Brad McKenna: Deafness, the ER, and my dad

This article reflects experiences in the US healthcare system.

My dad and I celebrated Boxing Day by spending five hours in the emergency room.

My dad woke up with awesome stomach pain. My sister dropped him off and then played hot dog potato with my mom ’cause they don’t take kindly to you bringing a dog into the hospital.

And while we were waiting… and waiting… and waiting, a few things struck me regarding our deafness.

I got there and had only one problem hearing the COVID screening questions by the dude at the door. He gave me a mask and told me…something.

Sometimes my deafness and the unexpected conspire to foil me. He wanted me to put the mask on. But I already had one on. An N95 at that.

“Sorry, should I replace my mask with this one? Or put it over my mask?”

“Either one,” he said with a shrug.

I didn’t feel like taking my mask off inside the ER. So, with a shrug of my own, I put it over.

My old man wasn’t in the waiting room, so I kept my 6 feet and waited my turn to talk to the admin behind the desk. When it was my turn I didn’t have any problem hearing that he was getting an EKG.

So I sat down in the second of four plastically-divided sections. I chose that one because it was right in front of the desk. It don’t matter if it’s a class, a conference, or a kegger I always stick near the front so that I have a snowball’s chance in heck of hearing the person-in-charge talking. Turned out it didn’t matter.

“Excuse me?”

I looked up from my book (always bring a book!) to see the administrator had come around her desk and was standing six feet away from me.

“Can you help me fill out his record while we wait?”

“Oh! Oh, Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry,” I stammered like Jimmy Two Times.

I hopped on the good foot and beat feet after her and we went behind the plexiglassed counter. She had a higher voice, which is the butter zone of my hearing (usually). Needing to hear my mom growing up, my poor little brain made sure to burn those neuropathways but deep! Still, the mask made it tough. I found myself invading the DMZ and crouching down not-quite next to her. But she seemed ok with that.

During this, my old man shambled his way out from the back. He gingerly sat in a chair. In the same section I chose. The same seat, in fact. It was a good thing he came back because she needed his cards.

So I made like a bobbin and wove a path between the two of them. I made sure to crouch down so that my double-masked mouth was next to my dad’s cochlear implant when asking for his stuff. Before too long, we had all the info he needed. So I took a seat across from my dad.

There were six seats in our section and we were the only ones in there. So I don’t know why I took that seat. I know I didn’t take the seat next to him because it was on his left and he has neither an aid nor an implant in that ear.

He has a hearing aid for his left ear but the only increase it gives him is an increase of feedback. So he’d have to turn almost completely around to get his implant in range to hear me. I also don’t know why I didn’t ask him to shift down a seat so I can be on his starboard side. Soon it didn’t matter, another fellow eased in and sat two seats away from dad. I couldn’t very well sit between them.

We would chat occasionally, with me getting up and squatting down next to him so that he could hear me and I could hear him.  Neither of us are very chatty and with the admins, nurses, patients, and TVs all chattering away we didn’t feel like fighting the background noise to hear one another. When we had to talk I moved over. Otherwise he was playing Guns of Glory on his iPad and I was reading The Lodger on my Kindle. Then the other dude got called in.

I decided it would make more sense to try being closer to him even if I was on the wrong side. Turns out he could hear me better if I was closer, no matter if I was speaking to his naked ear or his be-implanted one.

“We should have done this earlier,” he said after proving I shouldn’t’ve assumed anything.

Not long after that a nurse got up and started taking attendance. When he got to us, my dad gave his last name. The guy started writing it down and then asked for his first name. He had to ask twice because he was speaking to his hands not to my dad. When my old man gave his first name, the nurse nearly said Eureka!

We were taken back right away.

I was wondering why people who came in much after us were being taken before us. I have some experience playing the role of ER-patient sidekick and figured it was thanks to triaging. The people going before him must have needed more help than him. Since the EKG was for his heart and we were just sitting there, I took it to mean my dad’s situation wasn’t serious.

But when the nurse took us right back after finding out who we were, it made me wonder if we missed hearing my dad’s name being called. I had been hearing patients’ names being called, if not clearly enough to make out their names, at least clearly enough to know they weren’t calling for Mr. McKenna or Robert.

Things were moving quickly now!

We waited a few minutes in the room (#24 if you care to know) before the the doc made his appearance. I did something I have trouble doing. I spoke up.

“Can you please stand on this side? That’s where his hearing aid is.”

