Page 35 of Rocking Her Silence

Then I figured I should simply tell him myself, get the elephant out of the room, so to speak.

I picked up the phone again, pulled a blank note up, and started to write about the pesky pachyderm.

I told him that hearing aids wouldn't do much in my case and that I couldn't get a cochlear implant because after I got sick as a baby, too much bone growth occurred in the next three years. By the time my parents got me, the scar tissue and otosclerosis in both of my inner ears were such that very little could be done, especially since there was a total lack of usable auditory nerve fibers. So, if the doctors had tried to give me that type of implant, it almost certainly wouldn't have helped my hearing in terms of speech discernment.

I could have gotten an ABI, but that's a brainstem implant. My parents deemed that the risks would far surpass the chances of a full recovery and a happy outcome for my hearing, especially since back then, it was advisable to implant ABIs in children younger than two years of age to maximize the possibilities of success.

They told me many times that almost everyone around them –both friends from the hearing community and from the deaf one– was pushing them to get me the ABI.

But my parents loved me as I was. They didn't feel the need to put a three-year-old child through a craniotomy and through actual brain surgery to fix something that they didn't think was broken. Especially when the doctors presented them with a list of very likely possible complications that I could get from the implant installation, like facial paralysis, permanent vertigo, and this, aside from thenormalrisks that any type of brain surgery could pose with such a young patient.

The nail in the coffin for them was that, based on lots of studies that they had read, they had put together that, even if theydiddecide to go through with it and get me the ABI, the speech perception outcomes, in general, were way poorer than those reported in kids that could receive a multichannel cochlear implant instead. Which meant I could have ended up still unable to understand spoken words after surgery.

I could have still given the implant a try when I got older, but to me, it never held any appeal because I didn't feel like I had tobecome normalby hearing-people’s standards. I was already normal the way I was, as to me, there is nothing wrong with being deaf. I've been deaf all my life, after all, and besides, by the time I was eighteen, the risks of any type of implant installation were still too high. I could have ended up suffering from mind-numbing migraines, seeing my tinnitus —which is already a pain in the bleep as it is— getting worse, and, finally, losing the little hearing that I currently have.

Once I was done writing my story, I showed it to Carson on the large screen of his phone, almost daring him to disagree with me and ready to get into a fight.

I've been called all kinds of horrible names to my face for walking out on the chance to hear. Sometimes, even by people I only knew in passing, and I was ready to watch his expression change to one of astonishment and for him to start attacking my choice like everybody always does.

Carson read the whole thing and just nodded, then raised his index and nodded again.

I was like,'Here we go,' so I braced myself.

He typed away at his screen and then showed it to me.

His note said:

“Damn, tinnitus is a fucking bitch! I always get it for days and days after we do a show, and the older I get, the louder it is, and the longer it gets me to get over it…”

I was so surprised that he would choose to focus on that and not rant at me that I was insane for not gettingfixedthat I hastily typed a reply without any consideration.

“What? Aren't you going to scold me for choosing to stay deaf? Don't you think I should have gotten fixed?”

Carson gave me the most incredulous look and then frowned. He gestured for his phone and then started typing.

“No, why, do you ask? You just explained very well to me why you are deaf. What could have been done and what couldn't be done, and, most importantly, you said both your parents and yourself never thought for a minute that you needed fixing.”

I read through his words and felt my vision blur. My hands were shaking so badly that it took me a few minutes to type my question.

“And you agree? You don't think I needed to be fixed?”

He snorted. Actually snorted and then gave a single nod, proving to me that even as a stranger I had met a total of three times and cumulatively spent less than three hours with, he still could understand me better than anyone else in the universe, excluding my brother.

And then he wrote those words. Those scary, beautiful words that sent me into a tailspin from which I'm still trying to recover…

“Of course, you didn't need to be fixed, baby. I think you did the right thing…”

And I wish I could say he only said it to get in my pants and that I shouldn't believe him.

If I could say that, everything would be easier.

But when Carson showed me what he had typed on the screen, and he saw the disbelief that my face couldn't mask when I looked away from him, he touched my cheek, fingers dancing softly on my jaw so I would look his way again and he tapped the screen and nodded. Then he repeated the words he had written. Slowly, with lips and voice, so I could read them on his mouth, feel the vibration of their sound on his skin. So I could know he really meant them.

"Of course, you didn't need to be fixed, baby. I think you did the right thing…"

I mean, how can I deny what I feel for him?

I was done right then and there when I saw his lips form those words.

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