Help Alex Restore His Hearing
Donation protected
An Audiologist gave me a hearing test that revealed regular hearing on the inside past my ears, she told me that there are doctors in Portland Oregon who can restore it with a properly calculated procedure. I am now on a quest to have this surgery performed so that I can finally know what it is like to hear like everyone else!
I will be updating my progress as it comes along, leaving no one out of the loop. This is the rarest of gamechanger for only a few people, taking advantage of this opportunity will be the real highlight of my life..
My Story,
My name is Alexander Hamilton, I am 24 years old and have suffered from hearing loss for almost 20 years after a brief disaster from when I was about 4-5 years old and had contracted both and Mono and Strep Throat at the same time. This resulted in being hospitalized for 4 months.. One day, in a faint memory I still have, I woke up with my room full of flowers and my whole family in tears leaning over my bed trying to comfort me as much as they can. After all the horror and time that had passsed, I was able to recover and be brought back to health a couple weeks after I had woken up.
Later in life we started to notice that I was having trouble paying attention to others when they would attempt to communicate with me, we were suspicious of one thing, so finally we had my hearing tested. It turned out my hearing was %70 gone.. There were so many questions I wanted answered since I remember that it wasn't this bad before.. When I was older, I decided to ask my mother how it came to be this way and she finally told me the truth as to what happened when I woke up that morning with my hospital room full of colorful flowers and gifts with silly bows.
She told me she was by my side the entirety of the hospitalization when one night at around 2am, she was woken up by the ECG going crazy when she discovered that it was suddenly flat lining.. She went on to explain how almost a dozen doctors had to rush in and pull me into a different room to hopefully revive me, after about what seemed like forever trying to bring me back they had actually almost called the time.. She said it was the most excruciating part of her life and when she thought it was all over, there was a small beep... The doctors frantically coerced me back to life, telling my mother that this was definitely a miracle... She told me it was the most terrifying moment she has ever encountered and still is to this day. A doctor later told her that there might be some severe side effects from the medicines they used to bring me back and were not sure as to what they could be. After years of researching here and there, I discovered 100s of documentaries that told us how a certain antibiotic could damage hearing in both ears.. For a very long time, this has been the answer to many of my questions about how my hearing became so frail..
My Hearing Today
Many times I was told that it is possible for my hearing to return on it's own. This has not been the case so far..
After years of tests and visits to many audiologists, I've only been able to attain hearing aids which none have brought my hearing to %100 as of yet. There are certain luxuries people like me miss out on in life such as music, conversing, making friends or watching our favorite television shows without the need for captions. As some of you may also know, there is an outrageously irritating noise that accompanies hearing loss which is called Tinnitus, a very disturbingly eerily permanent highpitched ringing sound that never stops.. It can sometimes get so bad that trying to concentrate with the outside worldly sounds becomes somewhat impossible, it'll even keep me up some nights when it gets too harsh and just will not go away and let me rest...
Relationship With Others During Childhood
Growing up having to wear hearing aids was not a very comforting ride at all, sometimes it was almost impossible to make friends in school, bullies and mobs of children would stand around me and endlessy torture me for needing "special equipment" to help me along my journey in life.. Being young, this hurt me in ways that I could not even understand yet, in ways that were so dismembering for my encouragements of just even 'trying' to make friends or immersify myself into the lives of "normal people".. Which led me to an almost completely solitary state off and on for years until highschool. Even some of the teachers in a few of many schools I attended to escape the bigotry of the last were a bit immature and hateful toward my needs..
The only thing that didn't make life all bad growing up was meeting the very few people who actually allowed me to sit at their lunch table and hang out with me after school. These people are the most important people in my life and they must truly be pure of heart since I still know them today, it is only a blessing to have known these true friends because some of them have been my friends for more than 18 years now.. They never left me for the "cooler kids" or made fun of me, just always by my side, helping me cope and giving me what everyone must have, friends.. Just to have this miniscule of a normal life was all I needed to be happy, it helped me sooo much with this journey, it was clear that my friends and family were the only thing that helped me appreciate life, to continue with it...
Hope That Became Dreams, Dreams That Became Real
With the regular visits to the audiologists over the years, I was only able to make use of hearing aids as we hoped that one day my hearing would just come back to me. For many years this was not the case, whatsoever.
