Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: deaf

  • You Were Born to Stand Out

    “Mom, can I write all over the wall in my bedroom?”

    My daughter, Lauren, came up with this idea of writing inspirational quotes and pieces from her favorite songs all over her bedroom wall.  After a short discussion, I told her to go for it.  I forgot to consult the hubby on this one.  He was a little taken back when he first stepped in her room and found her writing on the wall, (Do you know how hard it is to paint over permanent marker!!) but after reading some of the inspirations, he agreed it was a good thing.

    Lauren didn’t do the project by herself, she invited others to share their bits of inspiration too.  So of course, my favorite quote went up on the wall.  The kids know it well, I’ve been preaching it to them for several  years now:

    “Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out.”

    — From the movie, “What a Girl Wants.”

    From the time that I first lost my hearing in elementary school, I tried hard to fit in, blend in, and fly under the radar.  I became the Queen of Bluffing— learning how to laugh at the right moment and nod along in conversation– without understanding a thing. I developed elaborate strategies to get through the school day.  “I was spacing out, what’s the homework?” I’d ask the student next to me.  In English class, the teacher had us read paragraphs from a book– I’d count the number of students ahead of me, watch each of them like hawk to see where they finished each paragraph and then when it was my turn, I knew where to start reading.  If there was a discussion, I made sure to chime in with my opinion first, because I couldn’t follow the conversation and I didn’t want to say something that was already said.

    That’s why I always say that going deaf was a blessing. That was the process of learning to accept myself and embrace myself.  That’s when I stopped trying so hard to fit in, and began to celebrate standing out.  God gives each one of us unique gifts and a journey that is like no other, so why would we want to live someone else’s life?

    When my own kids started sporting hearing aids, we picked some “stand out” colors so that there was no mistaking the ornaments perched in their ears.  Lauren and I picked out matching earmolds one year– pink glitter for her and blue glitter for me.  And to my surprise, even after all my efforts of getting my kids comfortable with being deaf and hard of hearing, they still went through their own journey of wanting to fit in, blend in and fly under the radar.  The wild colors were replaced with plain, clear earmolds.  Hair grew over their ears.  I had to learn to back off as a mom and let them experience that.  Soon enough, they became comfortable again in standing out.

    Our kids were born with a different ability, as Lee Woodruff says in her book, Perfectly Imperfect.

    And we should celebrate that difference. But you’ve got to get into a place where you’re really comfortable being deaf/hard of hearing before you can celebrate that difference.  And therein lies the challenge– getting folks comfortable in their own skin.  I think back to my elementary and teen years– I spent way too much time trying to be a poor imitation of a person who could hear instead of the best “me” I could be.    At a recent closing plenary, I shared my journey and the “You were born to stand out,” quote.

    One parent came up to me afterwards.  “I’ve been telling my kid how ‘normal’ he is and that he’s just like everyone else.  He’s miserable being ‘different’ and wants desperately to fit in with others. I’m going home today with your message– and I’m going to celebrate him instead!”

  • Wanting to Be Hearing

    So, before we get into today’s post, go mosey on over to Bad Words and read Tulpen’s post:  Either Way.  Then come on back over and let’s talk.

    Tulpen’s son, Owen, told his mom, “Don’t want to be Deaf. Want to be Hearing.”

    I can relate.  That’s pretty much how I felt– from the time I first began losing my hearing in elementary school until I became deaf.  I can remember being able to hear–I would crawl into bed and listen to my dad tell me the story of Scamp and Tiny– two dogs that went on adventures all over town.  I can also remember the day that I stopped crawling into bed– I could no longer understand what my dad was saying in the dark.  I had become sick with a high fever for nearly a week and shortly after that, I had the “hard of hearing” label tacked on.  I was never able to use the phone after that.  The words that entered my brain were pretty much scrambled and I resorted to lipreading.

    I hated the hearing aid.  Hated the daily struggle to access communication.  I often wished that I had normal hearing.   I held back on life, thinking that “if only I had normal hearing I would do this.”  Or that.

    In elementary school, the kids on the bus teased me, sometimes mercilessly.  I kept my eyes straight ahead or I sometimes buried myself in a book on the rides home.  My best friend, Pattie, defended me on the bus.  Twelve years ago, I received a letter out of the blue from one of my tormenters, asking forgiveness.  He had become a born-again Christian and the teasing had weighed heavily on him over the years.

