The Un-Deaf

"GUeSS WhAt, DeShaWn,” Jamal, the deaf kid yells while sitting at an orange table in a library.

A grumpy lady with red hair and big, thick glasses, with a mole right on her nose, comes up to the table and slams her fist on it.  “Don’t you know you’re in a library?” she crankily askes.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I-,” DeShawn starts to say.

“Oh save it, I know about you people. Always breaking the rules. Now, be quiet or I’m going to kick you out into the street!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” DeShawn replies very quietly.

“WhAhT wAs DaT ‘bOuT, DeShAwN,” Jamal yells when the grouchy librarian leaves the table.

Oh brother, here comes Ms. Crankypants librarian again, DeShawn thinks to himself.

“What did I tell you about making noise? Get out, filthy apes! I mean it, and don’t ever come back to this library, or else I’ll kick you out AGAIN!” The ugly librarian angrily says.

DeShawn was taught to do as he was told, no matter what the order was or who was giving the order. So he quickly packs up all his school stuff and he packs up all of Jamal’s school stuff too. DeShawn grabs confused Jamal by the arm and drags him, and all the school stuff out the door.

When the boys walked out the door, every eye in the library was on the mean librarian.

“What?” Says the librarian to everybody in the library. “Go back to doing whatever it is you were doing, or I’ll kick you out too!” 

While DeShawn was walking Jamal home, Jamal asks, “WHy Did ThAt MEAn LiBraRian KiCk Us oUT OF tHE LIBraRy, DeShAwn?”

“Because you were talking too loud and the librarian was a very mean lady,” Deshawn signals through ASL.

“OOH, I’M sOrrY YoU hAD TO geT YeLLed AT,” Jamal tells DeShawn. “BuT SinCe We’RE AT my HoUSe, DO You WanT To PlaY SOme GaMEs?”

“No, I have to get home and study for the final exam tomorrow, sorry,” DeShawn signals.

DeShawn walks out the door and starts thinking of all of the mean things the librarian said to him and Jamal.

Black kids, never come back, I’ll kick you out. DeShawn thinks. There isn’t any reason for her to be so mean. Maybe she was having a hard time with her life right now.

While DeShawn thinks about his incident in the library, he begins to not pay attention to where he is going. Without knowing it, DeShawn is walking on the road now.

I can’t see, where am I? I can hear my heart pounding in my chest. What just happened to me and what is that pain? Oww the pain!!! OW, MY EARS!!! I am feeling a bit dizzy now.

Everything suddenly goes black for DeShawn.

“Honey, are you awake?” DeShawn’s mom tries to ask.

No answer, so she taps him on the shoulder, and this time he wakes.

“MoM Is THAt YoU? OWWWWW,” Deshawn asks very loudly.

“Yes, DeShawn I’m here, we are in the hospital, you got hit by a car on your way back from the library, and-”, Jasmine, DeShawn’s mother, starts to say.

DeShawn interrupts, “Mom, stop mumbling, I can barely hear you. Oww, what is that sharp noise in my head?”

The doctor and Jasmine both look at each other and the doctor tells Jasmine something that will change her, and her son’s life forever. “I am so sorry, Jasmine. I should have told you the second I ran the test. Your son’s eardrum was destroyed in the crash. Without your eardrum working, you can’t hear very well. I’m sorry, but your son is going deaf.

Crying, Jasmine says, “What, how does this happen, his best friend is deaf, his father is deaf, and now him? What does he have to go deaf too?”

“I’m sorry, there is not much I can do. I can get a therapist, so they can help you communicate better with your family?” The doctor told Jasmine.

As Jasmine shook her head “no” to the doctor, she went over to DeShawn and signaled, “Don’t worry, I’m going to get you home as soon as the doctor finishes checking you out.”

DeShawn nodded his head and said, “ I JuST WaNt To Go HOMe.”

The doctor finished checking DeShawn out, so they signed out of the hospital and went home. It was a couple of days before DeShawns mom could tell DeShawn that he was deaf, and she didn’t want him to hear it the way he did. 

Jasmine heard DeShawn crying in his room. She is curious why he is crying, so she goes into his room and gets his attention, then signals to him, “DeShawn, why are you crying.”

