People are always shy about asking me to explain my deafness. This seems to have changed a bit over the past year. In an odd demonstration of convergence, several people have asked me lately to explain how I hear. In an effort to provide thoughtful and somewhat intelligible answers, I wrote them out. Then I decided I'd post them here, both so I can remember what I said, and for others who might be curious about how such things work.

What is the nature/history/source of your hearing impairment?
Spinal meningitis when I was two. It resulted in nerve damage, which left me severely deaf in one ear and profoundly deaf in the other. What that means is that I don't hear at all on my right side, and I hear with a hearing aid on my left. Without the aid, I can only hear very low tones, and they're very unclear. I don't hear very high tones anyway, regardless.
Stating it in those terms makes it seem worse than it really is for me. My audiologist tells me that I "hear" better, in terms of functionality and pure getting around, than the actual amount of hearing I have left. I tend to fill in the gaps in what I hear with words that make sense, which works about 90% of the time. But sometimes what I come up with is so far afield as to be truly hilarious. The only time I really consider this a significant problem is when it comes to learning languages, because I'm not fluent enough to fill the gaps. With Spanish, I know the words well enough to read most things, but I don't necessarily hear them in converation, and that irritates me. It's one of the only times I really feel deaf, but I'm convinced that continued study will solve that problem.

You don't seem to have many problems from it.
Thank you. I had very determined parents who put me through a lot of speech therapy and kept me in "hearing" environments.

Do you use sign language?
No. I know the alphabet, though.

Do you talk on the phone?
Yes, all the time. My last industry job, which I had for seven years, demanded that I make my living by talking on the phone.

If I didn't already know you were deaf, would I be able to tell?
Depends. Some people are surprised to find out and say they would never have known. Most people who are close to me say that I sound like I have a very slight accent. Other people say that I sound completely normal in conversation, but that my "presentation" voice that I use when teaching or speaking in public has an accent. I do know for sure that when I'm very tired or drunk, my speech is less intelligible.