret code. A few of my school friends also know sign, so we sign in class a lot. We've never been in trouble for "talking" in class.

I get ready for school quickly. I eat a small bowl of Froot Loops with milk and a glass of orange juice. After brushing my teeth, I brush my hair. I get dressed after that. A bit of a backwards morning, but as long as it all gets done. I find a white tank top as an undershirt and a cute pale pink shirt to go over top. Pink's not my favourite colour; I don't really like it, but I'll still wear it if it's cute looking. A pair of baby blue skinny jeans catch my eye as well.

After finding an appropriate outfit to wear, I grab an apple to munch on during my walk to school.

There is one question on my mind that I cannot get rid of: if my aunt is nearly fully deaf, how did she know to check on me? As I walk, the answer becomes clear. The answer is in the question itself. She is nearly fully deaf; she can still hear some. I must have yelled loud enough for her to hear me, making her worry and check on me.

"Ah, that makes sense." I say to myself in realization.

"What does?" My friend, Myla asks me.

Being lost in my thoughts, I hadn't noticed that I am already in class.

"Nothing of major concern; don't worry about it." I try to brush off concerns of hers with a closed-eye smile.

"Okay, I won't worry about that, but..." Myla seems to be hinting at something. I look to where her gaze rests. There are students already ready to play instruments of all kinds: clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, trombone, tuba, bass guitars. Now I see what she means; I'm in music class and have yet to set up my instrument.

After I set up my flute, class begins instantly. "Okay, class, today we are working on listening for your cues within the music." Miss. Azoluna instructs us on our lesson.

She tells us about how we should know the music inside and out by now, and we should rely on cues given to us by other instruments in order to stay together.

Myla and I are the only two flutes in class and our cue comes from the bass guitars behind us. However, Miss. Azoluna decides to seat me a row closer to the basses than Myla. She says that she doesn't want Myla to rely on me anymore and that she should be independent.

I don't like her idea of sitting me directly next to the basses' amps, but I go along with it. It was an order; since I'm a cadet, I always follow orders. Except, I really don't like this one; sitting here hurts my ears. The basses are really loud and being next to them makes it worse.

I would be perfectly fine with her decision if it were a one time thing, only this seems to be ongoing. The teacher has been sitting me here quite often lately and it just plain sucks.

While playing, I listen closely to the basses. That's probably not the wisest decision because—of course—one of the basses decides to be extremely obnoxious and loud. I can't tell who it is, yet they're playing anything but what is written on the music sheet, and really loudly at that. I feel a piercing and throbbing pain in my ears so I immediately hold my ears and lean over in pain.

This is just great—noting the sarcasm. My ears have been hurting a lot lately, and this most certainly isn't helping.

Now the teacher is having us do listening activities. She's punishing us all for the obnoxious bass player. Now we all have to listen for and write down the rhythm of what she plays on the piano. It's not the worst punishment but it's still annoying.

The teacher even becomes bored with producing rhythms for us, so she has us name songs. She plays old songs by even older composers. We listen to Little Fugue in g minor by Bach which isn't too bad to listen to, except it gets worse from there. When other songs like The Four Seasons or The Royal Fireworks come on, I get to listen to the class grumble and complain. It makes me wish that I didn't have to listen to these songs at all.

• • •

Even in drama class, my ears are still throbbing. This pain is really annoying; not to mention distracting. We're also working on cues in drama, although a different kind of cue from in music. It's really hard for me to listen to anything with my ears hurting, but I pull through anyway. I love drama. Acting is so much fun and a big part of my life; I'm not about to let some ear ache get in the way of that.

So far, I am doing the best with practising cues. I listen carefully to the words spoken by the person behind me.

I don't remember her real name, but since she has bright blue hair and blue eyes, we all call her Blue.

Because she is behind me as I face the audience, I must rely on the sounds and cues she gives me. I hear Blue's footsteps approach me from behind, "Hmm... I wonder what would happen if I..." Her voice trails off while in character.

That "if I..." is my cue. This is where her character takes a baseball bat to the back of my character's head. She fake hits me, and I stumble to the floor dramatically.

Out of boredom, I yell out.  When I had read the script, it said  "She strikes her", so I yell out "I've been striked!" I quickly realize that that's not right and try to correct myself, "Stroked...?"  That's not right either.  I lay on the floor in defeat, "I'm hit..."

Blue and I are the only two in the class to get our cues perfectly.

Becoming totally involved in the play, my ears no longer hurt. Distractions seem to be the best way to get rid of pain after all.