    I had long ago forgiven, I just didn’t know it.  The forgiveness came from the journey to acceptance– in the form of a severe whack on the head when I tripped on a wake while barefoot water skiing.  I was nineteen.  I could no longer hear anything without a hearing aid perched in my ears.  But it turned out to be the very best thing to happen to me.  I finally, after years and years of battling, finally accepted the whole me.  I embraced the new journey and my world filled up with new deaf and hard of hearing friends and American Sign Language became a part of life.  As for me– I was deaf– and it was okay.

    Then one by one, my kids started collecting audiograms.  David was nearly three, Lauren was four, and Steven was two– and then we started killing more trees and collecting IEP paperwork.  And like Owen, each one of my kids has had their days when they wished they had hearing in the normal range.  And when they expressed that, my heart always did a little blip.  More often than not, it was a cycle– a season in their life– where they became more self-aware, or they matured, or a struggle of some kind would trigger it.  The rest of the time, all was well–they would settle back into being comfortable and happy with life again.

    And it might surprise some of  you to know that I even have moments of self-pity when I wish I could hear.  I had one of those moments while sitting at a banquet after a tournament this summer– and tears started to fall.  My friend Sharon was my interpreter that night and I told her what I was feeling.  I was reflecting over the whole summer of tournaments. “I wish I could hear the announcements, the conversations that flow around me, the jokes that get told on the boat– I miss out on all that stuff.  And sometimes I can’t lipread some of the folks I meet…” I whined.  Yes, I whined.

    We are human. In moments of humaness (is that even a word?) all of us wish for something else.  Thinner, taller, younger, smarter, richer–whatever it is, that darn grass is always greener somewhere else.  But ultimately, we have to cultivate that little patch of green we’re standing on.  We have to bloom where we are planted. Corny–yes–but it’s something I live by.

    Oh, and those announcements that I wished I could hear? Well, at one of the tournaments, another barefooter said to me,  “You’re lucky you can’t hear Dave (the announcer) — he goes on and on and on– sometimes I wish I could turn my ears off.”

    The grass is always greener…

     

  • Karen Putz Barefooting on Growing Bolder TV

    Bill Shafer and cameraman, Jason Morrow from Growing Bolder TV did a great job capturing the story of how I met Judy Myers and Keith St. Onge at the World Barefoot Center.  You can see my very first, sort-of-official backward barefoot start (with no shoes!)– but don’t blink, or you’ll miss me keeling right over two seconds later.

    Find more inspiring video, audio, and images at Growing Bolder.

    Filming at the World Barefoot Center

    Karen Putz on Growing Bolder

  • Chicago Tribune TribLocal and Chicago Now Posts

    I’ve been writing for the Chicago Tribune TribLocal and the Chicago Now blog since fall of 2010. It has been fun seeing my stuff in print and online.

    Yesterday, I had the opportunity to interview Kristi McNaron and Laura Ball from The Dave Ramsey Show about their weight loss success. This is a wonderful, inspiring story of friendship:

    Co-Workers Lose 150 Pounds Together

    To read the rest of my Chicago Now posts:

    Barefoot in the Burbs by Karen Putz

    From the TribLocal:

    The Importance of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Role Models

    To read the rest of my TribLocal Articles:

    TribLocal by Karen Putz

  • Michael Janger, Business Consultant

    Tell me about your job. How did you get into this line of work?

    I am a strategy consultant who provides finance, strategy and marketing advisory services to clients in the assistive technology industry, including nonprofits that serve people with disabilities. A finance industry veteran, I worked at American Express, Thomson Reuters, and IBM, and was the second profoundly deaf student to receive an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to my work, I write about disability issues and business at michaeljanger.com.

    I was born profoundly deaf, and not having the sense of hearing in a world full of hearing people presented me with challenges on an almost daily basis. Socially, academically and professionally, it was very difficult to communicate on a functionally equivalent level with my peers. The saving grace for me were innovations in technology that have enabled me to prosper in my career and my personal life. So, it is a passion for me to work with companies to better market products that make a difference for people with disabilities.

    With my finance and strategy experience in Fortune 500 companies, it was a natural progression to a line of work where I could offer my skills in a market I know well, as a person with a disability.

    What is the best part of your job?

    I enjoy working with clients to solve their business problems. It feels good to know I am helping them perform better, and more importantly, provide consumers with disabilities with better choices when evaluating products that enable them to function in a non-disabled world.


    What are some of the challenges of your job?