Having the same doctor for almost 12 years made us really hope he could someday see something arise, though this never happened so hope was slowly deteriorating with each visit, while I grew accustomed to accepting the fate of wearing hearing aids for the rest of my life since I would never comply to a choclear implant. The doctors always told me that if I were to undergo such a procedure then the normal hearing that I had left would certainly be destroyed and all hope for recovering normal hearing with any future surgery, would be lost forever.
One day... In a small town on the coast of Oregon, I had run out of batteries for my hearing aids, there was an audiologist office just a short distance from where we were staying so I paid them a visit to acquire the special brand that I needed.
There was only one person at the desk, when I approached the to ask for some batteries, she asked me how my day was and we started talking about how nice of a day we were having. When I asked for my brand in batteries she offered me a free hearing test, which I accepted...
She was super nice to me the whole time, did not charge me for the batteries, nor the test, which was amazing.. As I sat down to take the test like I have done countless times before, the results with the earphones were the same. When I thought we were done with such a regular routine, I prepared to leave the testing room, she told me to stay seated because she wanted to try another form of testing, instead of the regular ear phones for sound, she asked me to put on a very different, very tight fitting headset in which she explained was for testing sounds using the bone of the skull..
At first I thought she was just using super loud beeps to get my attention, this wasn't the case.. With each time I raised my hand, her face would light up and I could just feel her excitement as the test went on. My nerves were striking, my muscles were getting tense and started to shake, even I was starting to become overexhilerated by this moment. After this peculiar test was completed, she excitedly came into the room and told me in a very bright and cheerful way, "I have something to show you!"
As we sat down in her office, she started to show me the results of both tests, the earphones were showing that I was indeed very deaf to certain tones and beeps, whereas the bone test showed that I had perfectly NORMAL hearing INSIDE my head, past the ears themselves! This was the most fantastic moment of my life, when I had witnessed these results my mind was being astronomically blown to bits and pieces as I just stared at these results for as long as I could remember... She explained to me that this was not in her expertise to tell me for sure what it was but that it was possibly repairable! The magical words I have been waiting to hear my entire life.. This was definitely something I could not grasp just quite yet in my reality. We talked for hours as she explained to me how it was a very exciting case to come across, that she had even seen people born with this condition who always overlook it, never coming around to seeing the people she tells them about that have answers and witnessing the same from other colleagues who see this time and time again, she tells me that she can refer me to real specialists that can give me a definite answers that I need. These experts she was explaining to me were specialists in a field called Otomicrosurgery that were very good at perhaps solving this sort of thing through procedures she had heard of in her career as an audiologist... She was telling me that she highly reccomended I see these sort of doctors in the Portland area but that there was a downside.. Assuring me not to be discouraged but to only find a way, that I might be able to hear normal one day, because she went on to tell me how expensive this sort of procedure can be and that most insurance policies may not cover all of it, so many people never even bother to try. Her optimism and hope for me was so profound that it was certainly not the sort of news I could overlook, since this was what I have most likely been searching for, my entire life. Then I will make it my goal to find out for me, for everyone.
The Struggle
After that very exciting visit to the nice lady, I felt my life was complete becuase I had just found reason, purpose, redemption for all of the struggles that were endured... Doctors like this do cost an insane amount of money, just a few phone calls and web searches revealed that such doctors charge upwards to $800 an hour. This did not discourage me, at all. For the next couple years I had a purpose, a goal. To get to Portland and finally find the answers to my life long questions. Like a lot of people, my family is not rich or powerful, but regular hard working people with regular jobs and always paid bills first. This has made it extraordinarily difficult for me to accumulate enough money for just a few hours with one of these dream specialists, let alone the procedure itself..
I've been told to write people such as Ellen, or Oprah and various other people who set out to help everyone they could.
Only.. That's not who I am, to ask for such help as this from people, at all. It was a self achievement that I wanted to accomplish through hard work and savings of my own..
When things got rough, as they do for everyone, still I refused to ask anyone for anything, it was just not who I was.
Helping Others
My whole life, I've never been able to walk away from a hungry friend or let anyone I know cross my path and just go about in their poverty. Something that hurts me the most is watching people suffer only as remotely as much as I have, in an unexplainable way, there was no way to ignore the ones who were having just the slightest trouble with their lives. Especially the ones who were ALWAYS there for me, even just to let me sit at their lunch table with them made me feel richer than most the people I read about in magazines or see on TV.
Money has never been something I cared about, it's nothing I ever longed for or fought for, not something I really believed in at all to tell you the truth. It's an evil thing, money. There was never a time when I agreed with the fact that you need this retched source of paper, just to have a life. All I've ever done is watch this evil item destroy everyone who valued it more than their peers, friendships and family!
