When someone is facing bad news, a piece of good news, starting over again, a new challenge and the list go on.
Everyone is different, and their life could be similar such as learning to overcome the pain in their body, finding the strength of courage to face up their experience from darkness, trying to move on and start a new life.
Yesterday I went to the Waikato hospital for a couple of new Xray because of my body is changing from the past where I did lots of physical works such as doing the gardening, DIY, driving, walking and repairing the jobs. One funny thing and it does amuse me for I am a deaf person without a support person or my hearing partner. I arrived at the hospital early because of the car park, it was challenging to find a car park, and it has been difficult for other people to find a car park over many years. I went to the reception – the Radiology Department and I reminded the receptionist that I am deaf. They let me through into the waiting area. I waited and noticed the nurse walked around the corridor several times, looking for a patient plus calling out the name of the patient. It was only five minutes later, she came to me and asked me if I am the person who is Jean. My reply to this nurse, Yes, I am Jean for I am deaf. I was the only patient in the sub waiting area while the rest of the patients were in the CT waiting area on the other end of the room. The nurse was embarrassed, and she did read the note “Jean is deaf’ in highlight earlier but not sure if a Jean can lip read or looking at somewhere else. I was texting to someone and waited for the nurse to called out the name, but I could not see her face.
I ran into a friend from University along with staff/friends from the Hospital Department on my way out. We were chatting, and one of the team spoke to me by saying if I realise that I am a deaf bilingual rather a person with two or more than one languages. My reply was I often thought I could put down a deaf bilingual on any application form or not. Their response was to go for it. These staff and a friend encouraged me to go forward by putting down a deaf bilingual (with using the word deaf or not) from now to the future. It is called motivated to other people to do something they can do or to change the way they do in their life.
I stopped at the Punnet Cafe on my way home from the hospital for a lunch snack. I looked around people and families with young children, and they were either busy, restless, chatting away and trying to find a peaceful space in the room. I know it was noisy and I can feel vibrated where the children dropped and banging even crying loud. I noticed several people were looking at the young child who was screaming out loud and the mother of this child apologised. She spoke to me by saying sorry, and my reply was simple, I am deaf. The mother was astounded to my response.
Some days I visited many Deaf people, and they struggle to get through their daily life because they could not read formal letters from WINZ, GPs, Insurance company and to watch the breaking news by reading the captions on the television. Their first language is NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language) than any other language. Why there is no NZSL Interpreter on TV except the Parliament Channel? BUT not everyone watches the Parliament Channel every Tuesday and Thursday. For example, this week there was a fire outbreak in Auckland and the bulletin new popped up through social media BUT no caption or NZSL interpreters on TV. I received a text message via the National Civil Hazard app, which was great. The fire outbreak happened at the Auckland SkyCity Convention a couple of days ago. Many of the Deaf people were very disappointed for the lack of breaking news message because it was not getting through many Deaf people when they were working in the CBA or travelling to the CBA in Auckland. It is a massive challenging for these Deaf people to face into a dangerous area due to the lack of communication by other business, company and social media networks without using NZSL Interpreter available. Please consider thinking about how can you approach or send an emergency message to Deaf people even to add a new communication system by having an NZSL Interpreter in the social media and on TV. It is valuable input for the communication system and making Deaf people’s lives better where they are in the community. Better without using radio, a phone call, voice mail/message, face to face or watching any programme on tv without NZSL interpreter. Captioning is okay BUT their second language in English is not so great for them.
Life in Eureka 