Watch me when people say deaf and dumb, or deaf mute, and I give them a look like you might get if you called Denzel Washington the wrong name.

If I were offered a cochlear implant today, I would prefer not to have one. But that's not a statement about hearing aids or cochlear implants. It's about who you are.

The hearing aids are very helpful for speech reading. Without the hearing aids, my voice becomes very loud, and I cannot control the quality of my voice.

What parent has it easy? I just never make the difficulty of it an obstacle. I just do it.

I was the youngest and only girl in a family of two older brothers.

There are so many people, deaf or otherwise abled, who are so talented but overlooked or not given a chance to even get their foot in the door.

I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.