rcharlton
Moderator emeritus
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2005
- Messages
- 641
- Reason
- PALS
- Diagnosis
- 11/2005
- Country
- CA
- State
- Ontario
- City
- Toronto
It's getting to the point where sometimes I have to repeat myself 5 or 6 times to be understood. I'm starting to use Modeltalker but often this is not practical.
To make matters worse one of my caregivers is in denial about losing her hearing. She has a heart of gold but it can be so frustrating when I am trying to explain something to her over and over again only to have her stare at me blankly as if I was speaking a different language.
One of these incidents happened yesterday. My caregiver came downstairs with my bipap mask in two pieces advising me that she thought it was broken. It did not appear to be broken but I asked her just to put it on the table for my wife to look at later. Now I don't know if my caregiver couldn't understand me or if she was ignoring me, but she then proceeded to attempt to re-attach the bipap pieces. Now if my mask wasn't broken before, I could tell that it soon would be with how she handling it. So once again I repeated "Please just leave it on the table". She just kept on trying to mash the pieces together.
So I repeated over and over until I was almost screaming:
"Please just leave it on the table"
"Please just leave it on the table"
"Please just leave it on the table"
"Please just leave it on the table"
"PLEASE JUST LEAVE IT ON THE TABLE"
No response.
My 3 year old daughter was sitting next to me throughout all of this. She could see how aggravated I was getting. She placed her little hand on my shoulder and in a calming voice said:
"Shhhh.....Shhhh....It's OK dad...it's OK".
Then she placed her hand on my mouth to indicate that she would now be handling this matter, and with as much authority as her tiny little voice could muster tells my caregiver "PLEASE JUST LEAVE IT ON THE TABLE. Well that got my caregiver's attention.
My daughter has an uncanny ability to decipher my garbled speech - even more so than my wife. Just when I feel like I'm about to lose my mind with frustration when asking for something very basic, her little voice will pipe up with the correct translation to save me, just like the cavalry to the rescue. "Daddy needs water"
To make matters worse one of my caregivers is in denial about losing her hearing. She has a heart of gold but it can be so frustrating when I am trying to explain something to her over and over again only to have her stare at me blankly as if I was speaking a different language.
One of these incidents happened yesterday. My caregiver came downstairs with my bipap mask in two pieces advising me that she thought it was broken. It did not appear to be broken but I asked her just to put it on the table for my wife to look at later. Now I don't know if my caregiver couldn't understand me or if she was ignoring me, but she then proceeded to attempt to re-attach the bipap pieces. Now if my mask wasn't broken before, I could tell that it soon would be with how she handling it. So once again I repeated "Please just leave it on the table". She just kept on trying to mash the pieces together.
So I repeated over and over until I was almost screaming:
"Please just leave it on the table"
"Please just leave it on the table"
"Please just leave it on the table"
"Please just leave it on the table"
"PLEASE JUST LEAVE IT ON THE TABLE"
No response.
My 3 year old daughter was sitting next to me throughout all of this. She could see how aggravated I was getting. She placed her little hand on my shoulder and in a calming voice said:
"Shhhh.....Shhhh....It's OK dad...it's OK".
Then she placed her hand on my mouth to indicate that she would now be handling this matter, and with as much authority as her tiny little voice could muster tells my caregiver "PLEASE JUST LEAVE IT ON THE TABLE. Well that got my caregiver's attention.
My daughter has an uncanny ability to decipher my garbled speech - even more so than my wife. Just when I feel like I'm about to lose my mind with frustration when asking for something very basic, her little voice will pipe up with the correct translation to save me, just like the cavalry to the rescue. "Daddy needs water"