Jenna's Story

Jenna’s Story

I became deaf at a strange time: not as a child, and not in late adulthood, but as a teenager. It is still a mystery why I lost my hearing, but it started one day when I was 13 and complained to my camp counselor that the phone didn’t work. He insisted that it did, and I suddenly realized that I couldn’t hear anything at all. I was always deaf in one ear, and had frequent ear infections that impacted the hearing in my “good” ear, so had learned how to adapt by making use of visual information. Lipreading was second nature for me, and it was literally not until I was faced with an object that contained no visual information – a telephone – that my brain registered the fact that no sound was coming through at all.

That was the first time this happened without an ear infection, and it (whatever “it” was) cleared up within a few days, so we thought it was a one-time thing. But then, six months later, it happened again, and that started 5 years of wildly fluctuating hearing. The overall curve was downward, and I have been profoundly deaf (~110 db loss) since I was 18, but in those 5 years my hearing would go from 20 db loss to 80 db loss (for example) in the course of a few hours.

I started wearing hearing aids when I was about 14, and was allowed to program them myself (something that was a bit unusual at the time), because of the fluctuation. They helped – I remember using them to have “super hearing” when my hearing was good. (I’d put them on while sitting at one end of a long hall, and be able to hear the whispered conversations of people at the other end.) I didn’t like the hassles – making sure they stayed dry, not knowing when they were emitting piercing feedback – but overall really appreciated the help that they provided as I attempted to continue to function as a hearing person in high school.

I became interested in sign language and interpreters in high school, but had several unpleasant experiences. For example, I decided to have an oral interpreter for while I was learning sign, sort of as a bridge, since I was an excellent lipreader but had a hard time following fast-moving discussions. An oral interpreter simply repeats (without sound) everything that is being spoken, so I could watch one person instead of a roomful. The interpreter that was sent was very nice but had one truly devastating problem – he had a cleft palate, or “harelip.” He was virtually impossible to lipread, and lipreading was the whole point!

This episode was the very beginning of my realization that I needed to advocate for myself, because who else would? Nobody in the school system was listening to my problems, or offering solutions.

I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for college, knowing a tiny bit of sign. There were at the time just 2 other deaf students, on a campus of 40,000, and I didn’t meet them until much later. However, I did meet some wonderful people at the McBurney Disability Resource Center there, who later had a large impact. I had notetakers, did a lot of lipreading (though I seemed to have a disproportionate number of mustachioed professors!) and read a TON, and genuinely enjoyed my college experience even though there were formidable communication barriers.

At the beginning of my senior year, I decided that for my foreign language credit I wanted to take an ASL class. (And had quite a struggle obtaining permission to do that, which is another story…) That class marked a real turning point for me.

In elementary school, I had always found myself in positions of leadership. That continued into junior high, but stopped when my hearing declined and I was unable to keep up with what was going on. I’d always been an A student, and continued to be, because I could read and do homework assignments with no problem, but I’d lost that interaction with my fellow students.

My ASL class was taught by a wonderful Deaf woman, and was an immersion class – no voices. Suddenly, at age 21, I felt as I had back in elementary school – knowing what was going on, able to answer the professors’ questions, joking with classmates. It was a great feeling to see those barriers finally start to crumble, at long last.

I then started having ASL interpreters in my classes – I was still learning the language, but was able to lipread and connect what signs I knew with what was being said. That first semester, it was SO difficult to keep watching the interpreters! My eyes were not used to that kind of continuous focus, and I had a pretty tenuous grasp of the language at that point. But my ASL skills did continue to improve, and I decided that I really wanted to meet more Deaf people. So I started attending the Madison Deaf Club, and created a social group for Deaf and Hard of Hearing UW students.

My sign skills improved as I socialized with more and more deaf people, but I still was not at all culturally Deaf – at that point I was mostly focusing on learning the language. After getting my B.A., (in English with an Emphasis on Creative Writing) I went back to school to get my master’s in Deaf Education from the University of Minnesota. Ever since my experiences in high school, I had wanted to do something about improving the educational opportunities for Deaf kids.

My master’s degree program included summer sessions at the Minnesota School for the Deaf, in Faribault, and that was the beginning of really becoming aware of and involved in Deaf culture and the Deaf community. My circle of Deaf friends was also expanding, and people were finally starting to think I was Deaf, instead of an interpreting student!

Upon graduation, I took a job as the Deaf and hard of hearing services coordinator for an independent living agency in Madison, and then moved to Los Angeles (because of my husband’s job), where I created and directed an agency that taught computer and other job skills to Deaf and hard of hearing adults, and provided job placement services (when I left, my agency had a 100% placement rate, which I’m pretty proud of.) I truly became a member of the Deaf community and a capital D deaf person myself at my agency. Of my 8 staff people, 7 were Deaf, and I had about 40 Deaf clients come through my office or on site taking classes every day.

I now consider myself to be truly bi-cultural: my husband and daughter (almost 2 years old) are both hearing, many of my friends are hearing, and I was hearing for much of my life. (Though, at 31, I can no longer say “for MOST of my life.”) But Deaf culture and Deaf people are very important to me, and I feel unmoored if I go to long without interacting with Deaf friends. Communication is so effortless and free, but it’s more than that – I have a deep affection for the culture itself.

