Carmel soft weathered oak leaf,

Little girl walks into a kitchen,

Her face turns red,

Flash Back,

Little, sweet, soft, hands,

Contact

Hot, Glass from the oven, Pyrex.

“Watch Out, it’s hot” Father says.

He runs to her. She turns away.

“I told her it was hot” he says to me.

“She did not hear you” I say.

My daughter looks to me.

I follow.

Fiona finds us privacy In the guest room, “I didn’t want Daddy to know it hurts, But it feels like my hearts going to explode out of my chest.” She says to me and cries, a cry I’ve never heard, a pain so unfamiliar and new from my sweet little girl. I think this was part a release from the surgery. A talking about pain. I asked her what I could do to make her feel better, she just looked at me and hugged me.

Hurried won’t do. Too many words won’t do. Lot’s of talking to other people in a large group is torture for Fiona. Like on ZOOM whole class group meetings. Fiona is protesting that already. She’s miserable on them. Just like in the loud classroom. She has that same look on her face. A civil Protest.

This book:

“Mila gets her Super Ears” By Ashley Machovec and Illustrated by Megan Jansen.

It’s the best so far of these little kid Cochlear Implant books I’ve gotten. This one I did read to Fiona. It’s written nice for a child and explains many things. It’s also easy to insert my own narrative, Mila’s parents say they called the doctor right away to learn how to help Mila hear their voices, when the nurse told them Mila was deaf. I told Fiona what I said  was “I’m gonna learn sign language” after the nurse told me you were deaf.

The part that bothers me more in this book is as follows:

On page 25 Mila says:

“Everything went really well! Afterwards, (the ci surgery) I couldn’t hear for a few weeks. It was a bit confusing not being able to hear anything for such a long time”

It would have helped if the family knew some ASL during that wait. I feel like that’s unfair to a child probably super scary too. There should be a requirement parents and children learn basic sign language before getting CI’s. It should be covered under insurance.  

It then talks about her having fun because her mommy and daddy did arts and crafts while they waited for the CI’s to be turned on.

Fiona and I have been having an existential crisis since the surgery. Just today we are both starting to have a bit of zest for life. We both have headaches though and both woke up at 3:00 in the morning and both had weird dreams.

I had my meeting with the Being Human art group last night. We talked about our show coming up at the Palo Alto Art Center. It’s going to be cool. There will be opportunities for you to participate virtually! I’ll keep you posted.

I love my ASL class I’m taking through Gallaudet ASL Connect. It’s really cool and fun. I am finally able to use ASL most of the day with the kids. It’s been great, I’m so glad I’m repeating ASL 1 too! I’m getting to the hard part of the class again, I think this second time around will be really fun. It’s interesting doing it virtually too. I miss being around ASL classmates in real life though.

Shanah Tovah