I haven’t finished...

...all those badges I wanted to do.

In the end I had just time to complete three badges. (I had a wee bit of a problem today, my sewers appear to have collapsed, so it was the Waterboard and cameras today, and my neighbour’s sewers come into mine from his property, but I think the problem goes back to when he had cowboys digging up his driveway...)

So I am shattered, but I managed these three badges. Once I started, I realised I was changing spacing, doing certain words thicker for impact etc. But I didn’t have time to explore properly what I wanted to do with it for today.

I am very grateful for the tremendous input yesterday from everyone, and your ideas, and you explaining why. I can see merits in different badges for different situations. And this is why I want to do them all. I have 25 blank badges. They are 2” wide (radius?) so are pretty big.

For the hospital, the ‘please be patient’ badge is important, because the eye specialist can get impatient with me because I don’t do what he wants when he is examining my eyes, but I can’t see to lipread when he is examining my eyes. And I do explain fully beforehand.

You gave me lots of ideas of strategies yesterday. I have used a lot of them all my life, but I do get tired with the amount of effort I have to expend with being on my own.

J used to come to all appointments with me and it made it so much easier, but he passed away 10 years ago. J also helped me when I challenged some hospitals about their communication procedures, and we did change some stuff, aided by an advocate, but a couple years later the hospitals abandoned what we thought we had achieved and went back to just verbal telephone communication for appointments again, which is no use for me or for other deaf people. I have already, years ago, asked for my deafness to be placed in and on front of the the file and my records, but no one ever reads it beforehand.

I do very much appreciate your support. It gives me the courage to continue to put over/argue/explain/fight my case again, not only for me but hopefully for others too.

So those three badges are for tomorrow’s Hospital appointment. And also in a half piece of A4 paper, I have written my name. The intention being, that when I see someone come out and call a name, I will hold it up and ask if they have called my name. They come out quickly from different doors and then disappear back in again. I cannot pitch my voice right to get their attention, I don’t have that skill. But with the piece of paper with my name on will get their attention.

So these are all new strategies! I shall see if they make it easier and less stressful for me.

Thank you again for your responses yesterday x

P.S. When I have made as many different ones as I would like to make I will post them all. Also, if anyone wants to copy or adapt my ideas for a badge for their personal use, then please feel free to copy as many of my deaf/lipreading badges as you want. I would like it if you did that.