My name is Gail Dolson and for all but four of my almost 77 years I have either been hard of hearing or deaf. I was born with normal hearing and had a happy life as the second of four girls in a middle-class Jewish family in Brooklyn New York. When I was four everything changed! I acquired scarlet fever, a strep infection. Scarlet fever may cause sinus infections and abscesses that damage the nerves of the inner ear, causing permanent hearing loss. In my case it damaged the eight cranial nerves, subtlety at first, so that no one detected it. Eventually my hearing worsened, but still it went undetected, perhaps because my home was noisy and the city of New York is such a loud place. Regardless of the reason, no one in my family knew that my hearing ability was deteriorating, possibly because by then I had started to teach myself to read lips. Though I got through the regular public school system, I was a mediocre student. I always felt that something was wrong, but my self-esteem was so low that it appeared that my family had three smart sisters, and then there was ME!
After graduating high school, I finished a registered nursing program during which my classmates and I tested each other’s hearing; they told me that I was missing too much, but I just thought they don’t know how-to do the test! It never occurred to me that there might actually be a problem.
I moved to San Francisco in the early part of 1968; I noticed that I was having increasing difficulty hearing others on the phone, so I went to a local ear, nose, and throat physician. After testing my hearing, he exclaimed, “Oh my goodness, your hearing is really, really bad, and you are obviously an extremely intelligent woman since you have taught yourself lip reading; otherwise, you would never had survived!”
I was fitted for hearing aids, but my hearing continued to worsen. Still, I considered myself to be a hearing person, just with some difficulty hearing. I knew no one else who was deaf. Determined to change that, I took a sign language class (signed English, using American sign language symbols).
While pursuing a degree at Sonoma State University I did a special project looking at heath care for deaf and hard of hearing people. A key part of my research involved a visit to the well-known University for the deaf, Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., for a week-long symposium. While there I met many Deaf people who were attending college just like any hearing person. In this environment it struck me that I was living life on the fence. Was I a hearing person or a deaf person? If I was not hearing and I was not Deaf, what was I? Who was Gail?
Let me define my terms here: there is Deaf with a capital D; this is a member of the rich deaf community that embraces Deaf culture, while deaf with a lower case d means hearing that does not work.
Fortunately for me, San Francisco has a welcoming and culturally rich Deaf Community and they welcomed me even though I knew so little sign language. I began to take more classes and met more and more Deaf folks. Seven years ago, my hearing became so bad that my Kaiser audiologist told me that they could give me the strongest hearing aids available, but my hearing would worsen faster than technology could advance. Instead, they asked me to seriously consider getting a Cochlear implant.
I got my first implant at the end of 2016, and the second at the end of 2017. My cochlear implants do not make me a hearing person, nor do they give me perfect hearing. My hearing can never be perfect, but they allow me to function in a hearing world, for which I am grateful.
Once I was able to embrace my deafness, the implants also helped to introduce me to more Deaf folks, some with CI’s but most rejecting them. One thing the CI does is allow me to live in two worlds. When I use them, I can work and communicate in the hearing world. I have found that hearing folks in general have little understanding of what it means to be deaf, and how much we have to fight for equal access despite the passage of the ADA. Many hearing people believe that all they need to do is talk louder to the person. Many also believe that people with pronounced hearing loss cannot do things like drive or appreciate music and can only work at a limited number of jobs.
I am here to say a resounding NO to that. I am Deaf and I am a nurse practitioner; I know Deaf lawyers, Deaf physicians, Deaf professors, and people in so many other fields. I no longer feel sorry for Gail; I have a mission- to show hearing people and hearing parents of Deaf children that Deaf people can do most jobs: we can drive, we love music and we are closer as a group than most hearing folks.
I have talked to many parents of Deaf infants and toddlers who believe that if their child gets a cochlear implant, he or she is now a hearing person. I tell them that they are mistaken; the child is still Deaf, but with two Cochlear implants. I urge them to teach their children (ASL) American Sign Language and introduce them to Deaf people and DEAF culture or they will be robbed of this rich experience.
Recently, I spent four hours with about thirty Deaf people at a bar in San Francisco, chatting and enjoying the music. At one point I texted the DJ to turn the base and volume up so we could actually feel the vibrations in our bodies. I also suggested that if they could get a sign language interpreter for the words of the songs, more of us would come. Yes, us! I am now a proud Deaf woman. I accept that even in the hearing world I am not hearing properly. Yes, I live in two worlds now, but I am primarily part of the Deaf world; this makes me happy!
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