Welcome!

Where are you? I can't see your shadow! Sorry, I don't have my cochlear implant on. I don't feel you yet... I can't see where your voice is coming from... I'm putting my hand out... find it? Oh, yeah, there we go. Now we're not alone. We're together. Oh, wait, you're not the right person, you just spelled your name and you're not who I'm looking for... Wait, you're sure? Oh okay.

I use my voice. My voice is my saving grace. Most deafblind people do not really speak well because they grew up as deaf before losing their vision so they learned American Sign Language in order to communicate. I'm different. I have a cochlear implant that allowed me to learn how to speak from the time I was implanted when I was four.

Yet, sometimes I wonder if I'm overplaying this "saving grace" part now that I have had a chance to explore some aspects of the deafblind world in the past two months. I will talk more about it and my feelings towards sign language and cochlear implants.

The mission of this blog is to have a space for me to write about my thoughts towards deaf, deafblind, cochlear implant, and disability issues. I want to make people aware of the disease that I am living with- Usher's Syndrome- and how it affects my life in ways that normal people don't think about. I welcome your input.

I would like to say that I'm pretty liberal when it comes to all this and don't care as long you are who you are, and you can do whatever is comfortable for you. People will change only when they are comfortable with the new concept. Otherwise, they won't. At the same time, I mean well when my position appear to be hard-core. I've learned a lot from my experience growing up in mainstream with little contact with the Deaf community until my junior and senior years of high school. I also have extremely strong identity with my "CI" (cochlear implant) because it is so much part of who I am. It's like my cojoined twin. I just cannot imagine my life without it and you will learn over time why.

At the same time, you will notice that even though I am very confident of myself when it comes to my CI identity, I appear to be unsure when I discuss my vision loss. I only found out in December 2003 that I have retinitis pigmentosa, another component to Ushers Syndrome. I am moving on because I have been living with this all my life. But, it is only that I now have a heightened awareness of my limitations with my current visual field.

I am currently taking American Sign Language at my university in hopes of being able to connect with the deafblind and "respectful" Deaf (again, you will later see why I quote that). I will chronicle some of that in my posts. I mean, here I am, celebrating my 20th year with my CI and voice, I am finally learning ASL, the language of the Deaf and deafblind.

Enjoy. Feel free to post comments.

*hand-squeeze*