The doc was okily dokily with doing that. He then proceeded to tell me that the pain fading meant it wasn’t my dad’s appendix. He suspected kidney stones. And no, I don’t mean he told us. He was looking directly at me when he said it. I’m really glad he was on my dad’s good ear. And that he was short. My dad was able to ear what he said fairly well.

I’m kinda torn on this. Is it rude to talk directly to me? Maybe he had experience with ASL interpreters and knew that the deaf person will need to look at the interpreter to “hear” what he’s saying. But when I didn’t start signing, he must have seen that couldn’t have been the case. Still, I’m not going to get on it too much. I can’t imagine the challenge healthcare workers have gone through the last two years. And contrary to what far too many people think, the pandemic ain’t over, not by a long shot.

Anyhoo, the doc said they were gonna scan my dad’s cat and look for the stones. The doc left and a tech came in almost immediately. The dude had a mission so there wasn’t much room for discussion. Both my dad and I struggled to hear him. He was a tall soft-spoken fellow. And my father picked up nothing he said. Luckily, I picked up key words and could relay to my dad what was happening.

My dad made like Bilbo Baggins’ book title. He was there and back again in no time. Then we both made like Tom Petty and found out that the waiting really is the hardest part. To make good use of the time my dad googled kidney stone treatments. We Tom Petty’d for our longest stretch in Room 24 at that point.

I’m going to guess that our doc was THE doc that day. It sucked. But every time my ire rose, I pushed it back down. They were doing the best they could. We weren’t in danger and my dad’s pain was ebbing to nothing. When the little hand on the little clock pointed to one, we pulled up the Pats game.

About mid-way through the first quarter the doc returned. It was a kidney stone. He didn’t need to be asked to mosey to my dad’s implant side. But this conversation was a little longer.

As happens with all conversations, the person talking slips into a lower register and into lazy enunciation. So I found myself echoing the doc’s instructions. My dad’s googling proved true if incomplete. Since the size and composition differs so we needed to heed the doc’s instructions for my dad’s stone.

After the doc went on his way we had one more wait. The discharging nurse didn’t present us with any challenges. She spoke clearly and loudly. She also went right to my dad’s implant side. I don’t know if that was because the nurse’s station was right across from our room our that she had to pull the needle out of that arm (they had taken blood earlier).

Either way the challenge-free encounter was much appreciated. When all was over I started to think about how we could have done things differently. How the hospital could have done things differently. I came up with nothing that could have been done off-the-cuff but it got me thinking about life choices.

My family never learned ASL. If we had, then we could have asked for an interpreter. They might have even had one. My father could have worn his second aid. He says it doesn’t do anything and that the feedback just gets in the way. I wonder if he has enough hearing left to just get a newer, stronger aid.

My last thought was a writer’s thought: bring a notebook and pen. Back in my post about Dr. Teresa Blankmeyer Burke’s experience not wearing her aids, she mentioned she used a notebook and pen to communicate. That wasn’t the first time I’ve read Deaf people using such tools. And I usually have a pen and Moleskine on me. I didn’t at that time but it wouldn’t’ve mattered. Neither my father nor I are in the habit of using such aids to our hearing.

As far as the hospital goes, they could’ve used scrap paper and a pen, too. They could have been more cognizant of speaking slowly, loudly, and clearly. It’s hard. The habit of downward spiraling when talking is so common even us deaf-folk do it.

They were generally good about standing on my dad’s implant side, so that was something. I think the easiest thing to do is education. There are many folks in my family’s situation; hard of hearing but not in Deaf culture. ASL is not an option for such folk. I think educating staff would be simple. Just start conversations with “This fellow may be hard of hearing” in the back of their mind. Signs, I mean physical ones, can help. Having something like a checklist of reminders when speaking to a non-ASL using deaf dude or dudette that the patient can point to.

Overall I was pretty happy with how things went. It was challenging to hear everything. And it was overwhelming at times when the background noise in the waiting room rose up. Listening is challenging, y’all. Even more so when you’re listening for serious info like health matters. I wrote this post not to ask for sympathy for my dad and I, nor did I do it to castigate the hospital. I wrote this post in the name of awareness. Deafness is misunderstood. Misunderstandings can be overcome with awareness. Awareness is raised with anecdotes like this one.

You can read Brad’s personal blog here.

Brad says: “I failed my first hearing test in kindergarten but didn’t get my first set of hearing aids until I was 23. I made it through school by sitting up front when I could and being really good at critical reading. Speaking of school, after 14 years in IT, I went back to school to get my Masters in Library and Information Science and now, 18 years after my first set of hearing aids, I’m the one person who wants you to speak up in the library.”