Career Blog 2 - Why I Want to Get My ASL Cert.

When I was younger, say ages four years to ten years, I was a terribly sickly child. I had near constant ear infections, with them at times reappearing within days to a week after healing. I suffered through at-first unbearable pain and earaches when I was younger. When I was eight or nine years old, my right eardrum ruptured during one of my worst ear infections to date. By that time, it had become a regular thing. I was growing so accustomed to having ear infections that, if they were relatively mild, my pain threshold made it so that I hardly realized anything was wrong with me. When I was nine years old, following the ruptured eardrum which eventually healed (though not without effects), my doctor referred me to a specialist who in turn referred me to a surgeon who would remove my tonsils and adenoids, as well as put tubes in my ears.
Following the surgery and, for practically the first time, a whole host of non-ear related illnesses, it seemed my trouble with ear infections and their related illnesses (sinus infections, colds) was gone. I would enjoy several years of decent health without much difficulty or major illnesses, but I did often notice that my hearing seemed to be getting worse with no apparent reason. It first started as occasionally not hearing all of what someone said and gradually came to the point where I had to repeatedly ask people what they said. This wasn't always, and there were times when my hearing was normal. Perhaps a combination of all of those ear infections and the ruptured eardrum, plus listening to loud music through earbuds, and (since I grew up down south) shooting guns without hearing protection led to a reduction in hearing quality.
Recently, my hearing seems to be getting progressively worse. At times, the hearing in my right ear, the ear that was most often infected, the ear whose drum ruptured, will go out almost completely. I can hear faint sounds on my right side, but nothing as clear as on the left. A few minutes later, hearing will slowly come back to that ear and things will be normal again. Healthcare is expensive and specialists are even more so. I don't have insurance and I'm not willing to put myself thousands of dollars further in debt on top of student loans for something that is already in poor shape. I have had to face the very real possibility that I may be, at best, hard of hearing within the next ten years. A certification in American Sign Language would give me both a way into a career such as interpreting as well as a way to communicate with what may eventually become my societal group. I wish I could keep my hearing as it is now if not improve it, but I also want to prepare for the worst.