Oh praise
be for technology and the wonders of the twenty first century!
I might
curse them some of the time and feel like a Luddite, or those dim-witted peasants in “Jabberwocky”, but this week the gods of
Techno have smiled on us.
A woman
from the Sensory Impairment service came to see us; just as I’d suspected,
she’s one of three part time workers covering the whole of the city for every
aspect of hearing or sight loss. She says it used to be a team of sixteen.
I’d already
identified them as the people we needed to talk to but couldn’t get through on
the phone. The housing officer told me he’d made a direct referral, but he
blinking well hadn’t as she had never heard of him or had had any such thing, it
was my persistent phone calls, culminating in an out of hours wail to Adult
Social Care, that did the job.
But she
finally came, and immediately sussed out the problem and within half an hour has
ordered a hearing loop system for Nick’s room so that he can have his TV and
radio as loud as he likes with his hearing aids as headphones and no bother to
the neighbours. Geeenee-yuss.
It’ll take
a couple of weeks, maybe three, but she estimates it will be with him by the
end of the month. You can’t imagine the relief. I’m going to tell the man upstairs the good news and ask him to hold his nerve just a wee bit longer, and cross all my bits for
a bit of a lull in the turf wars.
And today
we’re getting Nick’s new electric wheelchair delivered, all courtesy of our
wonderful NHS and the Red Cross. He won’t be able to use the controls himself,
it’s the kind that someone else has to operate because his movements are too
erratic. But it will make life a lot easier, I think, and give Nick a bit of
gravitas; we’ve been joking that he looks like some kind of veteran in his
current one, on loan from the Red Cross and with their giant logo on the back
as if he’s just been air-lifted from some hideous war zone. Though what am I
saying – every day with Huntington’s is a hideous war zone, neighbour problems or no.
The new chair has got a
power pack and everything and as Simon says, will make it a whole lot easier to
push Nick uphill to the pub.
So it's been a positive week so far, and Nick always did love a gadget. Just like
that stupid song by 2unlimited, I feel like singing, There’s no limits!
