As a DeafBlind parent, I bring my son, or the other one, to appointments; or I used to, not so much nowadays.

Recently I had the privilege of bringing one son, the elder, to a new dental clinic; as my wife was dealing with a dog, earwax and a large veterinary bill.

I flexed my parental obligations, grabbed my accessibility gadget; i.e., my trusty iPad, and hauled ass.

True, we arrived a few minutes late, around 4ish. but we still got there!

We walked in, announcing my son’s arrival, but instead of going straightaway into a dental chair, the MOA gives me a clip board with a form that needs to be filled before my son could be seen.

Mentioning that I am DeafBlind, a second, not-much-bigger, form was given. Geez Louise! But I filled it out, using iPhone magnifier and doctor-esque scrawl.

It’s about time the medical profession takes a serious look at the inaccessibility of its forms!

Anyways, the medical form is not the reason for this blog, the hijinks so to speak, happened in the exam room.

By the time we got settled, it was around 4:20, 4:25… son was in the chair & I was in the spare.

The Dentist arrived, the hygienist, both started to “tune up” and I put my wife on FaceTime. They chatted a few minutes, then my wife had to go: the vet doing something to my dog. She told me, my wife not the dog, to keep her appraised of the situation.

Turning on the iPad’s microphone so I could “listen” to the convo, this is a neat trick I learned. However, nothing came up on the screen, no diction, maybe their voices were too low, or too fast; I didn’t have a clue to what was being said.

I could see they were having a discussion, and were “closing down,” the chair was un-reclined, my son handed back the sunglasses.

Why were they stopping work?

So, I quickly typed (in notes) “What is happening? You need to type in” and gave the iPad to the hygienist, who read the line, but didn’t take the iPad.

Fuming a bit, I typed “What exactly did you say?” and gave the device to the hygienist, who finally took it, but didn’t use it at all.

They, now including another staff member and my son, were having a discussion. I jumped up, grabbed my timed-out iPad, returned to the chair in the corner had typed a message:

“You were talking for 10 minutes, I gave you my iPad so you could type out your questions, instead you continued to talk as if I was a piece of furniture.

What have you decided? And without my input.”

When I finished that, I looked around for the dentist, but he and his sidekick both ghosted, while a different MOA was chatting with my son. I handed the iPad to the MOA.

His reply was terse; we need to reschedule.

We left the exam room, I was fuming at the audism displayed by the dental clinic, while my son was anxious because he was trying to explain to me what happened. His signing is not great.

I gave him my iPad and he sat down, and started typing a response:

“Ok it would have taken too long and the info was very important and the problem was that i was hard of hearing and you were deaf not a very good combo for listening”

I pointed out they should have used the Keyboard or the Microphone, the tech was right there.

But, before my son could reply to that, we were chided out the door.

Aah! The clinic closes at 5 PM! That explains why we seemed be rushed out.

Still, that does not give this clinic the audacity to ignore a DeafBlind father doing his parental duties.

Another father would have been pursuing the discussion fully. I gave them tools so that I could participate fully, they ignored the tools, making me feel inadequate. Ooh, do I smell a Human Rights Complaint?

Update: my wife brought the lad to the rescheduled appointment, and confronted the dentist. He said he had a hard time speaking with me, my wife pointed out “you didn’t even try”.

Further update: the diction app I use, Ava, is, unbeknownst to me, a paid app! I used up the basic allotment a long time ago, and I didn’t know!

Thank you for reading!