Deaf Heart Reflection

The Deaf Heart, by Willy Conley, is a quirky, yet funny, novel following the journey of Dempsey Maxwell McCall. Dempsey, who preferred to be called Max, is an upcoming student of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. There, Max is studying Biomedical Photography. The complete novel covers Max’s early life, high school experiences, and the transition to UTMB. Through many short and witty stories, Willy captures the heart of the deaf community while also thoroughly exploring hardships along his journey. From my own perspective, I have never seemed so displaced in my mind about this topic. Right from the beginning, I was challenged with the first of many problems the deaf community faces on a regular basis. While at school, Max would miss the morning announcements. There rarely was any visual aids or handouts that summarized the morning’s important announcements. It was worse, even in this case, that Max could not lip-read any one person either. There were no opportunities to gather any of this important information, particularly the time Max’s friend, Billy, passed away. Max had realized though his classmate’s facial expressions that there was something was wrong. Max, however, had to imagine a possible scenario until one of the …show more content…
As in a lecture presented at Nazareth College on the twentieth of November 2015, Willy talked about an experience in a hospital some years ago. At the hospital, Willy was recovering in his hospital room, while the on-call nurse did their rounds. Willy had explained to the nurse that he was deaf and needed to lip read to understand. Shortly after, Willy woke up from sleep to find a friend by his bedside. After some casual conversation, the friend brought to Willy’s attention the sign that rested above his head. The sign read, “Hearing impaired (pt reads lips).” In just that one small instance, Willy was labeled with his ailment, not as a regular everyday