DeafNation Expo occurs all over the United States. Tyler and I usually go when they come to Phoenix – it’s so easy to get sucked into conversations with friends we haven’t seen in a long time that we don’t have time to look around and see what’s at the expo.

This year was the first time they were hosting DeafNation World Expo in Las Vegas which turned out to be a huge success since 23,400 deaf people from 73 different countries all were there. Unfortunately Tyler and I couldn’t take the week off to be there but we were able to go for the weekend.

The drive there was boring since I was in a car full of boys! We got to our hotel and within minutes I was ready to go to the Deaf World Party which was hosted at Mandalay Bay. Who would’ve knew that the boys would take forever to get ready!? Rahul was being emo with his hair and the boys were swapping clothes/shoes. Finally we left after a while and got to the hotel. We had to pay $20 each to get in and I was hoping that it was going to be worth my money!

I was immediately overwhelmed at first seeing everyone again in the dark club. There were times when some people would come up to me and I couldn’t remember exactly where I knew them from….school in Washington, school in Arizona, college in New York, camp, etc. Luckily for me I didn’t embarrass myself!

I felt like I had a speech prepared for the whole weekend of how to sum up my life in a few sentences. The deaf community is so big that it’s hard to keep in touch with everyone.

It was really awesome seeing deaf people everywhere we went….in the bathroom, in line at a restaurant or club, & gambling next to us. Usually if deaf people see other deaf people in public – they usually ask in excitement, “You’re deaf too!?!” and then they introduce themselves because it’s not that often you see deaf people that you don’t know. In Las Vegas no one did that & I’m glad because I personally think it’s annoying when people approach me because we’re both deaf.

When Tyler and I normally see deaf people in public that we don’t know – we stop signing and then I make sure my hair is covering my hearing aid. I know this makes me sound like I’m a rude person but I’m not… I just don’t normally feel like talking about where I’m from, what school I went to, who else I know in the deaf community, and so on.

Anyways, there were so many other people we intended on seeing in Vegas but there wasn’t a lot of time and so many different groups & plans. We even picked up on some international sign language too and saw people signing in different languages too. It was fascinating seeing them sign and not even understand what they’re saying….but there are some signs that are obvious & similar to ours.

Haley and I’ve known each other since elementary school.
We hung out with Haley & her boyfriend, Chase, a lot that weekend.

We were leaving the club when the Deaf World Party ended and this
kid got his hand stuck in the elevator only seconds after I took this picture.
What an idiot and we had to push his hand out!

At the pool party (Treasure Island) with my Sigma Sigma Sigma sisters!

Catching up with old friends from high school.

Please ask me any questions you have about being deaf or the deaf culture. Anything and I’ll answer your questions!

(This is a re-post from my old journal that I wrote about my cochlear implant surgery on July 12, 2006 after heavily editing the post.)

 
I only got 2 and a half hours of sleep before waking up to shower and get ready to go to the hospital. I was so quiet waiting for my family to leave the house. Once I headed out the door to the truck, I felt queasy and sick. I carried a bowl with me all the way to the hospital and didn’t throw up. We didn’t arrive in time so I could see Allison, who just had her cochlear implant surgery a few days before by the same doctor. When we were registering, the lady printed out my wristband but it wasn’t my name so she had to print new ones out. That part made me nervous!

It was not too long after when the nurse came to bring all of us (my parents and sister were there with me) upstairs to the pre-operating room but my dad and sister had to wait in the waiting room. At this point I was getting so nervous, and because of that my blood pressure was too high. The nurses were so nice. They put an IV in my hand which hurt a little bit (and I hate needles!).

I was in my hospital bed waiting while my dad and sister came in to see me before my surgery. My mom left with the nurse and came back wearing a blue gown and a cap on. We got some giggles out of it and it was a nice brief distraction from being nervous.

The doctor then came in to tell me he had just seen Allison and that she wanted him to tell me Hi. His hair wasn’t combed which made me nervous if he was awake enough to do my surgery!

The nurse gave me a “cocktail” and put it through my IV. Within minutes I felt a good buzz like I had too much to drink. The nurses scrolled me down the hall to the operating room with mom on my side. I was trying so hard to comprehend everything that was going on but it seemed impossible with the cocktail in my system. I saw an interpreter in the room and she looked a bit disappointed because mom was already in the room to interpret for me. The nurse and doctor asked me to move onto the surgery bed and the last thing I remember is my mom signing to me. 