I finally accumulated enough money to see a local specialist, not from Portland though.. I just, needed more answers... This was a very interesting visit, I brought MRI and CAT Scan data to this local specialist. She did not disappoint, because she said that there was no denying that a carefully calculated procedure may fix my hearing once and for all, even more of the best news I could ever hear from someone! She too had explained to me that very same downside as the nice lady from the small town mentioned. It would definitely be very costly, as she explained even further into the conversation, the words were starting to give me an even clearer vision of truth. This doctor has just told me that if I were to somehow go through with this and come out a success, that it could most certainly help the doctors who work on me to further their education in this sort of case and HELP OTHERS in the future! The second time, hearing the same sort of news and with that on top, brought uncontrollable tears to my eyes.. She told me to not be afraid to ask for help, this is when it became clear that everyone who ever told me that there was no harm in asking.. Were right all this time...
Ultimate Goal
It's not about me now, that much is certain. If I can find viable help from others, then they would not only be helping me, they would also possibly be helping thousands in the days to come, just from the education and experience this operation would teach the specialists. I now do not care if the procedure goes awry and does not help me with my life long dream, if they can learn something from it and use it to teach the new doctors who are graduating into the same field to combat this very condition and cure others, then I will still consider my life long goal, accomplished.
The Earliest This Can Be Done, The More Who Can Hear Again
All I can do is imagine a world, a world where no one would ever have to be cursed by what I have. In this world, the fear of this condition would be obliterated and people across the globe will have the option to fight back. This will be what I would like to call "My Defining Moment". A mark only I would bear myself even if no one knows I had a hand in it, would be something I will treasure forever. Something everyone will treasure forever.
This becamse very clear to me that it was something that will help change many lives, even if it fails on me. When someone discovers that their child has been afflicted by hearing loss, be it by medicine or just born this way, their hopes of giving their children a normal life, will not be destroyed, but achievable.
Maybe one day, the world will know who I am for it.
I thank all of you for reading my story, if this goes well and I can finally afford this procedure, I will certainly keep everyone up to date on everything that happens from day one.
Thank you all to whom show their support and love.
For Hope, For Change, For Happiness.
-Alexander, My Sister, My Mother, My Father and Friends..
All thank those who are willing and caring, we will be forever grateful...
[email redacted]
Email for an address to use mailing for donations..
I will be updating my progress as it comes along, leaving no one out of the loop. This is the rarest of gamechanger for only a few people, taking advantage of this opportunity will be the real highlight of my life..
My Story,
My name is Alexander Hamilton, I am 24 years old and have suffered from hearing loss for almost 20 years after a brief disaster from when I was about 4-5 years old and had contracted both and Mono and Strep Throat at the same time. This resulted in being hospitalized for 4 months.. One day, in a faint memory I still have, I woke up with my room full of flowers and my whole family in tears leaning over my bed trying to comfort me as much as they can. After all the horror and time that had passsed, I was able to recover and be brought back to health a couple weeks after I had woken up.
Later in life we started to notice that I was having trouble paying attention to others when they would attempt to communicate with me, we were suspicious of one thing, so finally we had my hearing tested. It turned out my hearing was %70 gone.. There were so many questions I wanted answered since I remember that it wasn't this bad before.. When I was older, I decided to ask my mother how it came to be this way and she finally told me the truth as to what happened when I woke up that morning with my hospital room full of colorful flowers and gifts with silly bows.
She told me she was by my side the entirety of the hospitalization when one night at around 2am, she was woken up by the ECG going crazy when she discovered that it was suddenly flat lining.. She went on to explain how almost a dozen doctors had to rush in and pull me into a different room to hopefully revive me, after about what seemed like forever trying to bring me back they had actually almost called the time.. She said it was the most excruciating part of her life and when she thought it was all over, there was a small beep... The doctors frantically coerced me back to life, telling my mother that this was definitely a miracle... She told me it was the most terrifying moment she has ever encountered and still is to this day. A doctor later told her that there might be some severe side effects from the medicines they used to bring me back and were not sure as to what they could be. After years of researching here and there, I discovered 100s of documentaries that told us how a certain antibiotic could damage hearing in both ears.. For a very long time, this has been the answer to many of my questions about how my hearing became so frail..
My Hearing Today
Many times I was told that it is possible for my hearing to return on it's own. This has not been the case so far..
