Getting to know me...

Hello world!  

My name is Kayla Price and I've grown up with a hearing loss.  I have amazing parents and three wacky brothers that I struggle to keep up with!  I am number 2 out of 4 kiddos. One of my brothers also has a hearing loss, although his experience is different from mine.

I grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia. I was known as a mini college-hopper: I went to Rochester Institute of Technology in New York for my freshman year, then transferred back home to New River Community College where I graduated with an Associates Degree, then I transitioned to complete my Bachelor's degree in Deaf Education at Radford University.  After graduating, I craved more.  I went to Gallaudet University and completed my Master's Degree in Advanced Studies: Deaf Education.  I landed a job immediately as a full time itinerant teacher for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia.  I am currently completing my second year teaching. I work with a variety of students ranging from pre-school to high school, focusing on self-advocacy skills, language, reading, writing and other IEP goals.

I have to share because you'll probably see his name a lot in my future blogs. I am in a very exciting relationship with my boyfriend, Peter.  Things are looking pretty serious and I hope everything goes smoothly! I'm going to brag about him for a little bit here.  We met online and got to talking.  We were very interested in each other and wanted to meet.  I was a little nervous meeting him because I wasn't a big fan of online dating, and I'm meeting a complete stranger for the first time. I was told that he was nervous too, for the same reasons, but also because he wasn't sure how things would go due to my hearing loss.  He thought it was going to be challenging to communicate, even though he knew I use spoken language and sign language.  Our first date went smoothly, and we continued to see each other.  One our third date, Peter wanted to show me something.  He started signing the alphabet and some signs that he learned from an app on his phone.  I knew immediately that this guy was probably a keeper.  To this day, he continues to learn new signs and use it when communicating with me.  I cannot say how proud I am of him!

I am currently on my cochlear implant journey and I felt that posting a blog would be ideal to keep everyone in the loop.  I can't make any promises that I will be consistent and up to date with everything, but I'll try my best.  I actually started writing up everything just a few months ago, and being the procrastinator I am, I've decided to go ahead and actually PUBLISH my blog.

Let's get started, shall we?  Cue magical music, please!

Once upon a time, a little girl was brought into this world at 11:58pm on September 8, 1989....  

No?  I can see my friends reading this, giving me a look and saying "Really, Kayla? Only you would start out a blog like a fairy tale."  Okay, I'll be a little more serious now.

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Growing up with a hearing loss has always had its ups and downs. Mostly, a ton of ups! The beauty of having a hearing loss helps define who I am today.  I am currently on my cochlear implant journey.

The beginning:

Before we get started, I’d like to share some background information on who I am.  I was identified with a hearing loss when I was two years and two months old. First off, I had a ton of ear infections when I was a baby.  When looking at my medical records, I counted eleven ear infections over an eighteen month time frame. This all happened before I became two-years old.  Second, my mom and grandmother knew something was wrong.  I only had one-word phrases and limited vocabulary.  I wasn’t responding to sounds like a two-year-old would.  From behind, people were calling me by my name and I never responded. You know…the typical things that parents experience when learning that there’s something wrong with their child’s hearing.

Appointments and understanding my hearing loss:

My parents took me to see my pediatrician.  After my mom expressed her concerns about my not hearing and responding to sounds, Dr. Hall proceeded to test me.  He had my mom place me in her lap facing the wall.  He took a bell that had a long handle and a metal ball then rang it on my right side. Then he rang it on my left side.  I didn’t move or anything. I didn’t move or respond until the third time he rang it. They think that rather than hearing something, I must have seen some kind of movement in the corner of my eye.  He referred me to an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor nearby, and they proceeded with more testing.  Dr. Bishop looked inside of my ear and completed a tympanometry test.  This test measured if your middle ear bones are working appropriately, or if there is fluid in the middle ear.  He referred us to Radford University Speech and Hearing clinic where they did more testing. Radford University was able to determine that I had a hearing loss.  I was referred for an ABR (Auditory Brain Stem) test to confirm the hearing loss. For this assessment, a special computer measures how the hearing nerve responds to different sounds.  The ABR test confirmed that I had a hearing loss.

My parents started taking me to Radford University for clinical services.  When we first arrived there, my parents were informed that I was never going to be able to learn how to speak or hear.  The clinicians at Radford started introducing sign language to my parents and me.  Little did they know that hearing aids might benefit me?  I was two years and four months when I was given the opportunity to try out loaner hearing aids for the first time.  It was a battle at first with the hearing aids.  I was constantly screaming, ripping out my hearing aids, throwing them onto the floor and bolting off down the hall.  After relentless chasing, putting hearing aids back into my ears, and forcing me to wear them, I finally was able to understand sound.  My parents devoted a lot of time in transporting me to Radford University on a daily basis for speech and listening therapy; they felt that focusing on listening and spoken language would benefit me.  One morning, while sitting in my mom’s lap looking at a children’s book with mom reading and pointing out pictures, I started repeating a word, “Appi! Appi!” Tears rolled down my mom’s face because she knew I was hearing and understanding language.  At that point, I was able to associate the picture with the word and sound “apple”.   I was two and half years old when I was finally given a pair of personal hearing aids. Apparently, I disliked the new pair and constantly took them out, threw them and ran away--just like the first time I tried the loaner hearing aids.  I bet you it was because it was a different sound.  When I get new hearing aids, it takes time to get used to them since they’re different from the ones I was using.  Anyways, I was finally able to tolerate them after my parents fought to keep them on for two weeks.  I eventually started to like them and wanted to keep them on all the time, including bathtime and bedtime.

A funny side story:  when I was three years old, I was visiting my grandparents on my dad’s side.  I became frustrated with something and flushed my hearing aids down the toilet [I wish I remember, or knew, what I was frustrated about…].  All I can say is that they’re probably somewhere in the septic tank near my hometown and that my parents weren’t quite happy with me.

It wasn’t until I was in kindergarten when the audiologists were getting more specific and accurate results of my hearing.  Understand that testing children’s hearing losses can be harder than testing adults.  Play audiometry is utilized when testing babies since they don’t have the understanding to sit still and listen carefully.  Testing then, as now, revealed that I have a bilateral, severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss, that has remained pretty stable.

Let me break that down for you newbies:  bilateral means both sides (“bi” means two; “lateral” means sides). There are varying hearing levels starting with normal, mild, moderate, moderately severe, severe and profound.  Profound is the worst. Sensorineural means hearing loss in the inner ear or auditory nerve.  

With this type of hearing loss, I cannot hear a lot of sounds or spoken language without some kind of amplification.  Although my hearing aids amplify sound well enough to enable me to understand sound and spoken language in the moderate range, I still miss out on a lot of auditory information, and especially spoken language.  Sign language has been so beneficial to me, because through interpreters, I have been able to access spoken information, that I otherwise would have missed in the educational setting.