    This is my first entrepreneurial role. It was not by choice that I left American Express in 2009 — the Lehman collapse and credit crunch resulted in major layoffs at American Express. In a difficult job market in finance, I decided to lay the groundwork for a consulting career where I could provide my substantial finance and strategy experience to companies in a market that I know intimately. But it is a lot of work. You have to be disciplined day in and day out, and network as much as possible to build your business and get to know the major players in the amazingly diverse world of people with disabilities.

    What was it like growing up deaf?

    An important starting point — especially for those who are hearing — is that as someone who was born profoundly deaf, I did not lose anything. I have no memory or knowledge of what it is like to be fully hearing — to speak easily on the phone, listen to a podcast, or appreciate the finer points of music. The experience I have every day is of someone with a limited sense of hearing growing up in a world dominated by people who can hear perfectly well.

    This meant adapting to situations where the odds are always stacked against you. In high school, I did not have a real social life in a day and age when there were no cell phones, e-mail, or Internet. My hearing classmates called each other by landline phone, and I could not use the phone on my own. Sometimes I had to ask my parents to make the calls for me — which was very awkward to do in the image-conscious world of adolescence. It was not until college, where people see each other constantly in dormitory halls and campus greens, that my social life flourished.

    My childhood experiences have given me a strong desire to be connected to everything, to have access to as much information as possible. Which might be too much of a good thing today, in the age of information overload. But it has come in handy for me in my work, as I tend to be pretty good at collecting and analyzing data, and doing exhaustive research on the various business issues I face in my work.

    What advice would you give a deaf/HH person who is looking for a career like yours?

    As a finance industry veteran, it is important to build up substantial credentials in your field of expertise before venturing into a business of your own. Unlike marketing or creative writing, finance tends to be a pretty conservative industry where intelligence, trust, and solid academic credentials are key success factors. To shift from finance into a business of your own requires a strong network of people who can help you make your business work, and a vastly different approach to work that relies less on analyzing numbers and more on creative, team-oriented problem-solving.

    In whatever you do, it is important to follow your passion. A friend of mine, who is also deaf, put it very succinctly: “The best job is one where I can work for free.” And when it comes with a paycheck, it’s even better.

  • Lipreading Strangers at the Door

    The short woman at the door was of Asian descent. A teenager stood by her side, I assumed it was her son. “Oh you’re here for the dog cage!” I said. “Come on in!”

    The woman shook her head and said something. Said a few more things. None of which I could lipread. “I’m deaf,” I explain. “I read lips.”

    The woman said a few more sentences. Nothing made any sense, it wasn’t anything I could lipread. “I put a dog cage on Craigslist, are you here to pick it up?”

    The woman shook her head. More mumbo jumbo. Every once in a while, I encounter folks that are just physically impossible for me to lipread and this was proving to be one of those situations. “Oh! Are you here to pick up your daughter?” Lauren and her friend were standing nearby, and her friend happens to be Asian.

    “That’s not her parents,” Lauren told me.

    I was stumped. I couldn’t figure out why this woman was at my door. She tried again to help me to understand why she came knocking at my door but it was futile. I couldn’t lipread even a single word. Then the gal whipped out her iPhone and started a movie. As it turned out, she was from the Church of God and she wanted to tell me about God, our Mother. She brought a bible out of her purse and pointed to the scripture of Revelations that made reference to God, our Mother.

    “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I won’t be able to understand the movie, I’m deaf.”

    She pressed play. The movie was captioned.

    After she left, I just had to smile. Accessible movies– we’ve come a long way. Now all I need is the Accent/Lipreading Translator app and I’ll be good to go next time someone knocks at my door.

  • Decide That You Want It More Than You Fear It

    How many times have you held back because you feared something?

    I’ve been pondering “fears” lately.  Recently, I received a comment from a reader who is hard of hearing and struggling with anxiety– “Social groups are almost impossible at times,” she relates.   She has agreed to teach a weaving class in her community and is scared that she will have trouble getting through it with the communication challenges ahead of her.

    Boy, oh boy, can I relate.  Social situations, parties, group discussions– they used to strike fear inside of me and sometimes, they still do.   Communication in those situations becomes a rapid-fire ping-pong game– sometimes so fast that the ball is just a blur and you get nothing out of the game.

