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February 17, 2005
Hearing loss can’t silence these skills
Grant Isenbarger was 24 hours old when he underwent his first surgery. He was born with a diaphragmatic hernia, and all his intestines were shoved into his chest cavity, stopping his left lung from inflating.
It’s possible his hearing loss occurred at birth, and it’s possible the medicine that saved his life affected his hearing. But it never affected his heart.
Though he has 50 percent hearing loss, Isenbarger, now 11, doesn’t let anything slow him down, particularly on a hockey rink. He’s been selected to compete in the inaugural National Disabled Festival coming up in this weekend in Fraser, Mich.
“He said ‘hockey’ before he said ‘Mommy,’ so you know what I’m up against,” said his mother Linda Isenbarger. “To see him out there playing like that is great.”
Grant is a fifth-grader at Harris Elementary and a left wing on the Fort Wayne Komets Pee Wee A travel team.
“Fundamentally, he’s one of our most solid players,” coach Steve Lee said. “He communicates without any trouble at all. Because of his disability, he’s much more aware of what’s going on around him. He can read the play better than most, and it’s helped him with his hockey sense in knowing where and how to anticipate the play.”
But Isenbarger is also a bit of a character. He’s taught the coaching staff how to say “idiot” in sign language so they can tell the referees what they think without getting a penalty.
“Just last practice we were standing in the corner and I was trying to explain something,” Lee said. “Grant was behind me and I turned around and he was kind of goofing off. I said, ‘Grant what are you doing. Are you paying attention? What did I just say?’ And he told me what I just said. How he did that, I don’t know.”
“Lucky guess,” Isenbarger said.
He does have limited hearing, unless it’s time to come off the ice. Then he conveniently can’t seem to hear Lee calling to the bench.
“I can hear, but I do a lot of lip reading,” Isenbarger said. “If I’m not facing them, I have trouble.”
Isenbarger will play for the American Hearing Impaired Hockey Association team at the festival. He’s been attending AHIHA camps for five years, and organization co-founder and Chicago Blackhawks legend Stan Mikita is his hero. His ultimate goal is to participate in the Deaf Olympics. He can’t play until he’s 16, so he’s shooting for the 2011 games. The 2007 games are in Salt Lake.
“We’ve been lucky to have coaches along the way who have given him that extra time to get him where he is,” Linda Isenbarger said.
By Blake Sebring
Posted by 4HL on February 17, 2005 9:13 AM
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