X is for my LETTER to X96.

For those of you not in Utah, X96 is a radio station with a cool morning show. The rest of their programming is alternative music. I just wrote this letter and thought I'd post it.

Years ago my friend Elizabeth Pfau asked me if I was going to be one of those "letter writing Moms?" YEP. One (more) reason for the name of the blog.

Hi Bill, (and Kerry and Gina),

I listened to your show on Thursday. I had been looking forward to it for the week before, then Thursday morning I was stuck forgetting about it while writing an email to my son's teacher, and ccing his audiologist. My 10th grade daughter reminded me. (Its hep that we can both listen to your station.)

Anyway... to attempt to be brief:

• We have 5 children, our 2 youngest are deaf, both have cochlear implants. They are 7 and 3 years old. Our 7 year old is in 1st grade and is mainstreamed. Everyone is amazed at how well our children hear and speak. We are too!

• Our son heard with hearing aids and then lost the rest of his hearing around his 5th birthday. That is a recipe for frustration. Although we signed with him he knew how much he was missing. He was a miserable kid to be around. The CI has completely helped him emotionally and with communication. We had to fight our insurance company to cover it. (Our cost would have been $80K!) He still needs speech therapy but that story is kinda long...

• Cochlear implants are miracles, not "satellite dishes" on heads. Is a diabetic pump on a child, or adult, something to disparage? Also, children born with hearing loss into hearing families are no longer sent to "residential" schools, isolated from their families, since they can learn to hear and speak so much more easily than in the past. Cochlear implants are the future for deaf children and adults.

• Deaf people who can speak, statistically, have MANY more options to them. They are autonomous people. From my vantage point I can't imagine saddling my children with a lifetime of being accompanied by an interpreter and never spending time with grandparents, cousins and other extended family and friends because the rest of the world doesn't sign. We sign some and don't have a problem with it, but I don't expect the rest of the world to. If our family only spoke French wouldn't it be odd to demand that everyone around us learn French? Yeah, yeah, we should then move to a French speaking county... again, AWAY from everything we call "home."

• The bit about "dating a deaf" girl kinda freaked me out. For many sick and wrong reasons deaf children are sexually abused more than other children. I don't care how hot the deaf girl was in the studio, it just didn't sound right to me. How to get to know a deaf girl or boy? Say hello and wave. I can't clarify my thoughts here... fear for my kids? or the memory of the weird friend of friends that told me that he always wanted to have sex with blind girl? --just because, he said. Girl? Blind? Again, I'm not at all articulate here, but it's just not something to encourage, at all.

• The bit about deaf education was right on. There is an excellent new program that just started in Logan called Sound Beginnings. http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=15151 It would be cool if you talked to Karl White from that school about what is going on for the Future of deaf children. USDB is a fairly whacked out place. Funny thing is they just don't listen. In Utah County I am involved with a foundation that is trying to get off the ground called Journey to Hear, to create a great preschool that is not in +20 year old trailers...

Thanks for paying attention, which is what I tell my children to do, since listening, whether hearing or not, is tricky.
Keep being original. Your show is great.

H ...
...Utah

p.s. Good luck to Gina. And good luck finding a sub. My daughter wanted me to enter... would've been cool. There is a spin teacher at Gold's Gym in Utah County... RONA! She would be fantastic! Even for a guest spot. She has a large devoted following. Amazing teacher.