    I emailed the reader and this is what I shared with her:

    I can understand being scared about teaching the weaving class but let me tell you– you can do this!  At the beginning of the first class, be honest about your hearing loss and explain to the class what you need to make communication happen– that everyone has to face you when talking, to speak a bit slower and that if they need to get your attention– to raise their hand before they speak, etc.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage to do this but the rewards are great– students will adjust and you’ll have better access to communication and be able to share your skills with less anxiety about trying to follow everyone.  Communication is a two-way street but you have to teach others what you need to make that happen.

    In another email I shared:

    It’s ok to be nervous, just don’t let it prevent you from moving forward.  Face your fear head on.  My daughter sent me this picture at a time when I was dealing with some fears so I’m passing it on to you:

    Lauren sent me that photo during Women’s Barefoot Week at the World Barefoot Center.  She had no idea how timely that photo was.  I’ll have to back up a bit to explain.  In March, when I first went down to Lake Conine to learn how to barefoot again, one of the questions that I asked Keith St. Onge was, “Are there alligators in this lake?”

    Yup, that’s right.  I’m not too fond of alligators.  In fact, they downright scare the daylights out of me.  As long as they’re far away with a fence between me and their sharp teeth, I’m good.  When Lauren was in Girl Scouts, she came home with a picture of her holding a baby alligator.  I was very glad that I wasn’t there, or I would have had visions of the taped mouth coming undone and my little girl devored on the spot.   One year, Joe and I took the kids to an alligator attraction and I was happy when we finally left.

    Keith’s response to my question was simply, “Yes, but they don’t bother us.  The boat engine scares them away.”  I wanted to barefoot more than I was scared of the marine life, so off I went into the water.

    Then in the middle of Women’s week, I was sitting in the water after a barefoot run, waiting for the boat to come back and pick me up.   The boat was taking forever to idle back to me.  I turned around and stared into the open jaws of an alligator coming to attack me in the water…

    And then I woke up.

    That’s right, I had a nice little alligator nightmare.  I couldn’t fall back asleep for a long time after that.  The next morning, we did a photo shoot on the water.  I was sitting in the second boat, waiting for my turn on the water.  One of the gals pointed out an alligator swimming by.   The other boat began coming closer and the alligator disappeared.   I tried to put the image out of my mind, because I knew I had to get in the water.

    Come on, Karen, nothing’s going to happen.

    Well, what if I’m the first person to get attacked on this lake?

    Don’t be silly, the alligators are scared of boats, they’ll stay away.

    All too soon, it was my turn to get in the water and my legs were shaky.   I fell on my first attempt to get up and I tried to tumble around to get back up and finally let go.   David Small was driving and he asked me if I was nervous about the photo shoot.  I could only shrug– I wasn’t about to explain my silly alligator fears at that moment.

    Later that morning, I told Keith about the alligator nightmare and he grinned at me.  “Face your fears!” he told me.

    “I face my fears every time I get in the water,” I grumbled at him.  But he was right–when you face your fears, you move beyond them.

    But that night, I had another alligator nightmare.  This time, I was watching the alligator swimming closer to me and I tried to yell at everyone in the boat.  They were talking and laughing and too far away by the time the alligator chomped on me.   And then I woke up.

    Good grief.

    Lauren’s photo came that day.  “Decide That You Want It More Than You Fear It.”  I laughed when I saw the photo– laughed at how uncanny the universe is in delivering nuggets of wisdom into our lives.   She had no idea about the fears I was juggling that week– she simply saw the quote on someone’s Facebook status and decided to turn it into an inspirational picture.

    So the next time you face something that scares you or fears that hold you back from something you want to do, decide that you want it more than you fear it.   The next time I jump into Lake Conine, I’m not going to give alligators a second thought.

  • The Last IEP Meeting

    It hit me like a ton of bricks this week when the school counselor remarked, “This is the last IEP meeting for David.”   I looked at my son sitting next to me.  How did the time fly by so fast?  He was a little toddler when Joe and I sat in on his first IEP meeting.  David had just turned three and was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss just a short time before that.  I had attended many other IEP meetings as an advocate for other families, but it was a whole new ballgame to sit in the IEP meeting as a parent.

    One of the hardest things for me to do was to put him on the bus for a 45-minute ride to school.   It was hard to trust someone else to drive my child, hard to trust someone else to care for him and protect him.  I didn’t like the bus driver, a young man who seemed distracted.  My gut feeling kept telling me that something was wrong.  A few days later, I went to get David off the bus and spied a half-smoked cigarette on the floor.   That was the last time that bus driver picked up my kid and I requested an aide on the bus after that.

