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Posted on 05/01/2011 5:46:51 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA
Dealing with hearing issues is still an early science. Just in the past couple of decades such discoveries as Vestibular Disorders being related to things like Dyslexia type symptoms, Anxiety, ADD ADHD symptoms separated from ADD ADHD now called C.A.P.D., poor coordination, poor concentration, seizures, etc have also been linked. Something as simple as chronic sinus allergies can do permanent damage to this system.
It can't be cured yet simply because it also involves a high complicated cerebellum portion of the brain where actual sensory information is processed. There is no huge conspiracy of deaf persons standing in the way. It will take many years if ever to cure the many forms of Vestibular issues which have many differing origins.
I'm a life long Vestibular Patient including a couple years going to school with deaf classmates. My hearing loss is at 50% last test 6 months ago but my Vestibular System and sensory processing system is nearly shot. So little is known in fact what happened to me has no scientific name. It could be the fact it is not one but several combined Vestibular and Visual sensory issues overlapping.
I will say this for Vestibular Research though. They are decades ahead on a lot of their research. I found out more about causes and treating issues like Anxiety Disorders reading Vestibular research sites than I ever would in one related to the Mental Health side of health care.
So, your answers are?
btw: I am sorry for your type of deafness. I am not making light of it, nor tossing it aside.
But the reactions of the deaf community to potential cures (much less and perhaps more importantly having hearing children) amazed me.
So, I have to ask again: Do you subscribe to that insular perspective? Does your immediate deaf community?
Sign - I know some; I am definitely not fluent in ASL. I occasionally used it in my career as an airline pilot, and now at my two days a month volunteer “job” at an international airport (communicating with deaf passengers).
My aunt, born with hearing, lost hers completely in her mid 20s. She is now 85. First fax machines, then computers, have been a godsend to her. She worked in a hearing world until her retirement (at age 65), all with no with no Gummn’t assistance.
Since you are presenting yourself as the expert here (albeit with an axe to grind), you might mention to our fellow Freepers that being BORN deaf is a severe handicap, since every time you open your mouth you sound like an idiot. Most people can’t get away from you fast enough. Not the case with my aunt and my son’s girlfriend. They both do fine in the hearing world: They carry erasable tablets (lip reading ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.)
Resent not the braying of an ass. Julius Sumner Miller
>> But the trouble with that is that gang bangers are so incredibly STUPID that they wouldn’t know what “deaf” meant.
The writer of the article wasn’t much brighter, either: “Deaf mute”? Dumba$$.
IF it could be done in a manner where I might not loose yet more of my sensory processing then yes I would do it. Actually I have taken steps all my life trying to correct or adapt too Vestibular damage.
if you could have kids with zero deafness, would you want it?
Let me say it like this. If I were to father a child who had a 100% chance of being deaf I would not prevent the childs birth and I would try to get the child help to try and hear. I would wish any child I fathered have no issues. Reality is I have fathered no children due to a circumstance related to my wife's health. I helped raise two kids starting at their tens that was plenty for me and I have a step-grandson with a hearing level the same as mine and I have been insisting he get the help he needs. Now my hearing step daughter on the other hand is an entirely different matter. She just doesn't want the world to know he has any such defects.
And do you drive? Even though over 30% of our cues when we drive are auditory?
I used to drive an 18 wheeler hows that? Oh but there's more. I am blind in one eye as well. Been that way since birth too. I can see from both eyes never at the same time. That as well can not be cured. They worked with me two solid years to adapt to that and poor coordination. I adapted so well the Navy and the Army both did not detect it in my entrance and discharge physicals. I'm an 8 year Vet. Four active duty Navy, two inactive and one year Army Guards drilling, one year inactive.
16 years ago my sensory processing system detiorated to the point of disability because of related seizure activity. Yes I still drive with that as well. I don't pass out but rather I spasm like getting hit with a cattle prod from the shoulders up. I have to drive. My wife can't. She is a quadriplegic. Yea people used to tell her that she could walk if she wanted too. All were opinionated religious zealots though who said it none were doctors.
I assume you toss in extra tax dollars for cars for blind and the like.
I'd rather see them who need and deserve it get the help than Juan from Juarez. I've interacted with the seriously disabled about all my life. I know the realities too. None of them I know but one who gets injured to sue likes being disabled and none but him would remain such if they had a choice in the matter.
When I go to the grocery store a deaf clerk usually rings me up. A Downs Syndrome man often bags the groceries. She is a lot faster and a lot more accurate because she isn't yapping to the bag boy while ringing up my purchases. The man bagging doesn't crush everything like the {normal} ones do either.
I think your being a little harsh on Freedumb. I’ve run into several deaf families where they were disappointed that their grandchild could hear and proud when another grandchild was deaf. I don’t know if it is endemic but there certainly do seem to be a lot of the deaf who choose to remain that way (That is, if there was a reasonably priced cure I don’t believe they would take it)
Regardless of that, Freedumbs main point is valid. What constitutional authority exists for funding teletypes etc for the deaf? None.
So, the answers to my questions of your deaf relatives are what? And what says their community?
I am not pretending to be an expert. I am passing on the opinions of a segment of the deaf community I have directly interacted with.
If the segment I have “spoken” with is not representative, nothing could make me happier.
What say your deaf community contacts? And what say they on why we pay TTY charges on our phones but not drivers for the blind charges on our cars?
If you have more insight than I do, please share.
The deafness started in the Navy due to the machinery. Later on full battery 155MM fire mission one night when I was in the ammo truck yards a few feet from where I was sleeping didn't help matters either. Tinnitus level is real high at many frequencies. I got hearing aids about two years ago I guess. I paid for my first pair at a dealer and got ripped off. My current pair I got through V.A. and they work better for my problems.