After years of tests and visits to many audiologists, I've only been able to attain hearing aids which none have brought my hearing to %100 as of yet. There are certain luxuries people like me miss out on in life such as music, conversing, making friends or watching our favorite television shows without the need for captions. As some of you may also know, there is an outrageously irritating noise that accompanies hearing loss which is called Tinnitus, a very disturbingly eerily permanent highpitched ringing sound that never stops.. It can sometimes get so bad that trying to concentrate with the outside worldly sounds becomes somewhat impossible, it'll even keep me up some nights when it gets too harsh and just will not go away and let me rest...
Relationship With Others During Childhood
Growing up having to wear hearing aids was not a very comforting ride at all, sometimes it was almost impossible to make friends in school, bullies and mobs of children would stand around me and endlessy torture me for needing "special equipment" to help me along my journey in life.. Being young, this hurt me in ways that I could not even understand yet, in ways that were so dismembering for my encouragements of just even 'trying' to make friends or immersify myself into the lives of "normal people".. Which led me to an almost completely solitary state off and on for years until highschool. Even some of the teachers in a few of many schools I attended to escape the bigotry of the last were a bit immature and hateful toward my needs..
The only thing that didn't make life all bad growing up was meeting the very few people who actually allowed me to sit at their lunch table and hang out with me after school. These people are the most important people in my life and they must truly be pure of heart since I still know them today, it is only a blessing to have known these true friends because some of them have been my friends for more than 18 years now.. They never left me for the "cooler kids" or made fun of me, just always by my side, helping me cope and giving me what everyone must have, friends.. Just to have this miniscule of a normal life was all I needed to be happy, it helped me sooo much with this journey, it was clear that my friends and family were the only thing that helped me appreciate life, to continue with it...
Hope That Became Dreams, Dreams That Became Real
With the regular visits to the audiologists over the years, I was only able to make use of hearing aids as we hoped that one day my hearing would just come back to me. For many years this was not the case, whatsoever.
Having the same doctor for almost 12 years made us really hope he could someday see something arise, though this never happened so hope was slowly deteriorating with each visit, while I grew accustomed to accepting the fate of wearing hearing aids for the rest of my life since I would never comply to a choclear implant. The doctors always told me that if I were to undergo such a procedure then the normal hearing that I had left would certainly be destroyed and all hope for recovering normal hearing with any future surgery, would be lost forever.
One day... In a small town on the coast of Oregon, I had run out of batteries for my hearing aids, there was an audiologist office just a short distance from where we were staying so I paid them a visit to acquire the special brand that I needed.
There was only one person at the desk, when I approached the to ask for some batteries, she asked me how my day was and we started talking about how nice of a day we were having. When I asked for my brand in batteries she offered me a free hearing test, which I accepted...
She was super nice to me the whole time, did not charge me for the batteries, nor the test, which was amazing.. As I sat down to take the test like I have done countless times before, the results with the earphones were the same. When I thought we were done with such a regular routine, I prepared to leave the testing room, she told me to stay seated because she wanted to try another form of testing, instead of the regular ear phones for sound, she asked me to put on a very different, very tight fitting headset in which she explained was for testing sounds using the bone of the skull..
At first I thought she was just using super loud beeps to get my attention, this wasn't the case.. With each time I raised my hand, her face would light up and I could just feel her excitement as the test went on. My nerves were striking, my muscles were getting tense and started to shake, even I was starting to become overexhilerated by this moment. After this peculiar test was completed, she excitedly came into the room and told me in a very bright and cheerful way, "I have something to show you!"
As we sat down in her office, she started to show me the results of both tests, the earphones were showing that I was indeed very deaf to certain tones and beeps, whereas the bone test showed that I had perfectly NORMAL hearing INSIDE my head, past the ears themselves! This was the most fantastic moment of my life, when I had witnessed these results my mind was being astronomically blown to bits and pieces as I just stared at these results for as long as I could remember... She explained to me that this was not in her expertise to tell me for sure what it was but that it was possibly repairable! The magical words I have been waiting to hear my entire life.. This was definitely something I could not grasp just quite yet in my reality. We talked for hours as she explained to me how it was a very exciting case to come across, that she had even seen people born with this condition who always overlook it, never coming around to seeing the people she tells them about that have answers and witnessing the same from other colleagues who see this time and time again, she tells me that she can refer me to real specialists that can give me a definite answers that I need. These experts she was explaining to me were specialists in a field called Otomicrosurgery that were very good at perhaps solving this sort of thing through procedures she had heard of in her career as an audiologist... She was telling me that she highly reccomended I see these sort of doctors in the Portland area but that there was a downside.. Assuring me not to be discouraged but to only find a way, that I might be able to hear normal one day, because she went on to tell me how expensive this sort of procedure can be and that most insurance policies may not cover all of it, so many people never even bother to try. Her optimism and hope for me was so profound that it was certainly not the sort of news I could overlook, since this was what I have most likely been searching for, my entire life. Then I will make it my goal to find out for me, for everyone.
