Now I'm the one writing things down

There is always one thing I can count on happening in my lifetime: Losing my voice! The very first time I lost my voice was on my wedding day (of all days!). Then it happened a couple of other times later on.

And now it has happened a fourth time. I can barely talk! Argh!

When I woke up this morning, my throat felt funny and a little dry. I thought that was strange. When I tried to talk later on, when I woke Jennifer up for school, I noticed that it hurt to talk. I strained to speak, despite the pain, and barely got any words out in a voice.

It was then that I realized that it’s happened again! I’ve lost my voice!

And when you are a parent with young children, that is never a good thing. Especially if one of those children needs to constantly be put in line!

Still, I managed the day okay. The kids felt bad that I couldn’t talk. I did get words out here and there, but only when I was saying one word. For anything more than one word, I wrote it down.

I used a dry erase board that Jennifer got for her birthday years ago. And even though he knew how to fingerspell, Jesse used it to write things down on, too! The same went for a little girl I babysit. These kids know sign. They can fingerspell. But I guess they wanted in on the fun of using the dry erase board to communicate with. Heh.

As for Jennifer, she continued to fingerspell everything like always. I also used the dry erase board to tell her things.

But sometimes I didn’t have that board with me, like when we were in the car or eating dinner. For those cases, I would whisper or sign to Jennifer or my husband to tell Jesse something because he couldn’t hear me. (I saw some friends today, too, and was a little embarrassed I had to whisper when I talked to them – except one, who I just pointed with.)

It’s frustrating that I’ve lost my voice again but thank goodness I don’t rely on my voice to earn a living. How terrible that would be! (I think I once saw on a TV show that Celine Dion tended to lose her voice a lot and there were times she would not speak when trying to protect her voice – or something like that!) I DO like to talk with the kids and my friends but it looks like I won’t be using a voice to talk with for a while. As a deaf person, I am used to people writing things down if I can’t lipread them and they don’t know sign. But until my voice comes back, I guess I’ll be the one writing things down. I know that this happens a lot and I only hope it will continue to be temporary. It would be awful if my voice never came back!

Talking funny

One thing that is known about the deaf is that we occasionally “talk funny” – in that we mispronounce words. I have done this so many times. I would pronounce “media” as “meh-dia,” “suit” instead of “sweet” for the word “suite,” and “a-cow-stic” instead of “a-coo-stic” for the word “acoustic.” Even still, there are words I cannot pronounce correctly no matter how many times I am told how to pronounce these words. I cannot pronounce the word “anime” because I keep reading it phonetically. Even the word “Samhain,” which is in the title of my forthcoming novel, is a word I keep having a hard time pronouncing because, here again, I say the word phonetically. I am subscribed to a “Word a Day” mailing list, and I always pay attention to how the words are pronounced. For some words I know, I’ll be surprised to learn I’d been pronouncing it wrong!

But there is another kind of “talking funny” and that is when hearing people pronounce words differently, as though they have an accent or something. I am beginning to wonder if that is the case with Jesse.

When Jennifer was a toddler, she had a speech impediment. She could not say the ending “-th” in words and her “l’s” were “w’s” (she called her cousin, Laurie, ‘Waurie” and her friend Lilly became “Willy”). Of course, she outgrew it, but Jesse is going through it now, too. But not only is he doing that, he seems to be doing something else, too.

For example, this morning. He asked me how to spell the word “but” yet when he said that word, it looked like he was saying “boot” when I lipread him. I kept telling him how to spell “boot” but he kept saying that was not the word he meant. So I got Jennifer in on this. She said it sounded like he said “bout” (as in, “about”), but insisted that was not the word he wanted to know how to spell. Neither of us could understand him! And my attempts to try to get him to use the word in a sentence were not successful.

Finally, he wrote the word down as he thought it was spelled: “B-U-T.”

And you know what’s interesting? I had even guessed that word! I asked him if the word was “but” and he said no. I pronounced the word as it should be pronounced (like “butt”) and he had not understood me.

Had he even heard me correctly? I pondered this for a while. Sometimes the kids say they don’t hear ME speaking to them very well, and even Jennifer has told me I don’t pronounce words all the way. This is strange because I was able to talk before I became deaf (I was 13), and so I figure my speech is fine. Or maybe I had not spoken loud enough, a common problem for someone who can’t judge how loud her own voice is.

Nevertheless, I was concerned. The word Jesse meant was “but” yet Jennifer had HEARD “bout.” Was it possible Jesse was saying words wrong?

I know he will have a speech therapist when he enters elementary school (just as Jennifer did – and this was what helped her get over her speech impediment) but I thought maybe we should look into seeing one sooner. I brought this up with my husband and he said not to worry about it, though he DID sit down with Jesse himself to go over the speech thing.

So I guess we have to wait until he goes into elementary school and starts seeing a speech therapist. Oh, boy, it’s going to be a long summer. Ironically, even if I wore a hearing aid, I still might not be able to understand all of the words Jesse says to me each time he speaks to me. Not if he is not saying the words correctly.