School/CART Stuff- Part 2

Two days before the promised evaluation report was due, I noticed two women who were at the previous meetings about CART come into my class. I should probably note that we specifically told the evaluators that they should contact me or the teachers with the days they were thinking of coming, so as not to come on a test or video day, The teacher had told them they could sit in the back of the room. Right after the bell rang, my teacher said, "Oh, by the way, they're going to be taking a test for the entire class period. I hope that's okay."

One of the evaluator ladies got an angry look on her face, said, "No." and walked out. The other one followed.

Okay, then...

The next day, the two ladies reappeared in a different class. This class is one of my hardest, largest, most discussion-based classes. I expected them to come over and talk to me, or at least look at my notes sometime during the class. Why do that when you can simply sit in a chair for an hour?

The day they came, this is how the class went:
-We took a quiz over the previous night's reading
- There was a small amount of lecturing followed by a large amount of class discussion, which I struggled to follow and didn't participate in.
-We had to work on something individually
-We then had to discuss it with our table partner. It was really noisy, and the girl that sits next to me seemed to be much more interested in flirting with the guy in front of us, so I didn't get much out of that discussion..

The class ended, and the women left .As promised, the evaluation for CART was delivered to me the following day. I knew, from their one observsation, that the whole thing was going to be a joke. Here are some quotes from the evaluation.

"We did not see (LAM) enter the class discussion. She watched and did not appear to be confused."

"Socially, she appeared comfortable with her table partner. They did not appear to have difficulty communicating with each other"

"The cafeteria was very loud and she appeared to have no difficulty communicating. She was smiling and animated while conversing with her friends." No, I was not aware that they were watching me from across the cafeteria at lunch. The idea of it makes me strangely uncomfortable, in addition to the fact it's completely unrelated to the trouble I have in the classroom.

And, here comes the best part, which they said after stating their denial of CART,

"It is even possible that CART would be a hindrance to her during classroom discussions because of the lag time between the speaker talking and the captioner producing the printed word. She would be listening to one set of information while reading what was said previously. Taking into account the (ha!) quiet environment and her ability to use her cochlear implants to listen and speak, it was though that CART might be a disadvantage to her classroom access and performance."

Isn't it just absolutely amazing how much you can gather from watching me for an hour? Because, as we all know, it's not like people with hearing loss bluff or pretend to understand  or anything. We just do our best to appear utterly confused and dumbfounded whenever we misunderstand or can't hear something.
(Please note the sarcasm...)

It just kills me how every single observation they made is about how I "appeared" to comprehend or I "appeared" to understand. They're judging my acting, not hearing, skills.

This occurred before the winter break. My next post will be about the meeting we had following this evaluation...

Dear Cochlear,

*warning: slight rant ahead*
When I was picking my implant company, I did lots of research. Part of the reason I picked you was because of the continued support and customer service after being implanted. Nearly everyone I talked to raved about your prompt response when there was a broken piece of equipment.This was pretty important to me, since once you pick a company, you're partners for life. And I found that they were right about you, until now...

Two weeks ago, I went to turn ony my processor on my right side and it would not turn on. I tried and tried, changing the batteries and everything, to no avail. I determined that the controller was malfunctioning. No biggie, my mom could just call Hear Always and they'll replace it. (I was in a rush to get to school). I put on my back-up controller, and went on my merry way.

When I got home, my mom told me we'd have to wait for them to send a box for me to send my controller back in, and then you wouldn't send a replacement until they received the broken part. I asked my audiologist why you were doing this, and she said you'd been having trouble with people not sending back broken equipment, and some people even wanted to get their same part repaired and sent back, rather than get a different refurbished part.(in your defense, this is only if the patient has a backup) Okay, that's fair enough.

We got the box to send my controller back in a few days later, and promptly sent in back. Then we waited..and wait.. and wait. Finally, on Thursday (thirteen days after calling and asking for the replacement) we called you again. You hadn't sent me my controller back, and promised it would be shipped out that day. Alright, I get you've been busy and all, so I guess better late than never.

The controller arrived on Friday afternoon, just like you promised. I decided to wait until today to start wearing it, since I didn't want to have to go through the hassle of changing out the batteries. So, today I put on the replacement controller, fresh out of the box, and put in batteries. I also put in the batteries on my other side, since I like to turn on both of my processors at the same time. I held down the buttons on each ear, and waited for the sound to rush into my ears. I heard it on my left side, but on the right side...nothing. I pulled the processor off my head, and tried again...Once again, nothing.

I pulled out the battery rack, just to make sure I'd put in all the batteries. Yep, A-OK. I tried another pack of batteries, just to be sure. I tried again, and it still doesn't work.

Seriously, Cochlear? Seriously? I know there's been a lot going on with the release of the Nucleus 5 and all, but could you not take the 5 seconds it takes to test out equipment before you send it back?

Today, you're closed, so there's nothing I can do. I'm leaving town on Wednesday, and if my back-up that I'm wearing breaks, I'll be stuck with just wearing one processor. I'm pretty annoyed.

I hope you get this resolved soon, because if you figure it out, you will be forgiven. We are partners for life, after all.

Love always,
LAM