Post by Avery Durand on Jun 21, 2019 7:35:58 GMT -8
AVERY GENEVIÈVE DURAND
<Played by Stern>
Full Name>> Avery Geneviève Durand
Nicknames>> Just Avery is fine.
Date of Birth>> May 13, 2005
Staff or Student>> Student
House>> Green Ribbon House
Gender>> Female
Sexuality>> Heterosexual
Face Claim>> Pauline Hoarau
Personality>> "Can't" is generally not a word you'll find in Avery's dictionary. She prefers to think of herself as confident, but anyone else would describe a girl that could use slightly more caution, a bit more consideration for her own well-being. That doesn't, however, translate over to her animals, especially her horse. She would never risk their health, and may sometimes even be a bit of a worry-wart about the smallest skipped step. She can be a bit distant with people that she's just met, although she does thaw relatively quickly. She just won't necessarily be the one making the first move to create friendships unless there's a shared interest in there somewhere. Once someone does manage to break through her shell, they'll find a humorous, sometimes morbid joker with a small disregard for rules (especially nonsensical ones) and a large one for restrictions placed on her due to others perception of her disability.
Likes>> Tea (especially black tea, but really anything), dark humor, oatmeal raisin cookies (yes, she's weird), carrots, ASL-themed art, baking, cake decorating
Dislikes>> Coffee (the few times her parents have let her try it), her hearing aids, bugs, audists, rye bread, apples, automatic captions (they're ridiculously bad),
Fears>> Being trampled or run over from behind, disappointing her Deaf teacher/friend (although they do agree to disagree on a few subjects, he continues to be supportive)
Hopes>> She hopes to go to veterinary school (1) with a focus on reproduction and genetics, to give her the knowledge to take over her parents' farm (2) as well as assisting others in the area with breeding the best horses they can. If not veterinary, she has an eye towards genetic research, although that would be separate from the running of the ranch.
Secrets>> For the longest time, she hid a small microphone in the living room so that she could listen in on her parents conversations from her bedroom at bedtime - often to figure out good times to sneak out.
Appearance>> Avery's looks definitely show the connection to her French ancestry, from the grandparents that immigrated to Canada from Réunion. Her brown hair is worn long and usually covering her ears, even when she isn't wearing her hearing aids. Her brown eyes peer out from mostly clear skin (although she has the normal teenager acne problems). At 5'9", and still a little to grow, she doesn't tend to reach for her heels even when dressing up, feeling herself quite tall enough. Her style ranges from t-shirts and jeans when riding, across blouses and trousers in the winter, to mostly dresses in the summer.
Markings>> Nothing major.
Medical History>> Chronic ear infections, ear tubes, MRSA infection.
Full History>>Avery was born in Toronto, Canada. Her parents together run a small quarter horse farm, breeding a couple of horses for racing every year. Her father also works on the Woodbine Racetrack as an outrider, so Avery is almost as much as home around Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds as she is around quarter horses. Her mother manages most day-to-day farm work with the help of a small staff.
Avery learned to ride almost as soon as she could walk, being thrown onto the older, more docile broodmares first, but then graduating to ever-more spirited horses. Her favorite, however, was always her father’s semi-retired outriding ‘pony’, a quarter horse mare with a fiery red coat and the spunk to match, despite her advancing age.
Ear infections were a regular part of her life, always blamed on the swimming she did with the local children’s club. However, at age six, they could no longer be ignored and she was referred to an ENT specialist. There, she was diagnosed with small eustachian tubes. The recommended treatment was a minor outpatient procedure to place tubes through both eardrums, which would allow the eustacian tubes time to grow into an appropriate size and equalize the pressure in the meantime. Luckily, this didn’t interfere greatly with her activities – The swimming and riding (mainly show jumping at this point, as her parents refused to let her race or attempt cross country, and she had no interest in dressage) continued, as did the weekly visits to her grandparents to practice her French and piano.
Thing continued that way for two years, with nothing greatly of note, until her follow-up visit with the ENT specialist two years following her surgery. The tubes that had been placed, which should have fallen out by that point, had remained firmly ensconced in her eardrums. Her parents and the doctors discussed removal surgery, weighing it against the wait-and-see approach. However, finally, the choice was made to remove the tubes via surgery that winter, to give her eardrums a chance to heal up before the summer swim season, and to reduce the risk of a tympanoplasty being required.
