Review of Sony's Captioning Glasses - Part 2

In the previous blog post Review of Sony's Captioning Glasses, I tried using the Sony Captioning Glasses for the first time. Then flash forward to recently, when I watched Frozen with the glasses.

This time, I found I missed something from the first time I used them. I didn't make an effort to adjust the noserests. Thus, the way the noserests were at the time, no wonder they caused me so much pain. I managed to adjust them just far enough so I wouldn't have the same problem as before, and it worked. I went the entire movie without the glasses hurting me too much, adjusting them here and there.

Still some room for improvements as I mentioned before. One additional suggestion would be adjustable captions color and font size. I'm wondering if this sort of thing would work with Google Glass with the right adjustments and programming.

Nelson Mandela's funeral interpreter fiasco

Sometimes I wonder about interpreters and their skills. Then we saw the one at Nelson Mandela's funeral. I took a quick look and thought I was seeing some South African sign language, but a second look and a closer watch had me thinking differently. No facial expressions? Just about every sign language, no matter where you go, uses facial expressions. It's an important part of signing.

Next, just one? For an event that went 3-4 hours with multiple speakers? We've seen terps that have difficulty going more than 1-2 hours in an educational setting, even if the instructor doesn't talk fast. With the funeral, at least two terps, more like 3-4, would work well if one can't continue or people have an issue with understanding the signing.

Someone failed majorly out there when they picked this guy. Seriously, a mental illness keeping him from doing clear signs? We've heard this before, and even a person who knows sign with a mental illness can still sign well. Kind of reminds me of an episode of Spin City (Deaf Becomes Her - season 1, episode 20) where they have an terp for the mayor's address. YouTube has a clip. In this case, the guy had no skills, said he was a terp on his resume, and it was a comedy show.

But the lesson is still there. Check out the terps more carefully and have more than one.

Recipe: Emeril's Christmas Bread

Imagine someone who doubled a bread recipe and the results nearly took over the kitchen with a lot of rising bread dough. If anyone's familiar with the classic I Love Lucy show when she was cornered by a huge loaf of bread coming out of the oven, this is kinda like this. The bread went BAM back...

But of course, Jamie and I had a good laugh reading this. We'll have to make it sometime.

Emeril's Christmas Bread: A story of 2 loaves, 3 colors, and 1 frightened baker

The recipe is at the end of the article.

Surgery and the Hips - Part 5

Back in mid-November, I had surgery to remove that wrecking ball of an antibiotic spacer and put in new joint hardware. I was only in the hospital for 3 days, and did well in my physical therapy tests, allowing me to go home sooner. This time, I don't quite remember being in the recovery room, only waking up in my hospital room.

Interestingly enough, it was the same room I had back in July, room 403.

I started again with in-home physical therapy the day after I got home. I'm still using the walker, with a restriction of 10% weightbearing on the left leg. I've been able to do things I wasn't able to do when I had the spacer in me. My house has a wall that separates the living room and foyer from the dining room and kitchen, allowing me to walk around it. I couldn't go more than 4 times around with the spacer. Now I've been able to get 6 times around and was able to get up on the exercise bed and do some exercises I wasn't able to do before. Another is that I'm able to sleep better. Of course, there's still some swelling in the leg and I have to keep them elevated, but the swelling's improved. Sleeping on my side I can do, but not for too long.

I was taking some antibiotics for a few weeks after discharge with pain meds. I've had the staples removed as well. Interestingly enough, the first surgery used Dermabond to close the incision, and the second used stitches. With this third surgery, the surgeon didn't reuse the anterior incisions due to the condition of the skin due to the infection, but used the lateral approach.

Still got a ways to go in terms of going from walker to cane. Next surgery could easily be late 2014.

Surgery and the Hips - Part 4

A week after I was in Acute Rehab, I was moved to a nearby nursing home, where I stayed for 6 weeks. I wasn't able to return home due to the house not quite being set up for my needs.

Enduring 6-7 weeks of IV antibiotics via the PICC line wasn't too bad, but it definitely made things easier with the blood draws.

