Bringing Awareness to Hearing Loss & Bullying With Shanna Groves

Today I have Shanna Groves visiting again to talk about her newest release: Confessions of a Lip Reading Mom. I met Shanna through Dawn Colslaure, another deaf author. I'm meeting an incredible amount of deaf authors lately and forming terrific friendships with them. You see, we all want the same thing: awareness of our disability. Understanding of what we deal with. A stop to bullying.

Tell us a little about your background and how you became interested in writing.

My first foray into writing was in middle school when I joined the yearbook staff. One day while laying out a yearbook page, I learned that I had won the Outstanding English Student Award for my school. A gigantic trophy and tons of writing confidence followed. I grew up in Oklahoma and Texas and developed quite a memory for people I had met and places seen. All those memories came in handy years later when I put a magazine editing career on hold to become an aspiring novelist. It was a good thing I knew how to write because it helped channel my feelings about living with progressive hearing loss into words for others to read.

What led you to write Confessions of a Lip Reading Mom? 

Biographies and memoirs are my favorite genre of books, and I wanted to write one for years. A writing instructor once asked what was so special about my life that it warranted a book. It took eight years for my life story to materialize into Confessions of a Lip Reading Mom. I had to live life, not just write about it, in order to have a story worth telling. My book is about living with hearing loss while taking care of children, living with depression, and trying to make sense out of a progressive health issue. Writing this book was my therapy. Each chapter invites the reader on roller-coaster experiences that may surprise, educate, and inspire them.

What is Confessions of a Lip Reading Mom about?

In 2001, I became a new mom to a healthy seven-pound boy. While on maternity leave, I noticed a persistent ringing sound inside my ears and went to a doctor. The diagnosis: progressive hearing loss in both ears; cause unknown. My book spans the first six years of my life as a hard of hearing mom. How could I take care of my babies if I couldn't hear their cries from the other room? Would I become completely deaf and, if so, how would I communicate with my children? The doorbell's chime, the phone ringing, and my toddler's first words were silent to my ears. After two years of denial, I began wearing hearing aids---but I didn't like them at first. They magnified the sounds I didn't want to hear---temper tantrums! Eventually, I learned to navigate the uncertain waters of hearing loss with my sanity and humor barely intact. I became an online hearing loss community advocate, known as Lipreading Mom. This wasn't my lifelong plan in the beginning, but it is something I have come to embrace now. Besides being a wife and mom, I believe my purpose on earth is to tell this story.

Shanna also has some hearing loss awareness projects she'd love to bring to your attention: Find out how you can help in these causes.

- Show Me Your Ears: This is my online photo gallery of people who wear cochlear implants and hearing aids, children with hearing loss, and even a few animal ears! The goal is to make hearing loss awareness a fun and visual experience. To date, there are more than 200 'ears' on display at LipreadingMom.com/Show-Me-Your-Ears.

- Lipreading Mom Captions Campaign: I have partnered with the Collaboration for Communication Access via Captioning (CCAC) to develop an email campaign to encourage networks and websites to caption 100-percent of their online videos so that people who are deaf or hard of hearing have full access to them. Visit the campaign page atLipreadingMom.com/Lipreading-Mom-Captions-Campaign.

- Stop Hearing Loss Bullying: As a person with hearing loss, I have experienced teasing, name calling, and outright bullying---and I am not alone. In schools, communities, and the workplace, people with hearing loss may experience ridiculing and prejudice because of their hearing ability. This campaign has an online petition and is working on a series of videos to heighten awareness that people who can't hear deserve respect and that hearing loss bullying is wrong. Learn more at LipreadingMom.com/Stop-Hearing-Loss-Bullying.

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Shanna Groves was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss after the birth of her first child. She was 27. In the years since, she and her husband added two more children who provide creative fodder for writing. Her books include Lip Reader and the just-released Confessions of a Lip Reading Mom. The philosophy, "One person can make a difference; it takes many people to make the difference permanent," inspired a blog, LipreadingMom.com, that advocates for hearing loss awareness through projects such as the Lipreading Mom Captions Campaign, Show Me Your Ears, and Stop Hearing Loss Bullying. She speaks and teaches classes on hearing health, lip reading, and creative writing to people of all ages. Learn more at ShannaGroves.com.

