VOICES OF OUR REGION
Aubrey Lowry
Transcript
Well a little bit about myself. Okay, that is a great start. I was born in Davenport, Iowa, and I moved to Pittsburgh when I was a very young boy, after my parents divorced. I lived with my mom and my sister and we grew up in Shadyside. Right now I am in Oakland.
Because I have Asher’s Syndrome, it’s a genetic disorder that I was born with, I inherited it from the family line, and I have tunnel vision, night blindness, color blindness, name it, you know, macular degeneration, retina pigmentosa, it’s hard to describe, but I’m legally blind and I’m hard of hearing. I wear two behind-the-ear hearing aids.
When did I start losing my sight? In my teens. I gave up my driver’s license when I was about twenty-one. I obtained it the day after I turned seventeen. I wanted to get it when I was sixteen.
I’m thirty-five. I just turned thirty-five on May 20 of this year.
Because you knew you had Asher’s Syndrome, you knew you were going to be losing your sight.
How did you prepare for that?
I went to Bible School, actually. College, Geneva College, and I was living off campus, not in a dormitory setting, but off campus, like I said, with my minister, who I met through my mom. He had a small, very small non-denominational church. It was very nice and it was family life, and I lived in the basement of their house. We built a room out of pallets and put up walls and I lived there in a room and I commuted back and forth for as long as I could to Geneva College as a student.
Have you had a need to learn Braille?
Yes, I recently completed an eight-week program at BBRSP I completed successfully the language of Braille One.
It was very hard at first, but practice makes perfect. I was born with my hearing loss, and it took three different hospitals to diagnose me. Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh was the one that found that I was hard of hearing when I turned three years old. I commuted back and forth, with my mom’s assistance, to go to DePaul, and they did not believe in sign language, the use of sign language, but I was fortunate, in my situation, speak therapy would help me.
Mom: He went to DePaul from the age of 3-1/2 to 4, where I transported him, but at 4 the Board of Education would provide transportation and from 4 to 5 he went to DePaul. Then they suggested that he be a mainstream candidate because he went from maybe fifty words to half the medical syllables, to a vocabulary of 4,000 in that year-and-a-half that he went to DePaul. So since he was intellectually sound enough to handle the stress that early, we decided to go for it, and he’s been an Honors student in everything for the thirty-five years I’ve known him.
Aubrey: Thanks, Mom. I went through all five grade levels in Liberty Elementary School.
And then where did you go?
Then I went to Reizenstein School.
What was that like?
It was kind of interesting. Again, it was set up like Liberty Elementary School.
Mom: the Board of Education and I, at that time, disagreed also. I almost went through due process. They wanted to send him to Brashear along with the class roommates. They all went to Brashear, which was fine, but I had an opportunity to send him to Gallaudet University’s model secondary high school in D.C., and I said I would like to approach them just for transportation needs back and forth. Well, they denied me because they wanted him at Brashear.
I said, “Fine, we’ll do it without you,” and we did. And we went to Galaudet. We had three-day orientation intake, and he was accepted, and he made all A’s when he was there.
Aubrey: That’s why I learned sign language. I didn’t know what my homework assignment was. I had to go up to the teacher after every class and have them write down my homework assignment. I forced myself to learn sign language through the deaf culture at that time.
Aubrey: I didn’t have to learn tactile sign language like how to use it at that time because I still had a lot of sight. I was still pretty young. My sight deteriorated after I went to, my Asher’s Syndrome, which is RP with a hearing loss, so to say, was diagnosed by WPSD actually. The first two years of high school I went to MSST Model Secondary School for the deaf in D.C., on the campus of Gallaudet University.
Upon completion of my high school graduation, which took place at WP SD in 1992, I went to Geneva College and was immediately accepted.
What did you study there?
In the Fall of 1992 I picked a major because they required us to pick a major, and I didn’t know what I wanted, so I picked Biblical Studies, and a focus in Philosophy.
Did you graduate with that?
Yes, I did. I graduated with a B.A., 3.48. I could become licensed to be a minister in a non-denominational church.
So you didn’t want to do that?
Aubrey: Well, I was just interested in pursuing a J.D., Juris Doctor degree. so Lord willing, after going to Helen Keller in New York, I’d learn tactile sign language like I did Braille I, I will equip myself physically, mentally and in every other way that I can prepare myself for the future of higher education,
Mother: when he came to Pittsburgh after commencement, he worked at the Allegheny East.
Aubrey: MHMR Inc as a social worker. My job title was Residential Advisor. I was there for two years for the deaf MH MR dual diagonised sign language and they conversed in sign language, but because of my sight diminishing, I had to look for another job that did not require sight, so I was basically relying on the little bit of hearing that I have left, which is one of my struggles. But with the correction of digital hearing aides and the technology that’s available for a person like me nowadays is astonishing– in other words, the impossibilities seem to be more possible.
Aubrey: I do frequently go to what was formerly known as PHSDS, which stands for Pittsburgh Hearing and Deaf Services. It’s in uptown Pittsburgh, and I go there for therapy because of my Asher’s Syndrome deteriorating so rapidly and so badly that it actually came down to the diagnosis of me having some kind of psychosis. it’s part of my genetic disorder that I inherited. One out of every four males who have Asher’s Syndrome will develop some type of mental illness.
Aubrey, what’s the toughest part to deal with, the vision loss, the hearing loss, or the mental health issue?
Aubrey: Actually, the mental health issues, because without one’s mind, forget about the other senses, forget about all the senses, actually.
We hear that from everybody, by the way. I just wanted to see if you had a different answer because the mental health issues are the biggest issues for people.
Mother: When Aubrey’s sight and vision crashed, both at the same time, he was about twenty-eight, he of course was depressed about it, He was in every hospital psych ward you can imagine. He was treated roughly in the sense that nobody knew deaf-blindness, nobody knew his diagnoses, and they would all try new medications, and he was over-medicated and isolated, and I’m not going to say that he was neglected or abused, but nobody knew what to do with him –
On the other hand, what are you most proud of?
Aubrey: What am I most proud of? My educational accomplishments, as well as my that I got on Braille. I learned Braille. I thought I could never learn Braille. It was so hard at first trying to read salt crystals on a table.
Well, Aubrey, who’s been the biggest influence in your life?
My professors from Geneva College, as well as my minister. It comes with my world view. The three questions, which are “Who is God?” “Who are we?” and “What is this world all about?” I believe that our ideology, if you will, defines who we are and shapes how we live, as well as how we affect others and ourselves.
Aubrey: It took me a long time to get accustomed to wearing hearing aids. I used to bury them in the backyard. My mom would have to go outside, put her ear to the ground and find the hearing aid, and the only way she could find it was the battery. If left it on and it would squeal.
Mother: but then he learned that it was important, so within a year --
Aubrey: I couldn’t life without them. Assistive devices are very important for the handicapped, or for those who are disabled.
Ah, well, it’ll happen.
Aubrey: Yeah, it’ll happen one way or another. Anything’s attainable if you want it, but you have to be realistic, too. I think the trick in life is to have a balance and not be so extreme on either side. Not to make a luke warm position of it, either. Kind of having you face on one side of the spectrum or the other. Knowing where you stand, what your values are and what you believe in, and what is important to you in life, but be in the middle of it.