Jim started with his hearing loss during military training. He is currently hard of hearing.

Jim has been a carpenter working with two custom staircase companies and was a job superintendent for two retail construction companies.

Currently he has the opportunity to care for his daughter (Kristin) who was injured in a car accident.

He loves the ALDA motto: "Whatever Works!"

I still am not sure why I am deaf, but deafness has shaped who I am today.

There are certain milestones I remember that, I assume, caused or contributed to my deafness, as it is not hereditary.

I had a serious illness with swollen glands and high fever when I was an infant, and I have read that doctors often treated this by giving shots directly into the glands, which later caused deafness. Even though I was never tested as a child, I know that I could not hear as well as others around me.

When I was 25, I developed encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. I lost a lot of hearing as a result of that.

When I was 27 and pregnant, I saw an ENT who told me that "you are going deaf; you will be deaf in seven years and your baby is probably deaf too."  I had never even seen anybody who was deaf. Up until that time, this was the worst day of my life! Thankfully, he was wrong about seven years and my baby, but it made a lasting impression on me about the insensitivity of health professionals. It gave me empathy in teaching children who were deaf and working with parents of those children.

Over the years, my hearing continued to decline at a steady rate so that by the time I was in my mid-fifties I was socially alienated by the hearing loss and having problems coping with my job, even though I was working in a deaf school program.  I have a cochlear implant now and this has helped me interact better with others.

I found the local ALDA chapter in Atlanta and have developed some wonderful late-deafened friends. After all these years of struggling, I make no excuses about being deaf and am at peace with who I am. ALDA has helped me with that journey.