Final Blog April 27, 2008

“Everyone carries a room about inside them. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing… “  Franz Kafka

Your sense of hearing plays an important role in your ability to perceive the world around you. There are numerous everyday tasks which we perform, such as listening and talking on the phone with family or detecting imminent danger, with this keen sense. For me, my sense of hearing enhances my quality of life.  Not only is it a way to physically perceive the world, but it is also proven itself to be a powerful tool of social and emotional perception.  Without this sense, I feel as if I would be incomplete.  Just think….what if you were born deaf? Well,  my eldest brother Walker was born deaf; however when he was 11 years old, he had a

cochlear implant, which enabled him to hear and perceive the world and its sounds.

A cochlear implant is a “small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing.  The implant consists of an external portion that sits behind the ear and a second portion that is surgically placed under the skin” (NIDCD).  My brother’s device is located on the lower, left side of his head. *sidenote* (Because the transmitter magnetically attracted to the receiver/stimulator in my brother’s head, my mom nicknamed him Magnificent Magneto….I still call him that today).  Unlike hearing aids which aid and assist those who are hard at hearing, cochlear implants,  as shown by the picture above, has several key components which assist to “bypass damaged portions of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve, [which sends the signal to the brain,] which recognizes that signals as sound” (NIDCD).  in other words, it helps generate sounds.  Usually cochlear implants are implanted before the age of 3.  Studies show that people who had their’s installed on or by their 3rd birthday, their ability to perceive the world through sound was greater than those who had it implanted afterwards.

My brother recounts the time he first heard his voice at the age of 11, “I was scared out of my mind, when I first heard myself.  I showed every kind of emotion that day.  I cried, laughed, and yelled.  Not only was it the single most life changing event in my life, but it also was the scariest day ever.  What were these sounds my sense of hearing perceived.  I tapped my fingers on the desk.  I knew what a tap was, but I never knew what it sounded like.  Perceiving the sounds of my fingers tapping on the desk, as well as, the other sounds in the room, was the start of a new beginning.”

pic of me and Magnificent Magneto!

I interviewed by brother about his experiences with his implant:

Me: How long have you had your implant?

Brother:  About 15 years

What were the first sounds you heard?

Well most of it wasn’t sound, in fact it was all noise!  It was very difficult for me to perceive and discern between sound and noise.  While walking around our house, I could hear what was the sound of people’s feet trotting up and down the steps, but it sounded much like mom calling my name to come to dinner.  Everything was a blur.  I actually preferred not wearing the implant, because it was very nerve wrecking and extremely difficult for me to train myself to discern between sound I noise.  I much preferred reading lips, signing, and relying on my other keen senses to perceive the world around me.  One thing I can say about being deaf is that my other senses have definitely become stronger than average in order to pick up the slack  of my hearing….

What was the hardest obstacle you faced?

Getting use to my voice……It was definitely a change.  I never heard it before.

Final comments

The cochlear implant has truly been an amazing, life changing device.  My perceptions through hearing have greatly increased since I was 11.  It has given me confidence to excel in other aspects of my life….Quick story, I’m sure you remember….Do you remember how mom use to get upset with me because I would intentionally turn the volume down on my cochlear implant, so when she called my name, I never heard her?  Well, I would definitely have to put that into a category labeled:  Advantages of the implant:  When turned down of off, you cant hear your mom nag!

The cochlear implant has truly been an important asset to my life.  I could not imagine having a brother who I was unable to communicate with through language.

Below briefly describes the future and ongoing research for cochlear implants:

• Research must attempt to explain the wide variation in performance across individual cochlear implant users. New tools, such as functional imaging of the brain, might be applied to unexplored variables such as the ability of the implant to activate the central auditory system. Investigations of the role of higher level cognitive processes in cochlear implant performance are needed.
• The strides that have been made in improving speech perception of cochlear implant users should continue through improvements in electrode design and signal processing strategies. Noise-reduction technologies and enhancement of performance using binaural implants are promising areas.
• Studies of the effects of cochlear stimulation on auditory neurons have provided clear evidence of plasticity in both the survival of neural elements and in receptive field organization. Comparisons of neural plasticity in animal experiments and of adaptation to cochlear implant electrical stimulation by humans provide a unique opportunity to study the relationships between neural activity and auditory perception.
• Comparative research on language development in children with normal hearing, children with hearing impairment who use hearing aids, deaf children with cochlear implants, and deaf children using American Sign Language should be conducted. These studies should be longitudinal and reflect current theoretical and empirical advances in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics.
• Studies of the relationship between the development of speech perception and speech production in cochlear implant users must continue. Implanted deaf children provide a unique opportunity to examine these developmental processes and their relationship to the acquisition of aural/oral language. Such information is crucial to understanding and enhancing the performance of implanted prelingual children and may help define optimal age for implantation.
• Adequate tools for the assessment of nonspeech benefits of implantation should be applied to gain a better understanding of the full effects of implantation on the quality of life of implant recipients. This may be particularly useful for implant recipients who do not realize significant speech-perception benefit. Such data will help in evaluating the cost-utility of cochlear implantation.
• Identifying the components of successful (re)habilitation approaches will facilitate extension of these services to all children and adults receiving cochlear implants, as will comparison of model and routine service programs.http://www.medhelp.org/lib/100coc.htm

Seeing Solid Pt. 2…. April 21, 2008

As discussed in class, stereopsis is 3-D vision resulting from slight differences in left and right eye images, arising because the two eyes view the world from slightly different perspectives. Before learning about this topic in class, I always use to wonder how 3-D vision worked. Growing up, I was a huge Disney fan. I own just about every Disney movie ever made, but my favorite one by far is the Little Mermaid! Two years ago, my cousins and I visited Magic Kingdom in Orlando and one of the attractions there was Little Mermaid in 3-D. I was uber, yes UBER excited! As we walked into the theater, we were handed 3-D glasses. (See my little niece pic above…lol) I knew these glasses were the secret to bringing Aerial, Sebastian, Flounder, and the entire cast to my finger tips….literally. For the first minute or so of the movie, I did not put my yellow specs on, instead, I wanted to see what the movie looked like to the naked eye. The entire screen was blurry. I couldn’t make out any faces, but because I was familiar with the general shapes and colors of the characters, I managed to make out who was what and were. Another element that assisted in character distinction was my hearing. I knew the voices and songs of each character. As soon as I put my glasses on, the characters came to life! How do 3D glasses work? Many of us experience 3D vision in our everyday life. Because we have two eyes that are about two or so inches apart, each eye views the world differently. The image that is processed in the brain and we then perceive depth. Similarly, 3D movies are displayed in two differently angles simultaneously. When you put on the glasses, each lens views the display differently, and when processed we have a 3D image. Disney sometimes uses the polarized lens method, which consists of two projectors that display their view onto the screen with different polarizations or different wave directions within a plan. The 3D glasses allow the images to be processed in different eyes because the lens themselves have different polarizations.

http://www.3dglassesonline.com/how-do-3d-glasses-work/

Seeing Solid…Pt. 1 April 20, 2008

HoW dO wE pErCeIvE oThEr…. April 13, 2008

Our mind/brain allows us to think, feel, and perceive the world around us; however, the norms established by society can shape and ultimately suppress our individual and personal reflections and perceptions of ourselves and the world. The past week I have had several discussions with friends about sexual orientation. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines sexual orientation as a person’s self-identification as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. One important phrase to note in the definition is the “self-identification.” Whether one is heterosexual or homosexual, it is a personal identification and decision, and should be respected by others; however, these personal, intimate, self-identifying factors are not respected, and because our society tries to “normalize” everything, much controversy has formed. Anything different or out of the realm of normalcy, society tries to “fix it.” Society can not “fix” our self-identity or soul. As previously mentioned in other journals, the soul is the, “immaterial essence, animating principle, actuating cause of an individual life, or a person’s total self.” I believe that our individual soul is in charge of our personal contemplation and perceptions. By attempting to normalize the soul, we completely disregard individuality and intimate reflections. Ignoring these components hinders our perceptions of each other. Instead of trying to find differences and emphasize deviations from “normalcy” we should embrace individuality and diversity. By entwining ourselves in these elements, we allow our individual souls and senses to be the authoritative norms for our personal reflections and perceptions.