    David attended a school with a deaf program for three years.  In kindergarten, the supervisor came up to me and told me that they felt the best placement for David would be in his home school district.  I struggled with that view, because I grew up solo in the mainstream– I was the only kid with hearing loss all the way up until I met Shawn Haines in high school.  Then it was solo and a friend.  I didn’t want that for my kid.  I wanted to make sure he grew up with deaf and hard of hearing peers.  So at first, I balked at the suggestion.  Joe and I had days and days of discussion, wrestling with the decision.  Should we fight to keep him in the deaf program or should we try the mainstream option?

    Finally, we came to the conclusion that we would give the mainstream option a try, with the intention of putting him back in the deaf program if it didn’t work out.  From day one, I was determined to make sure he had a different experience than what I went through growing up.   Our subdivision had built a brand new elementary school right across the street from our house and it was just about to open up.  I went in and introduced myself to the principal, Randy Vanwaning.  That turned out to be one of the best moves, because Mrs. Vanwaning stayed on our side throughout the whole elementary school experience.

    There’s a saying that I learned at a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) conference years ago:  “Bloom where you are planted.”  Once we decided that we were going to mainstream the kids, we kept that philosophy with us.  We made the best out of it.  I volunteered at the school and in the school library so that I could get to know the staff and the teachers.  I went into class and read books to the students using sign and voice.  I became involved with local playgroups and neighbors.  The school hired an interpreter whose parents are deaf.  Mrs. Mac is still interpreting today for Steven.  Mrs. Mac started an ASL club at the school.  The music teacher embraced sign in every single concert that the school put on and Mrs. Mac volunteered her time to teach the students one song per concert.  Many of the students signed the school song at assemblies.

    There were many experiences along the way that were challenging and it wasn’t always easy. I teamed up with Janet Des Georges to write The Myth of the Perfect IEP as a result of those challenges.  I often reminded myself that it would have been the same in any environment– it’s the nature of the journey and of life.   There were times when we questioned our decisions and explored options and considered changes.  One of the most difficult IEP meetings we ever had was David’s transition to high school.  A staff member felt strongly that we should keep him in the home district.  We felt differently– we wanted David at Hinsdale South, where he would have deaf and hard of hearing peers as well as a mainstreamed education.  We couldn’t come to an agreement at that meeting.  That was a meeting where tears were shed– I’ve had a few of them over the years with the three kids for different reasons.   We worked out that agreement and it paved the way for a smooth transition for Lauren as well.

    At David’s last IEP meeting, I sat and thought about all of this as I watched him talk about his experience at the “Explore Your Future” camp to the VR counselor and the district representative.  I sat in awe as I watched him share his views of what he wanted for his future– this little boy of mine has turned into a young man– when did that happen?   I thought back to preschool, and how he cried during the Christmas show that the teachers put on.   The teachers tried to encourage him to say his lines, but all he did was sit in his chair and cry while the other kids took turns saying and signing their lines.  I look back at that time and laugh, because I have a son who can get up on stage and put on a show now.  Go figure.

    For a long time, I was the parent teaching the child–guiding David through life and sharing what I wanted him to know.  Lately, I’ve been aware of how much the roles have shifted, I’m learning things from my son.  When we head to the gym together, he teaches me things about muscle development and he becomes my coach as he runs me through drills.  “Come on Mom, you have to do one more set”– which sounds a lot like the stuff I tell him at home:  “Clean the bathroom and sweep the living room.”  Just yesterday, he made a stir-fry dinner while I was glued to the computer and I was surprised at how delicious it was.  There he was, sharing his newly-made recipe with me and teaching me how to make a better stir-fry.

    I mentor families who are just starting out on the journey of raising deaf and hard of hearing kids and the beginning of the journey always seems so overwhelming, so impossible, so challenging.  “Hang on to every bit of time that you have with your child,” I tell them.

    Because before you know it, in the blink of an eye, all of a sudden, the last IEP meeting arrives and you wonder how it went by so fast.

  • When Fear Holds You Back

    “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

    This quote by Eleanor Roosevelt is something that I remind myself of every now and then.  Fear is often the emotion behind the reason we hold back.  “What if…”

    One of the hardest things for me to do with my boys was to let them play football.  It wasn’t that I detested the sport (slamming others to the ground, ugh!), it was the idea that they could lose more hearing by butting their heads into someone else’s.  We have a family history of people losing their hearing from knocking around our heads:

    For many years, my family was unique when it came to stories about hearing loss. Everyone in my family, for five generations, was born with hearing in the normal range. My Mom started losing her hearing as a teen. She became deaf at the age of 27.

