Wow, yesterday was the first meeting of the new officers for the Houston Chapter of Hearing Loss Association for 2009. I was pretty psyched. After all, I had just became a member of this chapter at the July 2008 meeting. I just jumped in…I heard about this organization for many years. I admit I been to a couple of meetings back in the late 90’s, even went to a couple of meetings in Dallas in early 2000’s. Now, I look back on it and I realized I did not want to admit to the world that I was hard of hearing. This past summer, I was ready!!! more than ready! You ask, what made me change my mind—many things…..I will begin with one reason, I was not happy with the way cochlear implants have been portrayed in the media lately….there was much negative publicity about it or they (the media) did not represent the cochlear implants correctly. I am a recent bilateral cochlear implant receipent and it truly changed my world for the better!!! The CI’s totally rock!!!
Back to July 2009, I went to meeting and I gave an impromptu speech of my life as a hard of hearing person, former hearing aid user, and now bilateral cochlear implant user. It was a blast and I received lots of positive feedback…. Now, I felt like the time was right to join Houston-HLAA. Fast forward to November—I was elected Co-president of 2009!!!! Pretty quick, I know, but I am real excited —I am ready to help energize this chapter with the help of all these awesome Houston-HLAA members…I am ready to learn from them….they have lots of experience with this chapter! Stay tuned …..and I will share more news from the Houston HLAA Chapter
Have a sunny day! As always Susanna
Champion Ears and Champion Horses 