Since the birth of my daughter, I have been a stay-at-home mom, but am active in lots of committees, especially as president of the Laurent Clerc Deaf Academy board. It has been my ongoing dream to provide truly quality educational options for Deaf and hard of hearing kids, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the LCDA. (See our website at www.lcda.org)



	Jenna’s Story I became deaf at a strange time: not as a child, and not in late adulthood, but as a teenager. It is still a mystery why I lost my hearing, but it started one day when I was 13 and complained to my camp counselor that the phone didn’t work. He insisted that it did, and I suddenly realized that I couldn’t hear anything at all. I was always deaf in one ear, and had frequent ear infections that impacted the hearing in my “good” ear, so had learned how to adapt by making use of visual information. Lipreading was second nature for me, and it was literally not until I was faced with an object that contained no visual information – a telephone – that my brain registered the fact that no sound was coming through at all. That was the first time this happened without an ear infection, and it (whatever “it” was) cleared up within a few days, so we thought it was a one-time thing. But then, six months later, it happened again, and that started 5 years of wildly fluctuating hearing. The overall curve was downward, and I have been profoundly deaf (~110 db loss) since I was 18, but in those 5 years my hearing would go from 20 db loss to 80 db loss (for example) in the course of a few hours. I started wearing hearing aids when I was about 14, and was allowed to program them myself (something that was a bit unusual at the time), because of the fluctuation. They helped – I remember using them to have “super hearing” when my hearing was good. (I’d put them on while sitting at one end of a long hall, and be able to hear the whispered conversations of people at the other end.) I didn’t like the hassles – making sure they stayed dry, not knowing when they were emitting piercing feedback – but overall really appreciated the help that they provided as I attempted to continue to function as a hearing person in high school. I became interested in sign language and interpreters in high school, but had several unpleasant experiences. For example, I decided to have an oral interpreter for while I was learning sign, sort of as a bridge, since I was an excellent lipreader but had a hard time following fast-moving discussions. An oral interpreter simply repeats (without sound) everything that is being spoken, so I could watch one person instead of a roomful. The interpreter that was sent was very nice but had one truly devastating problem – he had a cleft palate, or “harelip.” He was virtually impossible to lipread, and lipreading was the whole point! This episode was the very beginning of my realization that I needed to advocate for myself, because who else would? Nobody in the school system was listening to my problems, or offering solutions. I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for college, knowing a tiny bit of sign. There were at the time just 2 other deaf students, on a campus of 40,000, and I didn’t meet them until much later. However, I did meet some wonderful people at the McBurney Disability Resource Center there, who later had a large impact. I had notetakers, did a lot of lipreading (though I seemed to have a disproportionate number of mustachioed professors!) and read a TON, and genuinely enjoyed my college experience even though there were formidable communication barriers. At the beginning of my senior year, I decided that for my foreign language credit I wanted to take an ASL class. (And had quite a struggle obtaining permission to do that, which is another story…) That class marked a real turning point for me. In elementary school, I had always found myself in positions of leadership. That continued into junior high, but stopped when my hearing declined and I was unable to keep up with what was going on. I’d always been an A student, and continued to be, because I could read and do homework assignments with no problem, but I’d lost that interaction with my fellow students. My ASL class was taught by a wonderful Deaf woman, and was an immersion class – no voices. Suddenly, at age 21, I felt as I had back in elementary school – knowing what was going on, able to answer the professors’ questions, joking with classmates. It was a great feeling to see those barriers finally start to crumble, at long last. I then started having ASL interpreters in my classes – I was still learning the language, but was able to lipread and connect what signs I knew with what was being said. That first semester, it was SO difficult to keep watching the interpreters! My eyes were not used to that kind of continuous focus, and I had a pretty tenuous grasp of the language at that point. But my ASL skills did continue to improve, and I decided that I really wanted to meet more Deaf people. So I started attending the Madison Deaf Club, and created a social group for Deaf and Hard of Hearing UW students. My sign skills improved as I socialized with more and more deaf people, but I still was not at all culturally Deaf – at that point I was mostly focusing on learning the language. After getting my B.A., (in English with an Emphasis on Creative Writing) I went back to school to get my master’s in Deaf Education from the University of Minnesota. Ever since my experiences in high school, I had wanted to do something about improving the educational opportunities for Deaf kids. My master’s degree program included summer sessions at the Minnesota School for the Deaf, in Faribault, and that was the beginning of really becoming aware of and involved in Deaf culture and the Deaf community. My circle of Deaf friends was also expanding, and people were finally starting to think I was Deaf, instead of an interpreting student! Upon graduation, I took a job as the Deaf and hard of hearing services coordinator for an independent living agency in Madison, and then moved to Los Angeles (because of my husband’s job), where I created and directed an agency that taught computer and other job skills to Deaf and hard of hearing adults, and provided job placement services (when I left, my agency had a 100% placement rate, which I’m pretty proud of.) I truly became a member of the Deaf community and a capital D deaf person myself at my agency. Of my 8 staff people, 7 were Deaf, and I had about 40 Deaf clients come through my office or on site taking classes every day. I now consider myself to be truly bi-cultural: my husband and daughter (almost 2 years old) are both hearing, many of my friends are hearing, and I was hearing for much of my life. (Though, at 31, I can no longer say “for MOST of my life.”) But Deaf culture and Deaf people are very important to me, and I feel unmoored if I go to long without interacting with Deaf friends. Communication is so effortless and free, but it’s more than that – I have a deep affection for the culture itself. Since the birth of my daughter, I have been a stay-at-home mom, but am active in lots of committees, especially as president of the Laurent Clerc Deaf Academy board. It has been my ongoing dream to provide truly quality educational options for Deaf and hard of hearing kids, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the LCDA. (See our website at www.lcda.org)