Art Campaign: Inspiring Stories of Hearing Loss:

The Teacher of the Deaf

The Story of Melissa

My name is Melissa McKee and I have a bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.

My family didn’t realize it until I was five years old. I got my first pair of hearing aids then, learned to lip read and communicate orally as there wasn’t a culturally Deaf community nearby to learn ASL.

I got a cochlear implant when I was 32 years old, mainly because I was hungry for more sound. I am a Teacher of the Deaf for SCDSB, in my 22nd year of teaching.

I filed a Human Rights complaint against my local hospital as they failed to accommodate the DHH in the ER wait room (https://www.simcoe.com/community-story/8985226-woman-s-human-rights-challenge-brings-change-to-orillia-hospital/).

Since then I started up Deaf1 Solutions (https://www.deaf1solutions.com/) to help others “navigate the deaf and hard-of-hearing highway.” Currently I am selling self-advocacy masks for the DHH, and window masks for essential workers who accommodate the DHH. I’m really enjoying it.

Are you inspired by Melissa’s Story?

Melissa has been following and sharing my art on her Deaf1 facebook page for a while now. I loved a couple of her black and white photos she has shared with me and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to paint with my digital charcoal brushes. It’s one of my favorite mediums! It was hard to pick which side of her face I wanted to portray, but I decided that her cochlear side with the wing would be a wonderful match with this medium and to her story.