    “I was at a family BBQ and all of a sudden, I realized I couldn’t hear anything,” Mom shared. “I could see that lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.” Just like that, my Mom became deaf. Her five siblings also were deaf or hard of hearing.

    I have four older siblings. My sister, Linda, was almost three years old when she fell off of a chair and hit her head on the corner of a baseboard. Later that week, my Mom noticed that she wasn’t responding to people. She began to stop talking. She was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss. My brother, Dennis, grew up with normal hearing and at the age of 36, he was hit on the head by a wooden beam at work and woke up in the hospital with severe hearing loss. My sister, Jeanie, grew up with a unilateral hearing loss and around the same age as my mom, began losing more hearing. In her mid-forties, she slipped on a rug and became profoundly deaf. My brother, Kenny, developed a moderate hearing loss in his late 30’s.

    I became very sick with a high fever as a child and my parents believe it was that illness which triggered my hearing loss when I was in elementary school. My first hearing aid was given to me when I was nine– but I only wore when at school. I found that it caused headaches and tinnitus and I often took it off after school and never touched it during the summer. When I was 19, I was water skiing on my bare feet at a high speed and fell sideways into the water. For weeks, I thought I just couldn’t get the water out of my ear. I had become profoundly deaf. From that point on, hearing aids were a constant thing in my life. Years later, my brother Kenny also lost some hearing from barefooting.

    Whenever I would share my family’s story about how we all became deaf and hard of hearing, people would be incredulous at the events that lead to hearing loss. “Y’all need to stop banging your heads,” one person remarked.

    Joe and I had long, deep discussions about whether or not to let the boys play football.   We both agreed that we didn’t want this gene to hold our family back– after all, my Mom went deaf in the middle of a conversation–she had done nothing to provoke the hearing loss.   My sister did not agree with our decision, she felt we were taking too much of a risk in allowing the boys to play a contact sport.  The kids have always known they could lose more hearing at any time, but I didn’t want them tiptoeing through life.

    Last week, I found myself facing a little bit of fear that surprised the heck out of me.  I was up in Wisconsin spending three days barefooting with Joann O’Connor. We were kicking back after a great day of footin and had just finished dinner.  Joann casually suggested that I try some wake crossing the next day.  All of a sudden, I felt like the wind was knocked out of me.  “I don’t know about that,” I said.  “After all, that’s how I ended up falling and going deaf.”

    Like I said, it surprised the heck out of me.  I had long ago accepted the transition from hard of hearing to deaf and was quite comfortable with my life.  There was a little tiny piece inside of me that wanted to hang on to the little bit of hearing that I had left with hearing aids.  I already knew what it was like to be stone deaf once the hearing aids hit the nightstand.  Was I ok with being stone deaf if I whacked my head again and all of it went poof?

    Joann and I discussed it and I told her if I lost the bit of hearing that was left, I’d be ok with it.  I still wasn’t sure if I was going to tackle any wake crossing though.  Heck, I spent the entire summer trying to conquer a deep water start and I just wanted to learn to get back up on the water.  I had spent the afternoon trying one deep water start after another with no success.

    It was 6:30 a.m. when Joann and I reached for the wetsuits and headed for the boat.  “Here, try the shoe skis,” Joann suggested.   No sooner did I stand up on the shoe skis then my feet went off in two different directions and I face planted.

    “Hey, you stood up too fast!” Joann explained.  I gritted my teeth and leaned back in the water for a second try.  This time, I patiently planted my feet and got up slowly.  I could see Joann grinning from the boat.

    I looked at the wake and all of a sudden I said to myself, “What the heck!”  I went for it.  I crossed over once, crossed over twice and by the third time… I was grinning back at Joann.

    “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

    Good ole Eleanor was right.

  • Karen Putz Chosen as a “Hidden Pearl”

    I’m proud to be among 20 amazing Deaf women chosen as “Pearls” by The M Project:

    The Pearls, by The M Project

    Next year, June 4, 2011, I will have to the opportunity to meet them all in Studio City, California.  I’m looking forward to getting to know these amazing gals!

    “Is a jewel just a pebble, that found a way to shine?”  –John Denver