Shands Clinic – Costa Jill

Today my husband and I sit with the audiologist and otologist at the Shands Speech and Hearing Clinic in Gainesville. Our 1 ½ year old baby boy, Scooter is on my lap, happy to be out of the sound and stimulation proof cell; happy to have the headset off. The doctor tries to exchange pleasantries but we’re not concentrating, sad little smiles plastered on our faces. He clears his throat and tells us, “ your son is profoundly deaf.” The nagging suspicion we’ve had is confirmed. The shock of the present blocks the past and the future. First there’s a feeling of relief – of knowing something definite. Next we get commiserations – “I’m so sorry. With Rubella it could have been much worse; blindness, brain damage.” We try to listen to results – “90dB loss, both ears, a little residual hearing that can be amplified.” Advice – “Get a hearing aid on him right away. Learn all you can about deafness. There are many options. I’ll give you the address and phone number of the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind.” Oh my God, not an institution! “And last but not least think about having another baby. Another child in the house will probably be the best teacher your son could have.”

Any questions? “Yes. No. Lots. None.” We can’t assess any of this yet. We ride home in outward stillness, our minds running crazy inside, with our bouncing beautiful, unbothered baby boy. He hasn’t changed. Only we have. We bring him home to our new house in Ormond Beach. I feed him, play with him, tuck him into bed and burst into tears.

I go through all the emotions of the stages of grief:

Denial. He’s fine.
Pity. It’s not fair. Why me? It’s too hard. Where do I start? This creeping dreadful possibility of the last two years has finally manifested itself upon us, no matter how intensely I denied it and shoved it away.
Guilt. I needed to wallow. If I hadn’t been teaching with a bunch of sick kids.
Anger. The kid I got rubella from – why did his incompetent doctor-grandfather allow him to go to school during a rubella epidemic?
Bargaining. Please God I’ll do anything. Don’t let this be true.
Depression. Why me? nothing’s going to be okay. What have I done to my child?
Acceptance, “I can’t fight it, I’d better prepare.”

Then comes a raging drive to fix him, to help him make it in a world he can’t hear. How can he learn to talk if he can’t hear? Infants learn by imitation. A picture forms in my mind – a little boy holding a tin cup with a sign around his neck “deaf and dumb”. A horrible stereotype. Never! Not my son!

Now I have a mission. First the audiologist fits him for a single hearing aid in the ear with a little residual hearing. He’s a baby. He’s irritated with all the fussing and poking. When the aid, about the size of a playing card only thicker and heavier, is finally “attached” with a harness that looks like a bra except there’s only one “cup” for the aid, all he wants to do is rip the whole contraption off. He’s young enough not to be embarrassed, but too young to understand the importance of this uncomfortable gadget. While he’s getting used to the aid and the new sounds he’s hearing I start researching and studying.

Next time: Choices.

scan-213x300-5566831 — Scooter's 1st Birthday

I’m rummaging through journals for information to supplement and stimulate my memories of beginning a family forty-five years ago. I open a grubby three-ring notebook. Lots of looseleaf stuff falls out. I recognize my mother’s handwriting and squint at the title, I Saw a Miracle faintly penciled in. A coincidence? It’s her take on my Rubella story.

The sharp ring of the telephone broke the quiet evening. The call was from my daughter in El Paso. Her husband was stationed at the Ft. Bliss army base. I knew she’d been crying by her tear-strained voice. ‘Mother, have I ever had German Measles?’

A cold chill ran down my spine. I knew what was coming. Jill was in the 12^th week of her first pregnancy. She’d called Easter ecstatic with the good news, after two years of waiting.

That’s her waiting not mine. I wasn’t sure I wanted a baby yet, but had stopped taking birth control.

Jill had consulted several physicians. Some advised wait-and-hope, some abortion.

No physician suggested abortion; that was my idea. In fact no legal abortions were available until 1968, after the big epidemic was running its course. She continues, putting my name in place of hers.

Abortion was a horrible word, not permitted by my daughter’s religion or her personal feelings. She would not consider it. To her it meant taking a life, perhaps a perfect life. She carried her unborn baby very bravely for the next six months, never complaining, but I knew how deeply concerned she was and how hard she must have prayed. We all prayed with her.

What? It’s my mother’s god coming out all over the place. Did I tell her that to pacify her? Or have I taken the godless views I now hold, reversed time and infiltrated them into my past? What is the truth? My memory weaves through it with a thin silver thread, periodically blinding me with its reflection.

scan-11-227x300-5749379 — Ray, Jill and Scooter 4 mo. Venice, Fl

Little Ray or Scooter, as his family now called him, grew more beautiful each day – golden red fuzz, eyes as blue as the ocean where he lived, white skin, pink cheeks – an exceptionally beautiful child. However, we were all watching him carefully. I had taught speech therapy before my marriage and I began to suspect that he was not hearing.

We all suspected. From early on we were banging pot lids together behind Scooter’s back. No response. I brought up our concerns to the pediatrician. He placed his watch behind his head on one side or the other and when he turned his head correctly he said, “See. He’s fine.” This was no dumb kid. He could see the hand behind him. Scooter was a year old, but wasn’t babbling or saying those first dada, mama words although he was looking intently at our faces when we spoke. With great trepidation we made an appointment for Scooter at the Shands Speech and Hearing Clinic in Gainesville, Florida.

Tag: Shands Clinic

Life and Deaf – A Deaf Son

I Saw A Miracle by Fifi Green