My community… April 9, 2008

Diabetes is a prominent disease within the African American

community.  Below are a few facts about this devastating

disease:

• In 1993, 1.3 million African Americans were known to have diabetes. This is almost three times the number of African Americans who were diagnosed with diabetes in 1963. The actual number of African Americans who have diabetes is probably more than twice the number diagnosed because previous research indicates that for every African American diagnosed with diabetes there is at least one undiagnosed case.
• For every white American who gets diabetes, 1.6 African Americans get diabetes.
• One in four black women, 55 years of age or older, has diabetes. (Among African Americans, women are more likely to
• Twenty-five percent of blacks between the ages of 65 and 74 have diabetes.
• African Americans with diabetes are more likely to develop diabetes complications and experience greater disability from the complications than white Americans with diabetes.

Statistics from BlackHealthCare.com

Because of the prevalence of diabetes within the African American community, we are more at risk to visual impairments, including optic neurpathy, hypertensive retinopathy, vitreous hemorrhages, and macroaneurysms.

OPTIC NEUROPATHY- is the damage of optic nerves.  This damage can be caused by an number of reasons including trauma and heredity.

HYPERTENSIVE RETINOPATHY- is damage to the retina.  This damage can be caused by high blood pressure.  Higher blood pressure= Increased damage to retina.

VITREOUS HEMORRHAGES- is the leaking of blood from retinal vessels and capallaries.  This damage can be caused by abnormal growth of blood vessels, as well as vessel detachments.

MACROANEURYSMS- are large spots on the eye or round, dilations of the large arterioles of the retina.  This damage can be caused by hemorrhaging in the eye.

Facts about these visual impairments come from the websites of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and EMedicine.com.

My maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather each suffer from diabetes.  Unlike my grandmother, my grandfather lost his fight with this disease.  Because of the inability of his doctors and him to regulate his blood pressure, he suffered from macroanerysms.  Once diabetes has been diagnosed, it is important to immediately take control of it and not allow it to control you.  It’s onset can cause numerous ailments including those above within the visual system.  The prevalence of diabetes within my family has caused me to re-evaluate my lifestyle.  Living a healthy life is important in the battle against diabetes.

Myyyy eyes… April 9, 2008

When I was in the 5th grade, two lumps appeared in my eyes, one in the inner corner of my right eye and the outer corner of my left. Every morning I would wake up in excruciating pain. Within in a week, I had gone to the doctor and had surgery to remove chalazions. As defined by EMEdicalHeath.com, a chalazion i”s a lump in the eyelid that is caused by inflammation of a gland within the skin. Typically, this lump grows over days to weeks and is occasionally red, warm, or painful.”

9 years later, one of the lumps had returned. During my Christmas break, I began experiencing pain in my right eye. I immediately went to the doctor. To my dismay, the doctor wanted to perform a biopsy on the lump to see if it was in fact skin cancer. Because of my past medical history, the doctor wanted to make sure that the chalazion was not basal cell carcinoma, a type of cancer that is malignant and sometimes misdiagnosed as a chalazion.

So many thoughts went through my mind. Cancer? Blindness? I became very overcome with emotions. Through our recent class discussion and outside reading, my visual pathway and all of its makings have become very important to me. Without my vision, I felt as if a part of me would be leaving. Like some of the important components of my brain would be malfunctioning….

individual thought and personal perceptions March 30, 2008

“’You’, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules …” Frances Crick

Contrast to Frances Crick’s monist point of view, I believe that the mind and soul are separate entities. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines dualism as a theory that considers reality to consist of two irreducible elements or modes or a view of human beings as constituted of two irreducible elements (as matter and spirit).

When discussing dualism, it is important to consider the ideas of objectivity and subjectivity. If are mind and soul were merely “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules…” then the idea of subjectivity would not exist. Human would be unable to have independent and personal perceptions. Because objective reality or equitable materiality has a subjective experience, it is impossible for the mind and soul to exist as one.

Religion, Creativity, Soul March 16, 2008

In a recent journal I discussed society’s ability to shape and ultimately suppress our individual and personal reflections and perceptions of the world or what I concluded as the soul.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the soul as “the immaterial essence, animating principle, actuating cause of an individual life, or a person’s total self.”  Society’s standards (American culture) have inhibited our minds and subsequently our “total self.”  I believe our individual soul is the only, authoritative norm needed to form our personal reflections and perceptions. 