Physical and occupational therapy in the nursing home helped out in getting me back to being able to do things. It got easier to walk and do other necessary things. At one point, my hearing aid's earhook and tubing decided to go bad. This required me to make quick work in ordering replacements from the audiologist and replacing them on my own. That meant I had a week of not being able to use my hearing aid.

Jamie helped out in bringing clean clothes every week including some other things I needed.

The nursing home had daily activities, but I missed a lot of them due to PT and OT. They had these practice stairs which I couldn't use at first, then finally able to use it. But the spacer prevented me from using them effectively due to the weight limitation. After a bit of research and therapist recommendations, I picked up on a stairlift and had it installed the day after I got home.

Apparently the spacer has other ideas in terms of being able to sleep at times...

Surgery and the Hips - Part 3

Surgery on the right hip will definitely be delayed, possibly til possibly mid-2014.

As it turns out, I returned to my doctor's office to have some discharge from the incision checked out a little over a month after the initial left hip replacement surgery. When the doc took out fluid from my joint and I saw what was aspirated, no one had to tell me it was infected. Fortunately, the doctor's office was within the same hospital I had the surgery, so it was a simple matter of being readmitted.

It was pretty funny when the nurses on the floor said "weren't you just here a few weeks ago?" Yep, and I'm back due to the joint being infected. Even the physical therapist doesn't look worse for wear after my telling and showing her previously how I use the walker on the steps.

After some talking with the surgeon and his fellow, it turns out that the joint definitely was infected. Two days later, I have surgery to replace the infected hardware with an antibiotic spacer. They have to give me painkillers in recovery as I'm in quite a bit of pain. I don't quite remember the trip from recovery to my room.

It was difficult enough getting out of the hospital bed. Their giving me a strap with a loop on the other end for my foot helped out in getting me in and out of bed.

I had a blood drain which creates a vacuum when compressed. I couldn't resist.

"Somewhere out there, a vampire's going to be very happy."

A few days later, I'm told I'm going to be moved upstairs to Acute Rehab, and had to agree to 3 hours worth of therapy daily. I have a PICC line put in for the IV antibiotics and blood draws. Using pain meds helps out in controlling the pain while I go through physical and occupational therapy. They've got this monster of a platform walker that's helped me out in getting back to walking.

When going through physical therapy, remember that they also specialize in wedgies...

Hospitals and the Deaf Patient

Before I had my knee surgeries, one of the first things I did was go to the hospital where I was to have the first surgery and visit the Patient Relations office. I talked with them about interpreters and passed on to them my surgery date, my surgeon, and how long I will be there. This was probably my most important contact.

From there, let them know to pass on to other medical people that they will be dealing with a deaf person via the relay. In my case, email was used with the Patient Relations contact as well as the surgical scheduler in the surgeon's office. With the scheduler, when it came to surgery dates, I did it in person since there was some paperwork such as patient instructions and hospital information.

While you're doing all this, visit the financial office of the hospital to pass on your medical insurance information if possible. This may save a little time with checking in.

The next important thing to have is an advocate. What this person does is make your medical decisions when you are unable to do so. Filling out an Advanced Directive is the next best thing to do. While the chances for death or complications are small, it still helps to have both advocate and the directives if something arises.

When I went to the rehab facility after the first knee surgery, there were a few problems (More on the Knees and Surgery - Part 3, Part 4). At first, the people didn't believe there was such a thing as the ADA. They had never heard of captioning. When one of the coordinators talked with Jamie about interpreters with me in the room, one of the first things the coordinator said blew my mind.

"We're here to make money."

Is that something you want to hear when you're recovering from surgery and need some rehab and therapy to regain at least some use of what was operated on? I didn't get an interpreter for a few days. The business office had to compliment Jamie when I went there by myself saying that she was a good advocate.

Sure, they're there to earn money to pay the staff and to take care of their patients, but that kind of comment is pretty cold and uncaring. This is when the advocate is most needed since this person can more easily give the facility more information about these unknown things.