Now here's a choice I have. I can wear the hearing aids and have increased seizure activity. Or I can not wear them and have less seizures per day. Gee what should I do? I wear them as much as possible but with a real low volume in places that set me off like a Walmart.
But the reactions of the deaf community to potential cures (much less and perhaps more importantly having hearing children) amazed me. So, I have to ask again: Do you subscribe to that insular perspective? Does your immediate deaf community?
Besides myself and a step grandson we are the only two in the family with serious Vestibular issues. But to answer your question which I did in relation to my grandson let me say this. I have two cousins life long confined to wheelchairs. One is married with kids one is single. Neither one would have wanted their child to be in a wheelchair. I wish my grandson could hear perfect. The best auditory clinic in my state says he won't. Too much damage was done. How/why/when? We don't know and neither do they. They said the damage was like he had been in a loud explosion or similar.
>>1) If your hearing could be 100% restored would you do it?
IF it could be done in a manner where I might not loose yet more of my sensory processing then yes I would do it. Actually I have taken steps all my life trying to correct or adapt too Vestibular damage.<<
Your answer says “yes.” That isn’t what I found in the deaf community. What say your colleagues in that community? Have you asked?
if you could have kids with zero deafness, would you want it?
>>Let me say it like this. If I were to father a child who had a 100% chance of being deaf I would not prevent the childs birth and I would try to get the child help to try and hear. I would wish any child I fathered have no issues. Reality is I have fathered no children due to a circumstance related to my wife’s health. I helped raise two kids starting at their tens that was plenty for me and I have a step-grandson with a hearing level the same as mine and I have been insisting he get the help he needs. Now my hearing step daughter on the other hand is an entirely different matter. She just doesn’t want the world to know he has any such defects.<<
The (profoundly) deaf people I have spoken with in the deaf community do not quibble. They say “I would rather have a deaf child than a hearing one, since I don’t think deafness is a handicap” (all the while trying to explain why we should subsidize them).
What say your friends in the deaf community? Have you asked?
Handicaps are unfortunate and a proper society helps — to a great extent if need be.
But when the handicapped insist it is not only OK, but preferred to be handicapped, society should draw a line.
My FRiend, you are speaking as a casualty more than a representative.
My issue is with the deaf community that insists that deafness is not a handicap and it is best that children born into that community be deaf as well.
And they want us to subsidize it.
But when the handicapped insist it is not only OK, but preferred to be handicapped, society should draw a line.
Like I said of all the disabled person I know NONE wish disabilities on their kids. But you need to realize something though. They can not understand why hearing is so important. They live in a world that functions without it. It's not a form of cruelty on their part but rather how can you explain a sensory function to a person who never experienced it? There are many sensory issues people deal with. No sense of smell, not being able to feel heat {far more dangerous than not hearing} and blindness too name a few.
The ones you say you interacted have lived with and adapted to the problem from birth. Most do not know nor can understand what hearing means nor can any human being describe it to them in a manner they could really understand. The few adult deaf persons I have ran into in my life and have kids the kids can hear OK. This is because the adult lost hearing at a very early age due to a non genetic issue.
Well, we are on different planes. You see things the way most of society sees them — no one wants a disability.
The groups I am talking about (which you subsidize every call you make) embrace them (well, it).
I assure you there are no groups of blind who want blindness for their progeny, sensory-deprivation who want the same for their children, etc.
The deaf are unique in their desire to celebrate their disability while asking it to be subsidized. Remember what I said? $60 a MINUTE of taxpayers’ dollars for a deaf person to make a call from anywhere to anywhere. No cost to them, all the cost to us.
And there are no special taxes for those other groups either.
We are talking about a city that is 4 square miles in size, population sitting between 25,000 and 40,000, depending on the calender, and home to Gulfstream Race Track, where they run the Florida Derby each year. It has also at times been the getaway spot for most of New York's mob families since the Twenties, the old Italian American club to be specific, and sits smack between Ft. Lauderdale to the north, and Miami to the south.
Now lets get to the fine establishment that this incident took place, Oceans Eleven. Originally called Oceans Eleven South, it was the sister bar to Oceans Eleven on Hollywood beach, nee O.C. North. To borrow a line from the late great Sam Kinison, it truly is "the place where the possessed go to mingle". This place is notorious for the dregs that frequent it at all hours of the day and night, and I dare say that the ones here are NO exception. The old motto was, drunks up front, coke heads and dealers in the rear.
One of my best stories with this fine establishment came in 1983, when as a 16 year old I ran into one of my High School teachers at the bar, and after he got over the shock of seeing one of his pupils hanging out and drinking at a bar, we threw back a couple of longnecks together and raised a toast to "Higher" education. Great memories, made better by the fact that I managed to not get stabbed or shot in the days I was a frequest visitor. Hope you all enjoyed this history/geography lesson as much as I did recounting it.
P.S.- Little trivia for you; The location in Godfather 2 where Micheal Corleone visits Hyman Roth in Florida was filmed in a house about 4 blocks from this bar, and the first place that Nadia Comaneci came to after defecting is a house about 3 blocks from the bar.
Kush
What? That number sounds rediculously high, pardon the pun.
I smoke every day and the bill comes to about $18 a week. What's he smoking, gold-plated weed?
I am just going by what he tells me. Frankly, he’s a nice guy but one I throw into the category of sad circumstances along with drug addicts, alcoholics, homosexuals, gambling addicts, etc. etc.
Original post DID have paragraph breaks, which are indubitably our friends. Go figure.
Couldn’t make it past the first few words.
Paragraphs are our friends.
I am sure it was a lovely rant ramp up to a potential opus...?
It was scintilllating; sublime; and your speed in response amusing.
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