Gratitude Monday: Hummingbird chatter

My sister’s hearing impairment began at birth, when obstetricians used forceps to deal with an irregular delivery. Penny always knew how to make an entrance.

But it wasn’t discovered until she entered kindergarten, which is when kids were checked for things like that. Today I’m sure they’d probably catch it before the baby left the hospital, and be in touch with malpractice lawyers before s/he got home.

She struggled with regular classes, took lip-reading lessons and then starting in junior high was in a special-ed program. This did not stop her from getting both undergraduate and graduate degrees and building a long career teaching the hearing-impaired at Alhambra High School.

However, every cold and respiratory infection caused further loss, to the point that when she came out for my graduation from William & Mary, the plane was rerouted to somewhere in Tennessee because of fog where we were, and she had no idea where she was until they got on the ground, because she just couldn’t hear the announcements.

In recent years, it got worse—her fire-alarm telephone ring was augmented by flashing lights, so she’d know someone was calling, and I’m pretty sure she was guessing on what was being said around her at social occasions. The worst was phone-call-via-captioning service.

But earlier this year (and after a whole lot of investigation on her part), Penny had a cochlear implant. The first amazing thing was when she heard birds, which she hadn’t for decades, probably. Then being able to pick up on conversations going on around her, with some sorting out of what sound levels to focus on and which ones to filter out.

On Friday, the day before her birthday, we had a long call without need of intervening services. She told me about her party at a local cooking school (made me laugh about ten people being there and the chef having to accommodate just about ten different dietary requirements; apparently the gluten-free focaccia was a deal breaker, so one person didn’t show up). She described the amazing food and promised to send me recipes. And she talked about fine-tuning the device (and getting proper speakers for her Mac) to be able to hear John Denver sound like John Denver.

Also—she discovered that hummingbirds make a chattering sound, which brought tears to me.

So today I am profoundly grateful for the technology that has enabled my sister (and many others) to rediscover sounds around them and to break out of the isolation of silence.