Down the Tubes Productions

I was off to see some friends. And some fishes. 

I went to high school with Michelle. After high school, she moved down to North Carolina. I would travel down to visit once a year for a number of years. And Erika was Michelle’s roommate at the time. Michelle and Erika were actually present for a hearing health advocacy. prologue of sorts. 

I learned just how loud air warning horns are with them.

I’d just gotten my first set of bionic ears a few months before, when I found myself at a Bs/Canes game with them in Raleigh. This was the early 2000s a few years before the Canes won their cup and a few more years before the Bs had a team that’d do anything but make Brad sad. I was prepared for the Canes to score early and often. The rink was rowdy but I was prepared for my poor little brain to struggle to filter out background noise it wasn’t used to. But I was not prepared for their goal celebration. 

The horn unfurled a sound so loud it left me curled in the fetal position. In a chair. A chair I barely fit in. 

It was shockingly loud and, honestly, a little painful. I was not used to hearing something so powerful. I was afraid it’d blow my speakers. So every time they scored, I’d turn off my aids. This was back when aids actually had off switches. 

So Michelle and Erika were there for the nascent days of my openness about my hearing loss. 

And now they were back in what is fast becoming the heyday of my openness about my hearing loss. 

As we made our way around the New England Aquarium, they were both amazingly considerate. Sure, I’ve known Michelle for thirty years and Erika for twenty, but just because I’ve known them for decades doesn’t mean they auto-magically know what accommodations I need. Some of that is on me for only recently advocating for myself. But I didn’t need to advocate at all for either of them. Which is an accommodation I’m not about to take for granted. 

Erika’s two younglings, Rhyse and Mckai, were initially quiet. Since I was a big, hairy, funny-sounding dude, I don’t blame them. But they warmed up quite quickly and when we corkscrewed our way up around the central tank, they took to chatting with me occasionally. Erika and Michelle made sure to tell them to face me when talking to me and modeled the behavior themselves. Rhyse, being the older and bolder of the two, took to accommodating me like a fish to water. After Erika’s initial instructions to face me when talking to me, Rhyse would always do so. A couple of times, she actually stopped herself from starting to talk and walked over to me to face me. 

I can’t tell you how much that warmed my heart. 

With only occasional moments of forgetfulness, both kids were pretty fantastic about it. Mckai, the younger and shyer of the two, still gave me that familiar child challenge; she had a quiet voice. In those instances when I simply couldn’t make out enough words to get by, Erika played translator and helped Mckai and I have a conversation. But only after the kiddo had a chance to try again. That sort of agency is invaluable. Just as knowing when to step in and pick up the conversational slack is. 

Eventually, we worked up an appetite with all that walking 

We went to Legal Seafood for an early dinner and then walked over to Modern Pastry for dessert. Both times, Michelle made sure I had first dibs on seating. She’d hold the girls back (not literally) and give me a chance to snag the most acoustically friendly seat. The first time she did so, I was whisked away to high school. 

When our group of friends went out to eat, she’d always help make sure I had the seat I needed. She was primed to help me by her mother’s own hearing struggles. But again, just because she was set up to be able to help me doesn’t lessen my appreciation. I don’t remember if I had more trouble hearing back in high school, when I didn’t have hearing aids to pick up background noise, or now when I have them and they pick up said noise. 

But I do know I got to give back. 

Since I’ve started talking about my hearing loss, I rarely pass up an opportunity to show off. My hearing aids that is. 

During dinner, I explained to Mckai why I needed to sit with my back to the wall. I took out my bionic ear and showed her where the microphones were, explaining that by having the mics pointed at the wall, and not at the kitchen behind me, I was able to more easily hear the conversation around the table.

That wasn’t the first teachable moment, either. 

Back at the fishy place, both Michelle and Erika mentioned people in their lives that were either Deaf or hard of hearing. For the latter, being able to get an ASL interpreter isn’t always possible. For the former, an ASL interpreter isn’t always helpful. I mentioned Ava, the captioning app. While it’s not perfect, it’s a great tool to have in your DHH toolbox.  

I know I’ve said this eleventy billion times in this post but I appreciated all the accommodating the four of them did during the day. In the short time I’ve been actively advocating for myself, I’ve come to see how rare the sort of automatic accommodations they provided really are. There are plenty of people in my life, people I’ve known for decades, that still forget. I’m getting better at asking those people for help but I don’t always do so. It’s refreshing when people like Michelle and Erika, Rhyse and Mckai lend me a hand before I ask. 

I’m a long way from
Reflexive advocacy.
Patience, grasshopper.