“BeCAUSe yOU wON’t lET Me GO tO sCHOol, aNd I cAn’T hEAr anytHING. AM I dEAf?” DeShawn loudly replies

“I am so sorry I didn’t tell you, I didn’t know how. But yes that is what the doctor said, your eardrum was destroyed. You can’t go to that school anymore because they don’t have an education for deaf kids,” DeShawn’s mom signals

“YES THEY Do, JaMal DoEs It”

“Okay, I’ll look into it,” Jasmine replies.

Since DeShawn knows that he is deaf and why he is deaf, he begins researching the question, “How to fix a destroyed eardrum?” He figures out that he needed surgery. He doesn’t want surgery, but he knows that it may be the only way to fix his eardrum. The surgeon takes tissue from a different part of the body, then graft it into the eardrum. 

DeShawn writes this information down on a piece of paper and tells his mom about it, “MoM, I KnOW HOw We CAN Fix My HEArIng!”

“Is that so? How do we fix your hearing?” DeShawn’s mother asks.

When DeShawn shows his mother the piece of paper, she begins to feel hopeful, she knows there is a chance to save her son’s hearing.

The next day, Jasmine takes DeShawn to the hospital again. She asks the lady at the front desk if she can speak to the best surgeon in the hospital.

“Yes, I can call him for you. Would that be alright?” Says the lady at the front desk.

“That would be perfect, thank you,” replies Jasmine.

A few hours later the best surgeon in the hospital comes through the door, and Jasmine could just feel in her bones that this guy was going to be the greatest surgeon ever.

“Hello, are you Jasmine?” The doctor asks.

“Yes, I am. This is my son DeShawn. He figured out how to fix his eardrum, so, with surgery, he might be able to hear again.”

“Ok, I am Dr. Auston Miller, and I’ll take you to your room and we can talk this through!” The Doctor says.

Once they get into the room, the doctor tells Jasmine what the surgery would be like and the chances of the surgery being a success.

Meanwhile, DeShawn sits on the bed trying to read the doctor’s lips and his mother’s lips. 

Jasmine and Dr. Miller eventually stop talking, and it was soon going to be time for DeShawn’s surgery to begin.

DeShawn was now getting ready for his surgery and he had to put on a gown, which he is not very happy about. But eventually, he gets over it and it is time to go into the OR for the surgery.

“Okay, DeShawn, I want you to count backward from one hundred. Can you do that for me, while I put the mask on you?” The anesthesiologist asks.

DeShawn does as he’s told and he starts counting backward from one hundred. “Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-sev-”

“Okay, we shall begin,” Dr. Miller states.

As they begin the surgery, Dr. Miller removes some tissue from DeShawn’s body. Then, he carefully goes into DeShawn’s ear and attaches the tissue from behind the eardrum. Dr. Miller has fixed DeShawn’s eardrum, so DeShawn can finally hear again. The surgery was that easy. Yet hard.

A few hours later DeShawn wakes up to the wonderful sound of noise. He is so glad to finally be able to hear again, so he yells so loudly as if he is still deaf, “YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAWWWWWW, I’m alive! I can hear! MAMA MAMA I CAN HEAR!”

“Honey, I’m here! I am so happy for you! Wait, your friend Jamal has the same issue that you had with your eardrum, right?” DeShawn’s mom replies. 

“Yes, that’s right! If he gets this surgery too, he might not be deaf anymore! Call his mom! CALL HIS MOM!” DeShawn yells.

After Jasmine calls Jamal’s mom, they start packing their belongings, and soon enough, they are leaving the hospital.

A few days go by and Jasmine gets a call from Jamal’s mother. They talk on the phone for a while and say things like, “I’m so happy for you!” and “Congratulations”. 

After they hang up Jasmine has great news for her son, “DeShawn, Jamal got the surgery that you got, and guess what? Jamal can hear again, for the first time in his life, since he was two years old. If it weren’t for your grit to get un-deaf, then you and Jamal you still be deaf. I am so very proud of you DeShawn.”

“Oh my gosh that is amazing, I can believe he will be able to hear me now. I am so happy for him and his family,” DeShawn says, thankful he could hear.

The next day after school, Jamal and DeShawn go to the library again. The cranky librarian is no longer at the library, and they were so happy. They quietly read books to each other and take advantage of every single millisecond they have at the library because they know that, at any time, something could happen to them, so they can’t take the things they have for granted.