Talk to anyone who follows Rugby league and they’ll tell you Wally “The King” Lewis is Australian Sporting Royalty. Daughter Jamie-Lee has inherited his blue-blood sporting genes and is a star in her own right despite being deaf.

Wally and Jackie Lewis discovered their daughter Jamie-Lee was deaf at age one. “One day Jamie-Lee was sitting on the kitchen floor. A plate smashed right next to her, and she didn’t react. So we took her to be tested and it was confirmed she was profoundly deaf.“ Jackie recalls.

As with most hearing parents who discover their child is deaf, Wally and Jackie were very upset. But if you’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to Jackie you’d know that wallowing in self pity was never an option. They started to look into all the options open to Jamie-Lee. “It wasn’t something we knew too much about, so we asked Dimity Dornan for help.”  Dimity ran a small program to help a few deaf children at the time from a spare room at her husband’s physiotherapy practice. Jamie-Lee started with hearing aids just after 14 months.

While Jackie was in Sydney doing a course at the Shepherd Centre she heard about cochlear implants. Back then they were very new and essentially unknown so Jackie set about learning more. Jackie and Wally did consider exclusively relying on sign language, however felt a cochlear implant gave Jamie-Lee wider options from which  she could make life choices.

Jamie Lee had her first cochlear implant before age 5, and like all families of cochlear recipients they treasure the home video of that wonderful surprised reaction when Jamie-Lee heard for the first time! The family did experience public opposition to their decision from some in the Deaf community, most notably a critical TV interviewer asking “what if she doesn’t want to hear” to which Jackie answered “she can just turn it off”!

Jamie-Lee feels that if she was born today it would have been an easier path to implants. They are now very well known and accepted.
These days your choice of school would be relatively unrestricted, but in those days when the family lived on the Gold Coast Jamie-Lee was expected to simply go to a school for deaf children. Her parents pushed to get Jamie-Lee into a hearing school and she was accepted at Emmanuel College from kindergarten. She also did one day a week at the deaf kindergarten. The next year, the family returned to live in Brisbane and Jamie-Lee received her cochlear implant. She spent her primary school years at St. Anthony’s and then became the first deaf student accepted by All Hallows' high school.

Jamie-Lee recalls that she was not treated much differently by teachers or classmates because she had a cochlear implant, although lots of the children wondered what she was wearing on the side of her head. It did help that a teacher of the deaf was organised to go to the school to give a talk on what a cochlear was and why she was wearing it.

Jamie-Lee's first implant lasted 11 years, and was replaced when she was 16. When asked what her greatest frustration is with her implant she replied "If my mapping is out, then it can be annoying, but there aren’t too many things that are frustrating at all." She has a lot of funny stories though, particularly as a result of the magnet in the implant. “When I was at preschool and grade 1, all of the kids liked to do tricks, sometimes I put an empty Coke can up to the side of my head and then took my hand away – the can would just stay there, and the other kids couldn’t believe it. They all tried to do it but I was the only one who could.” she recalls,  "And I’m sure more funny stories will come in the future."

To reach the top in any sport you cannot rely on good genes alone. Jamie-Lee believes her deafness has helped her in her approach to life in general and her sporting challenges by making her more determined. "It’s no use complaining about it, as there’s not too much I can do about it anyway."
Jamie-Lee loves sport and has played netball, touch football, athletics, the list goes on but she  admits swimming was her first love - she wanted to swim every day.

"Of our three children, she's the one who has her father’s sporting ability in every way," reflects Jackie. "When they're watching a sports match together she'll have her hearing aid out because she likes to watch in peace without listening to the commentators. They'll both see something and comment on it at the same time and she won't know her father has said it."

Jamie-Lee discovered water polo at All Hallows’ School although it wasn't all smooth sailing. " My mum had heard of water polo and said I should try it out. I said 'no'.  I had no idea what water polo was. I was scared because I didn’t want to go to a new school, with no friends from the same primary school and didn’t want to try new things. I cried on the way to trials”.

After her first season of water polo, the President of All Hallows’ water polo asked her if she wanted to go to Mackay for the Under 14’s State Championship. She was in the Under 14 B team, but was selected for the Queensland A team. "That’s when I got serious and fell in love with water polo " Jamie-Lee said.

Fast forward and we find Jamie-Lee has represented Australia since she was 17 traveling the world to do so, and won the 2009  Athlete with a Disability of the Year Award. She is now on a  scholarship with the Queensland Academy of Sport and plays for the Brisbane Barracudas National League Women's Team.

It is hard to fathom how Jamie-Lee managed to learn to play and reach an elite level in a sport where it is impossible to wear her speech processor and therefore  she cannot hear a sound.

Jamie-Lee explains:  "I have great passion for the sport of water polo, and I was determined to succeed. My teammates and coaches could see this and were very willing to help me achieve success. We had lots of hand signals and the coaches drew on a whiteboard during the breaks to help me. I don’t think hearing had too much to do with me being successful – it’s all about watching what is going on and practising a lot."

It has been said her ability to read play is so great that most of the National League players among whom she competes have no idea she is completely deaf. "Eye contact is most important in the pool. It keeps me prepared and my attention is always on the ball and around the pool. "

One would forgive Jamie-Lee for leading a quiet life outside her rigorous training schedule but this  inspiring young woman just keeps going!  She is a motivational speaker, the Face of Victorian Water Polo Deaf Programs and, with her parents, is very active in promoting deaf awareness and educating about cochlear implants.

Jamie-Lee said she and her parents often talk to families "who are facing the same drama we were many years ago. For most families it’s the same - you just need to be aware of the options available."

Jamie-Lee's motto? "Never, never, never give up. Being deaf is difficult, but it should never be used as an excuse." Jamie-Lee's determination and drive, coupled with the support she receives from her family will surely see her achieve her hopes and ambition to make the AIS Senior Women’s Water Polo Squad, Olympic Squad and, if there is a team, the Deaflympic games.