The Struggle
After that very exciting visit to the nice lady, I felt my life was complete becuase I had just found reason, purpose, redemption for all of the struggles that were endured... Doctors like this do cost an insane amount of money, just a few phone calls and web searches revealed that such doctors charge upwards to $800 an hour. This did not discourage me, at all. For the next couple years I had a purpose, a goal. To get to Portland and finally find the answers to my life long questions. Like a lot of people, my family is not rich or powerful, but regular hard working people with regular jobs and always paid bills first. This has made it extraordinarily difficult for me to accumulate enough money for just a few hours with one of these dream specialists, let alone the procedure itself..
I've been told to write people such as Ellen, or Oprah and various other people who set out to help everyone they could.
Only.. That's not who I am, to ask for such help as this from people, at all. It was a self achievement that I wanted to accomplish through hard work and savings of my own..
When things got rough, as they do for everyone, still I refused to ask anyone for anything, it was just not who I was.
Helping Others
My whole life, I've never been able to walk away from a hungry friend or let anyone I know cross my path and just go about in their poverty. Something that hurts me the most is watching people suffer only as remotely as much as I have, in an unexplainable way, there was no way to ignore the ones who were having just the slightest trouble with their lives. Especially the ones who were ALWAYS there for me, even just to let me sit at their lunch table with them made me feel richer than most the people I read about in magazines or see on TV.
Money has never been something I cared about, it's nothing I ever longed for or fought for, not something I really believed in at all to tell you the truth. It's an evil thing, money. There was never a time when I agreed with the fact that you need this retched source of paper, just to have a life. All I've ever done is watch this evil item destroy everyone who valued it more than their peers, friendships and family!
I finally accumulated enough money to see a local specialist, not from Portland though.. I just, needed more answers... This was a very interesting visit, I brought MRI and CAT Scan data to this local specialist. She did not disappoint, because she said that there was no denying that a carefully calculated procedure may fix my hearing once and for all, even more of the best news I could ever hear from someone! She too had explained to me that very same downside as the nice lady from the small town mentioned. It would definitely be very costly, as she explained even further into the conversation, the words were starting to give me an even clearer vision of truth. This doctor has just told me that if I were to somehow go through with this and come out a success, that it could most certainly help the doctors who work on me to further their education in this sort of case and HELP OTHERS in the future! The second time, hearing the same sort of news and with that on top, brought uncontrollable tears to my eyes.. She told me to not be afraid to ask for help, this is when it became clear that everyone who ever told me that there was no harm in asking.. Were right all this time...
Ultimate Goal
It's not about me now, that much is certain. If I can find viable help from others, then they would not only be helping me, they would also possibly be helping thousands in the days to come, just from the education and experience this operation would teach the specialists. I now do not care if the procedure goes awry and does not help me with my life long dream, if they can learn something from it and use it to teach the new doctors who are graduating into the same field to combat this very condition and cure others, then I will still consider my life long goal, accomplished.
The Earliest This Can Be Done, The More Who Can Hear Again
All I can do is imagine a world, a world where no one would ever have to be cursed by what I have. In this world, the fear of this condition would be obliterated and people across the globe will have the option to fight back. This will be what I would like to call "My Defining Moment". A mark only I would bear myself even if no one knows I had a hand in it, would be something I will treasure forever. Something everyone will treasure forever.
This becamse very clear to me that it was something that will help change many lives, even if it fails on me. When someone discovers that their child has been afflicted by hearing loss, be it by medicine or just born this way, their hopes of giving their children a normal life, will not be destroyed, but achievable.
Maybe one day, the world will know who I am for it.
I thank all of you for reading my story, if this goes well and I can finally afford this procedure, I will certainly keep everyone up to date on everything that happens from day one.
Thank you all to whom show their support and love.
For Hope, For Change, For Happiness.
-Alexander, My Sister, My Mother, My Father and Friends..
All thank those who are willing and caring, we will be forever grateful...
[email redacted]
Email for an address to use mailing for donations..
Organizer
Alexander Hamilton
Organizer
Brookings, OR
