Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!393!9!Cleta.Gilchrist From: Cleta.Gilchrist@f9.n393.z1.fidonet.org (Cleta Gilchrist) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Hi Message-ID: <16255@bunker.UUCP> Date: 6 Dec 90 04:11:37 GMT Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP Reply-To: Cleta.Gilchrist@f9.n393.z1.fidonet.org Distribution: misc Organization: FidoNet node 1:393/9 - Colossus, Denton TX Lines: 61 Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP Index Number: 12336 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] Hello, I've been reading this echo for a while now, and the sysop of the board where I read it has suggested (repeatedly) that I post here -- so, since its the middle of the night and I don't feel like sleeping or doing homework, I guess I'll jump in with both feet. Be prepared to be bombarded with a long message. All my life I've had trouble hearing things that other people said were going on. Years ago I gave up trying to explain to people that I wasn't really ignoring them, I really didn't hear them. A couple of years ago, the doctor at the University I am attending suggested that I go to an ear specialist, and when I did he confirmed what I wasted a lot of breath trying to tell people -- that I have a hearing loss. In fact, it is bad enough that Rehab is now arranging that I no longer have to pay tuition. I'm ashamed to say that I don't know all the specifics (i.e. numbers and statistics) but the way the doctor explained it was that my I hear things that are shouted about the same as other people hear what is spoken in a normal voice (if that didn't make much sense, please remember that it is the middle of the night). At first, Rehab was going to get me a hearing aid, but it seems that a hearing aid will not help me. Now, they say that I may be able to have my hearing loss halted, and possibly my hearing restored, through surgery -- I should be having the tests very soon. The whole thing has not been explained to me completely (or if it has, I have missed some of the information -- as happens to me so often). Believe it or not, it is actually a relief to be told that I really DO have a hearing loss, since I now feel vindicated after all those years of being bugged for "not paying attention". People just didn't understand why I seemed to be able to hear fine one day and not tell what was going on the next. Much of my understanding of what went on around me for all those years was the result of lipreading that I often didn't even realize I was doing. Now that I have bored you all to death, I will come to my REAL problem. I have a 13-year-old boy whose hearing is (I am certain) MUCH worse than mine. He had tubes in his ears the first time at age 2, after which he finally learned to talk. My problem is that we have no insurance (my husband works for a small company that carries none) but we make too much for such things as Medicaid and city/county medical care for the "indigent". (How I hate that word, we work HARD to get by, if anything we are among the "working poor".) As of yet I can't find any agency that can help us get our son's hearing problems properly diagnosed/treated until he is at least 16. Does anyone know how to get information about place to go to get such help. The school nurse is always after me to do something, but has no new ideas about where to go for help. If I didn't consider it so important to have something done NOW, I would just wait until I get my degree and handle it myself after I get a good job, but it seems almost criminal to make the poor child wait, and I feel guilty having something done about my problem when his seems so much worse. Re-reading this message, it comes off as a terrible sob-story, and I apologize for that, but I would really welcome any ideas you can come up with. Thank you, Cleta Gilchrist -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!393!9!Cleta.Gilchrist Internet: Cleta.Gilchrist@f9.n393.z1.fidonet.org Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com