Five-Star Disability

Hey everyone!

I want to share just how vital an intervenor is for those who are Deaf-Blind.

By now, after reading so many of my blogs, you should know that an intervenor is a professional who’s goal is to support a person who is Deaf-Blind with visual and auditory information. That is the simplest explanation, but there are many other issues involved…

One of my goals that I wanted with the new intervenor project at Wavefront was for me to have access to intervenors for a social gathering.

Why? Well, isn’t it obvious? I am DeafBlind; I can’t hear the person talking and I have issues seeing the person as well.

Here is what happens when I don’t have an intervenor for social gatherings:

People would be chatting about other people, places, things they saw, work, school, funny TikTok videos etc. I would hear or see (lip read) none of this banter. My wife would tell me about “so and so” or “this and that,” she is the go-to person to tell me things.

Which is not fair for her. So, I try to arrange to have an intervenor for events and birthday parties so she can relax while I get full visual & auditory information.

Alright, I think that is sufficient background information for now. As my title indicates; there was a surprise birthday party recently that I arranged.

I’ll cut right to the chase; down to the wire.

On the day of the birthday, I knew the birthday person was going out for brunch. So my family raced up to their house and started to clean the carpets — I must finish this task! At 2 PM my intervenor arrived, and shortly afterwards my Mum.

Mum was a bit confused, why were we there? We had her birthday dinner the night before.

Using the intervenor, I chatted with Mum about her recent brunch and about this and that.

While at the same time, my wife was checking out the connectivity of my iPad with her TV, and we played some deceptive games. All this back and forth my intervenor was relaying to me. It was quite funny.

Then at 2:50, I finally told Mum why we were crashing on her couch: I had arranged a zoom party for her and invited 10 to 12 family and friends to zoom with her to 75!

She was astonished, and even more so that my iPad linked to her TV!

So, at 3 PM many people popped in to the Zoom party, wishing her a happy birthday.

My intervenor relayed who was there, what they looked like, and more importantly, the dialogue, which flowed like a boat down a raging river!

The talk focused on my niece and nephew, past union venues (work friends), future cruise plans, plans for the rest of the day, family, family and more family!

I was involved in all of this chatter, while I did make some odd, and I do mean odd, comments here or there, I let Mum have time with her family and friends.

If I did not have an intervenor, I would have not known what they were talking about; that my aunt showed up but not my cousin, that her friend had to leave to start cooking dinner, that they reminisced about Quebec City and Nova Scotia, that one friend had grey hair, when it was black before!

I would have sat on the couch, head stuck in my phone.

I hope you understand how vital an intervenor is; they really help people who are Deaf-Blind!

Thank you for reading, sharing, donating and liking this blog!