Column: Neutralizing a disability

As we get ready for another school year, I can’t help but remember my son’s first day of school.

In the summer of 2011, I was traveling when I got some unsettling news from home. Following a regular doctor’s visit, there were some concerns about my son’s hearing. After thorough testing, we found out that he had a moderate to severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. What all that means is nerve damage in both ears effects his hearing at certain frequencies.

He spent more than half of his life with this hearing loss. You would have never known it.

You would have thought, as we often did, that he just wasn’t paying attention. We would yell at him to focus and think before he asks, “What?”

When he started having behavioral issues at school, we visited doctors, psychologists and developmental pediatricians. Finally, it was suggested that we get his hearing checked.

After the confirmation of his hearing loss, we came to a heartbreaking conclusion. Our son was disabled. He had a hearing loss that could only be corrected with hearing aids. At 5 years old, my son needed hearing aids.

I had to keep repeating that to myself, because it just didn’t compute. Hearing aids were for old people … did they even make them in his size?

Like a lot of parents, I was in denial. We went for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. We visited websites, read pamphlets and talked to people, I simply could not reconcile how my son – who was normal (whatever that means) could have made it this long with this severe of disability. I had even considered not getting him hearing aids and forcing him to overcompensate and overcome this disability unassisted.

It wasn’t until our fourth or fifth visit that it all made sense. Out of frustration, I asked the doctor, “How is it my son can function so normally with such a huge disability?”

The doctor took a few second to gather her thoughts, then cut into me and made me realize in one sentence how foolish I was being.

“Mr. Donohue, your son is extremely intelligent. He has had to read lips and understand visual and context clues like none of us will ever be able comprehend. He needs hearing aids so he can apply his intelligence in other ways, namely learning.”

He was fitted for hearing aids 20 minutes later.

The day before his first day of kindergarten, I cried myself to sleep thinking about how his life would be. He was that kid. He was the kid my friends and I had picked on in elementary school, played pranks on in middle school and completely ignored in high school.

Was this my retribution for being such a rotten human being?

The next day, I took him to his first day of school. All his friends from preschool instantly saw something was different. He would answer with a ,“Those are just hearing aids. They help me hear better.”

No big deal to him, but it was for me. My heart broke every time one of his friends asked, and I anxiously awaited the demonic laughing and the vicious insults of 62 5-year-olds on the first day of kindergartner.

When the entire kindergarten class met in the library to go off to their respective rooms, I was mortified by the first sentence one of the teacher’s spoke to the room. “OK kids, it’s time to put on your listening ears.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my son fidgeting and wanting to raise his hand. I shot him a look, but he couldn’t stop himself.

He raised his hand, and loudly to the teacher and in full witness of every student and parent there proclaimed, “Excuse me, but I don’t need listening ears because I have hearing aids now.”

I cried.

But this time it was because I was inspired. He took ownership and completely neutralized his disability in that moment.

A couple of weeks later, we got a call from a parent to let us know that their son now wears their Bluetooth headsets in both of his ears around the house because he “wants to be like Aidan.”

His hearing loss became the new normal, and we have not thought about it since.

Last school year, he missed straight A’s by one point. He made the honor roll and was accepted into the Gifted and Talented program at his school.

We were, and continue to be, fortunate. Some people’s new normal changes day to day, hour to hour and minute to minute and cannot be corrected by a $5,000 piece of plastic. But as a community, we should always do what we can to make sure that these families are looked after and that their children are getting the best treatment and education possible.

This story was originally published August 17, 2015 at 12:14 PM with the headline "Column: Neutralizing a disability."