Mono Monday/Sound : : Julia*

My thought processes, often random and erratic, were quite single tracked this morning when I started thinking about sound. My first thought was that photography is pretty sound-free. Sound can't be captured on camera, only things that produce sound. Yet we are surrounded by sound all the time…cars, refrigerators, televisions (even ones that are turned off), the breeze in the trees all contribute to the ambient noise.

Then my thoughts turned to my granddaughter, Julia. Julia has been profoundly deaf in both ears since just after her birth. She knows what true  silence is. When she was very small Matt, our son, would come home from work and take her outside to look at the stars. Amy, Matt's wife did her homework and found out that they lived in the best possible place with access to the Joh Tracy Clinic, and House Ear Institute. WhenJulia was sixteen months old, just about the time that the speech pathways are forming in the brian, Julia had a cochlear implant.

Overnight, Julia went from a world of silence to a world of sound which she had to learn to interpret. She saw an Auditory Verbal Therapist who taught her how to understand the sounds picked up by a microphone behind her ear, and converted to to digital information by a processor she wears at her waist. Here is a simulation of what she hears, if you are interested.

Because she received her implants at such a young age, Julia now lives in a world of sound the same as the rest of us, but she has one advantage. When she wishes to return to the world of silence, (who doesn't from time to time) she can turn her implant off.  She told her mother recently that she was no longer anxious because she realized that she "didn't have to pretend"  when she couldn't hear or understand people. She could just tell them she was deaf and ask them to repeat themselves. She has grown into a very perceptive and composed young woman. I am very proud of her.

*Thanks to Matt for responding to my plea for a picture  and to Julia for giving her permission for me to write about her

What better way to celebrate my 1500th blip than by celebrating the  special accomplishments of my granddaughter? .I have said many times and will say again that Blipfoto is a very special place  filled with very special people.