I woke up in the recovery room a few hours later around 10AM to a really nice nurse and her name was Dawn. Every time I woke up she would be in my face smiling. Her attitude helped me feel so much better. There were a lot of other people in the recovery room with their own nurse and they were not happy campers. Dawn said I was the happiest patient in the recovery room. I did not feel any pain but mostly pressure on my head from the bandage which was a very uncomfortable feeling. My mom and sister came in to see me a few times. Later around 1PM my sister came to see me by herself and told me that a friend was being mean to her about being at the hospital and not hanging out with her. This pissed me off and while I should have not… I sent her friend a message through her phone. While I was typing away on the phone Dawn quickly came over and looked concerned since my blood pressure shot up from being pissed off. So I decided to leave it at that and let my sister deal with it because after all I just got out of surgery and I should not even need to be dealing with this.

It wasn’t until around 4:30pm when I got my own private room so my mom could stay overnight with me. My dad had already took my sister home and came back around 5PM to see me for the first time since I got out of surgery. He brought me two mini-balloons on a stick with flowers. My mom’s company also sent me flowers which was really nice. Dad stayed with me while mom went outside to call some relatives to let them know how the surgery went. That’s how close our families are! I kept falling asleep on and off and asked for more medicine because I was afraid I would feel pain. It was a pain having to get up to go to the bathroom because mom had to unplug the machine that I was hooked up to then I had to walk to the bathroom with the machine. 

The worst pain I had was air bubbles coming out of my ear. Mom and I then decided to turn the lights off around 9:30-10pm to get some sleep. That didn’t work out very well since the nurses kept coming in about 10 times throughout the night to check my vitals and make sure everything was fine. They always had to check my wristband and ask me what my name was and my date of birth. Due to being half asleep and drugged up this was hard to keep up with.

I woke up the next morning to a bad ache in my upper back and that was probably from sleeping in one position the entire night. The nurse told us we were able to leave so I went to the bathroom to put my clothes on and all of a sudden my nose started bleeding. The doctor told me I could not blow my nose for a few days and this almost made me want to cry.

A nurse pushed me in the wheelchair down to the car and a lot of people were looking at me with pity. I wondered to myself why they were and then I remembered it was because of the bandage on my head. They probably thought I had brain tumor or a freak accident.

My whole experience was great which I am really grateful for since Allison had to do the surgery again since there were problems with her cochlear implant. The only time I did get sick was when they removed the bandage. I think I got scared of having it removed and seeing my stitches. I mean… seriously I thought someone was going to rip my ear off!

An old friend took this picture of me for a project she did in 2003

I have been often asked, “Do you wish you were hearing?”

…and I always proudly reply back, “No, I’m glad to be deaf”

Mainly because I can already hear with the help of my hearing aid and cochlear implant. I was very fortunate since I was born with a severe to profound hearing loss.

I can’t imagine having to hear every second of my life without an on/off switch. I have the choice to turn my hearing aid & cochlear implant off and not hear a single thing at night or whenever I want to, usually when I have a headache. However I must wear them everyday. I even used to pretend to ignore my parents when they called my name to ask me to do something for them and I’d blame it on dead batteries. (Sorry, Mom & Dad! I’m sure Lauren does that sometimes with you too!)

People assume I can talk and understand people just because I can hear. Not necessarily true. I heavily rely on lip-reading to understand what is being said. Some people even thought I’d be able to finally talk on the phone after getting my cochlear implant. Again, not true. I can hear voices/sounds coming out but I can’t make out to what people are saying on the other end because I can’t lip-read through the phone. If I was to call someone the person on the other end would have to only say – Hi, Yes, No, Okay, Bye for me to understand.

Although I wish I could understand people easily without having to lip-read and focus on what they’re saying that sometimes it’s a puzzle trying to figure out what people are saying. Hearing people can easily wander their eyes around and not have to have their eyes glued on the person talking. Tyler is so fortunate he can hear very well and had a lot of practice so he can talk on the phone & talk to people without having to look at them. I know I could be able to do this but with a lot of speech therapy.

I can’t fall asleep with my hearing aid on – every sound I hear wakes me up. I know hearing people can block out sounds if they wanted to. My sister and I both have slept through all of my Mom’s nightmares including one time when she ran around the house thinking my Dad was a murderer. Too bad I didn’t wake up to see that! 

 I’m glad I am deaf and sounds are not everything to me.