When I had inpatient therapy, which included in-home nursing support and physical therapy, we arranged our appointments ahead of time, and I watched for the person. Then we went from there.

With outpatient physical therapy, it's important for the patient and therapist(s) to find a way to communicate, since not all physical therapy offices will be able to provide interpreters. In my case, I made sure the therapists in the office knew about me. One thing that helped was a paper showing all the exercises I would be doing and watching others do their exercises at times if I was to do what they were doing.

Before I had the hip surgery, I had a contact in the first hospital related to a joint class, which told about what to expect pre- and post-surgery. This person was my contact who arranged for the interpreter for pre-surgical testing and the joint class at the second hospital before the first hip surgery.

Fortunately, I didn't need to do as much footwork as I did before since the contact I mentioned above took care of everything and it was also the 2010 legal case mentioned in Surgery and the Hips - Part 1.

Remember that it is the initial communications between the patient and the health provider(s) in the beginning that can go a long way.

In this day of high tech and the Internet, there's no excuse for anyone to claim it's difficult to contact the deaf person when there's also email, texting, and instant messaging besides the relay. A little low tech like keeping paper and pen around goes a long way as well.

Next - Part 2

Funny Moment 12: Imploding TVs

Back when I was moving from KY to VA, I had this storage room that required me to go up a flight of steps. I managed to clean up the space, tossing at least half the stuff in there, leaving just a small neat pile. One of the things that went down the steps was a TV. I wasn't in much of a mood to carry the thing down. So, I pushed it down the steps.

*crunch* *pop* *crash* *thud* *bounce* then *BOOM!* when it hit the bottom, landing front side down.

Impressive. The noise was amplified by the wooden stairway walls, sounding somewhat like when a fluorescent tube hits the ground but a more deeper boom. It wasn't even much of a mess since the back of the TV tube imploded inwards.

Teamwork in classes and on the job - Part 2

Continued from Part 1

That plus the instructor emailed us saying our report and presentation were never uploaded to Blackboard. I take one look at what those two girls finally uploaded and I knew we weren't going to get a good grade, and we didn't.

What totally floored me was meeting up with them and the instructor after class in the instructor's office. One girl kept giving excuses such as she was overwhelmed, didn't do well with teamwork, etc. Well, I'm overwhelmed, too, but I'm dealing with a lot more. I told her that as an older student, I couldn't wait til the last minute anymore, all my assignments were turned in/uploaded the night before, and that I can't do all-nighters anymore. I may live 20 miles away from the campus, but I have access to the same resources they do.

Had those two asked, I'd have made that report and presentation look a whole lot better. Even the instructor was backing me up on just about everything I said and then some. This girl took a look at my part of the report like she'd never seen it before and she had to agree my part looked good.

In short, sometimes if necessary, do the project by yourself.

Teamwork in classes and on the job - Part 1

We know that teamwork is probably the most important thing on the job. The old cliche of "there is no I in team" is pretty much true. It's multiple people working together. In classes, it's even more important.

When doing a class project, it's how well the entire team does. If one person does badly, the entire team suffers. I had this one team project and I kept telling the other two teammates that I didn't want to wait til the last minute. I had given them my contact info and class schedule a few times, and even then only one of the two gave me her text number. The other girl I never heard from until 10 hours before due time.

Apparently these two waited til the absolute last minute while I had my part already in the report with instructor's specs and questions to answer for them. My "don't wait til the last minute" was a common theme for the next three weeks before the due date. I told them I could make the report a good one but not if it was at the last minute. Come the due date, we had our presentation, and I was thinking it looked OK, though could have used some improvements. But the actual report I never saw til later.

What got me was that they kept claiming that I didn't say anything. Really? Like my many times of saying "no last minute" wasn't saying anything? That plus "we were aggressively working on project in classroom." If that were true, we'd have finished this long ago. Hardly "aggressive." And I was right there in the classroom and in the Commuter Lounge if they needed me.

Next - Part 2