“How Can I help you?”: Perspectives from a Patient with a Hearing Loss

“So, how are you feeling today?” I retrieve the question off the doctor’s lips and compose myself before launching into an explanation. She is a stranger to me, and though she can easily see on my medical records that I am deaf, I wonder if she knows what that entails for our conversation. I wonder if she knows that, for me, deafness is not just a medical condition, a malady to be treated with prescriptions and therapeutic remedies. It is a dominant force that shapes the way I communicate, the way I understand my world. It has influenced my life experiences as much as any physical characteristic can, even while in another sense it is no different than, say, wearing contact lenses. I see through the lens of my deafness, and I use a particular set of strategies to surmount any barriers it sets before me, even while it is a deep and inescapable part of who I am.