            In a recent discussion with my friend Shimere, she mentioned the idea of religion being the ultimate creativity, citing the idea of the relatedness of mental illnesses to creativity.  “Consistent throughout speculation about the brain and artistic expression, through, is the notion that creativity— innate, boundless, energetic, and strange as it can be— is the fruit of mind represented on the far ends of the bell curve.  The paradoxical marriage of ‘sickness,’ mental and otherwise, and creativity is enduring” (“Creativity” 221).  She said what we perceive as religion is really our desire to discount our madness. Instead of being the ultimate creativity, could religion be the releasing of the soul from the reticence of the suppressed mind?  Is religion the “total self?”  I talked with my grandmother about her feelings about her religion and beliefs.  She says, “I become overwhelmed, and it’s like an out of body experience.  I’m not the same old lady walking around here in the world.  I feel complete.  I’m not hindered the stress of the world.”  Religion gives one the opportunity to find their total self and to leave the oppressive world.  Our religion is our own personal reflections about our beliefs, some see it as madness, but I see it has the release of the soul.  If someone was to continue the idea of religion being the ultimate creativity, could creativity be the ultimate release of the soul from the suppressed mind?  I believe our total self is expressed in our creativity and our religion.

I always wondered what they were saying… February 24, 2008

“Everywhere You Look” by Jessie Frederick

What ever happened to predictability?
The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV.

Everywhere you look , everywhere you go (there’s a heart).
There’s a heart
A hand to hold onto.

Everywhere you look , everywhere you go.
There’s a face
Of somebody who needs you.

Eveywhere you look,
When you’re lost out there and you’re all alone,
A light is waiting to carry you home,
Everywhere you look.
Everywhere you look.

Full House has been a favorite show on mine since I was a young child. I would race in the room as soon as I heard the music of the theme song. In my loudest voice, I would belt out what I thought were “lyrics” to my favorite show. The first couple of lines to my rendition of “Everywhere you look” went like this:

What ever happened to you and me?

The built man the paperboy, NBC tv.

 

What is a “built man” and why did Jessie Frederick talk about NBC tv? I never questioned any of my “lyrics” to the song until we discussed the idea of “Mondegreens” or lyrics that are misread. Many times, I find myself making up words to songs because I cannot hear or understand the artist articulate his words. With the misinterpretation of lyrics comes the misinterpretation of meaning. In the case of the song “Everywhere you look” when I look at the real lyrics to the song, my made-up lyrics aren’t that far off. Many times relationships can come predictable to the people involved, and when something changes, it can cause one in the relationship to question the change in the familiarity: why change when what we have is comfortable? Although this is just one instance of how mondegreens did not change or drastically alter the meaning of the song, there are many times in which they have deviated from the artist’s message. As I listened to Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature,” I read the lyrics simultaneously. I found myself singing out loud what words I thought should come next. Interestingly enough, they were not what Michael Jackson wanted. From this I concluded that for me, mondegreens, are affected on how the music moves or shapes my feelings and other perceptions.

Grammy’s Pound Cake February 10, 2008

As long as I can remember, my grandmother’s pound cake has been the center of all family gatherings- the good and the bad.  While picking up the rubble from the tumultous tornado that ripped through my family’s home, my grandmother decided to make her famous cake to restore our spirit and to bring happiness to the devastions of the storm.  The cake called for:  2 sticks of butter, 3 cups of cake flour (sifted), 2 cups of sugar, 6 eggs, 2 teaspoons of Vanilla extract, 1 cup of sour cream.  As I gathered them, I began thinking about the sweet taste of the cake; however, when I imagined the individual taste of each ingrediant, a very unpleasant, bitter taste came to my mouth.  The saltiness of the butter combined with the bitterness of the sour cream provide a very warm, sweet, moist taste to my Grammy’s cake.  Alone, the ingrediants do not provide a pleasant taste to my palate, but when they are mixed together, they bring a sweet, airy taste to my mouth and a smile to the soul of my family.