That didn’t go as planned, due to an unnoticed defect in the surgical team’s methods. Avery developed a MRSA infection in both ears. A rather involved battle followed, with the end results being a mostly healthy girl, with total hearing loss in her left ear and 60% hearing loss in her right. This rendered her deaf, and the recipient of a rather large sum of money from the hospital, avoiding a malpractice suit.
Luckily, a member of the farm staff back home, who were as good as family, was a member of the Deaf community himself, and he took Avery under his wing, helping her parents get the resources she needed. The whole family became fluent in sign language, and Avery attended multiple Deaf events. However, as her friends were still mostly hearing, she also pursued lip-reading classes and speech therapy, not wanting to be alienated from her peers at school. It was a fine line, not Deaf but deaf, not hearing but wanting to stay with the classmates she’d known for years.
However, that didn’t stop the rest of her activities. Swimming continued with a chalkboard that listed her practices, riding continued with an FM system, and her parents continued to search for ways to help their daughter. They stumbled upon Dog Guides, and started researching if such a dog could help their daughter. She had been learning to live with her disability for about two years at that point, but hearing aids didn’t work well, especially out in the barn or anywhere with too much ambient noise, and especially the inability to tell where sound was coming from was starting to tell. They brought up the idea to Avery and, with some hesitation, Avery agreed. It required a lot of thought on her part about how much she wanted to be a part of certain communities, but finally she decided it would be worth it to pursue the process. Of course, there was still the year-long wait list, and then the training. She was paired with a lab/golden cross named Saskia, who quickly wormed her way into the girl’s heart and also proved her worth multiple times within even just the first few days.
Saskia helped Avery’s confidence skyrocket in all situations again, and where she had gotten slightly tentative previously, now Avery blossomed. Her parents patted themselves on the back for that, and enjoyed watching their daughter go out with friends, hang out at swim meets, and generally pursue new interests.
That is, until they found out that she’d been trying cross country behind their back. That was one of the few things they’d been strict about, having seen some of the falls and as all parents do, harboring some fears about that happening to their little girl. They grounded her from the barn for two weeks and spent that time talking about the reasons they didn’t agree with her trying that sport. Avery nodded and acted contrite, so they let her back to the barn. However, eventually, the temptation proved too great again, and her parents threw up their hands. Avery had been begging to apply to Blue Ridge anyway, having heard about it from her riding teacher, and they decided that she may as well “be trained by the best to be smart about it.” So she got to apply for her freshman year, and here she is!
Pet Name>> Saskia (Sas-key-uh, 'Key')
Registered Name>> N/A
Age>> 5 years (Nov 2014)
Sex>> Spayed Female
Species>> Canine
Breed>> Labrador/Golden Retriever Cross (75% lab)
Registry>> N/A
Personality>> Saskia's favorite thing in the world is to be with her person - It's just the golden personality coming through. Luckily, she has a job that allows that, and it's one she does with enthusiasm! (Seriously. Avery has had bruises from a too-enthusiastic nudge before they cleared that up.) She can often be found standing with a foot on top of Avery's foot, or positioning her downs to lay across it. The lab side gives her a love of water and quite the food drive, and the biggest challenge for her is ignoring food that's being offered to her by anyone not her handler. Luckily, Avery is aware of that and they practice frequently. Her play style is very bouncy and vocal, and she quite enjoys parading around her soft toys with a grumble of "look how great this is!"
History>> Saskia started her life being raised as a dog guide puppy, and she did well at it, excelling at her basic obedience and her responses in public. She made it back to her organization for formal training and after some testing, was directed towards the hearing dog program. There, she learned to alert to many different sounds - Knocking at the door, emergency sirens, vehicles and people approaching from behind, etc. as well as phone retrieval. Once they knew who she would be paired with, she was also taught to alert to Avery's name being called by indicating the direction it had come from. She and her girl were matched when Saskia was about two and a half, and have been a team since then.
Appearance>> Picture I | Picture II