BLOG ADDRESS: http://LipreadingMom.com

WEB ADDRESS: www.ShannaGroves.com

FACEBOOK ADDRESS:www.Facebook.com/AuthorShannaGroves

TWITTER ADDRESS: www.Twitter.com/LipreadingMom

EMAIL: sgrovesuss@msn.com

An Open Letter to My Hearing Friends from Shanna Groves

Recently, I discovered this amazing woman and author who is bringing awareness to hearing loss and difficulties via literature, her blog, and YouTube. Here is a letter from her. Please welcome Shanna Groves.

Dear Friend,

I want to discuss an important difference we have—something that can impact our entire communication from this point forward.

When you were born, your hearing was normal. So was mine. For years, I took the ability to hear for granted. I listened to my car stereo several notches too loud and sat in concert arenas filled with the shrill sounds of guitars, drums and vocalists belting out tunes. As a college student, I worked in a noisy printing press environment without wearing earplugs. All the while, my hearing gradually suffered.

For the past 11 years, my life has differed from yours. It’s all because of a diagnosis I received two months after my oldest child was born: I have progressive hearing loss.

What does that mean? Imagine losing the sensitive hairs that line the back of your neck, one by one. You wait and wait for them to grow back, but they never do. For some unknown reason, the hairs are gone forever. That has happened to my inner ears. The nerve hairs in the deepest part of each ear have been destroyed permanently. Cause unknown. Without these hairs, my ears are not as sensitive to sound as yours.

The first part of my hearing that disappeared was with high-frequency pitches—birds singing, kids screaming, phones ringing, and all soft consonant sounds (f, s, t, v). Gone. Permanently. I am deaf to these noises.

The inability to hear high-frequency pitches affects all of my conversations with you.

You: “Is the baby sleeping?”

What I hear: “Ha! Baby leaping.”

You: “What time is it?”

What I hear: “Whoa, I’m in.”

I have worn hearing aids for nine years to help with hearing better. But please repeat after me:

HEARING AIDS ARE A HELP, NOT A SOLUTION FOR HEARING LOSS.

With my hearing aids, I can hear the phone ring and the kids scream and soft consonant sounds—most of the time. Yet even with the aids, I still can’t hear robins chirping over me as I sit on my backyard swing. Do I miss that sound? Yes. Every day.

I want to ask that the two of us find a way to bridge the gap between our hearing differences, to understand each other. So, here are my suggestions...

~ Please face me when you speak. My eyes have become my ears. I watch your lips move and interpret your facial and body gestures. That is impossible to do when I am in the driver’s seat and you are talking to me from the passenger’s side of the car. Let me stop the car or come to a stoplight so I can give you my full attention.

~ Quiet rooms are always the best place for me to hear you well. When this isn’t possible, I hear better in a private booth rather than at a table in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Better yet, pull me aside, look me in the eye, and speak slowly and with good articulation. Doing this will decrease the chances of you having to repeat yourself three times before I get it.

~ I don’t expect you to walk on eggshells if you are unsure whether I have heard something you said. It is much better to tell me that I didn’t respond to your question, than to assume I am rude, dumb or zoned out for not answering.

~ If any of my suggestions seem too radical, I’d like you to try an experiment. Wedge two cotton balls in both of your ears, then try to carry on a conversation in a noisy room with your eyes closed. Difficult, isn’t it? Welcome to my world!

By writing to you, I hope to provide insight that will help when we have our next conversation. You are a good friend for taking the time to read this letter. You’ve shown support in my hearing journey by taking an interest in what I write. Thank you for that.

As your friend, here is my commitment to you...

~ I promise to give you my full attention when you speak to me.

~ I promise to politely ask you to repeat yourself if I have missed something you said.

~ I promise to care about what you have to say because I care about you.

Blessings,

Shanna Groves

http://LipreadingMom.com

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AUTHOR BIO

Shanna Groves was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss two months after her oldest child was born. She was 27. Her books, Lip Reader, and Confessions of a Lip Reading Mom, were inspired by her experiences with deafness. Follow her blogs LipreadingMom.com and Deaf-Insight.com/Ask-Lipreading-Mom, and read more about her writing and speaking at www.ShannaGroves.com.

She has a book releasing soon called Confessions of a Lip Reading Mom. Also, take a moment to watch her YouTube video. SHOW HER YOUR EARS!