Each of us knows someone in the medical profession.
If you know someone currently working in the medical profession, please share this post with them.
Unfortunately, the medical profession is the least educated concerning disAbility.
Read this and understand.
Deaf/Blind and The Hospital
By Trish Hubschman
January 2026
plutzhub@gmail.com

On January 1, 2026, New Year’s Day, I was experiencing severe chest pains and had difficulty catching my breath. My husband, Kevin, took me to an emergency room facility in the next town. (There’s no hospital attached to it.). They took blood and did a chest x-ray and discovered that my red blood count had dropped very low. A normal RBC is 14. In early November, when my primary doctor had taken blood, mine was 12. It was now down to 6. I needed a transfusion. We were sent to a hospital twenty miles north of where we were.

I don’t remember checking in, just being helped into a very pretty hospital gown. I had two transfusions that brought my RBC up to 8. The next day, still in the hospital, a doctor put a camera down my throat. I was unconscious. He discovered that I had two ulcers and a blood clot. I wasn’t going anywhere. Doctor said he wanted to keep me a few days. What choice did we have? I became hysterical more than once. I don’t like hospitals, who does, and being I’m deaf/blind, that makes it all the harder, much harder.

I didn’t want to go to the ER, let alone to the hospital after that. I was scared, for many reasons: of possibly dying, of being DB and in a hospital. How was I going to handle that? And there was also the issue of my cochlear implant batteries. I only have 3 rechargeable batteries that last about 15 hours each. I’m glad I did go to the ER though. In retrospect, I might have died if I hadn’t.

I had my own room. Mine was the last one at the end of the hall. It was the only available one on New Year’s Day. I felt like I was in solitary confinement. It was too dark, too quiet, too lonely, and too closed in. The first afternoon, someone shut the window shades at 2:30. The overhead light in the room was off. The room was plunged into total darkness. I began screaming. I’m terrified of the dark. After that scene, no one shut the shades after that, but it was difficult to get someone to turn the light on. The sound on the television didn’t always work. It went on and off. The set was useless for continuous background noise to keep me company. I couldn’t read a book, nor did I have any kind of hand computer with me, and no one to talk to when Kevin wasn’t there. I was losing my mind,

I told my main nurse, Carlee, that I was deaf/blind. I wanted everyone to know upfront in case I misheard something someone said. Apparently, Carlee put up signs on the third floor where we were telling others there was a deaf/blind patient present. She and others spelled on my arm or in my hand. Most of the nurses were very sweet. I slept with my pocketbook on my bed. I had my CI device batteries in there. Each day I would change the rechargeable battery and Kevin would take it home and put it on the charger, bringing it back to me the next day. It wasn’t the most ideal solution to the problem but the only one we could come up with at the moment.

To alert a nurse, if I needed one, I was supposed to press a button on the TV remote, but I didn’t know which gismo on my bed was the remote. People kept putting the telephone receiver across my stomach so I assumed that was the TV remote. I pressed the button in the middle of it and was speaking to the phone operator, rather than the nurses station. Oops. Somebody finally got the wiser and the phone was hung up. The TV remote was placed beside me on the bed. I still didn’t know which button to push. Screaming wouldn’t help. Nobody would hear me. They had rock and roll music blasting at the nurses station. Besides, my room was too far away from that. I eventually discovered that if I rocked my bed an alarm would go off that alerted the nurses. That’s what I did.

Late Tuesday, they transferred me by ambulance to a rehab center so that I could be professionally taken care of while I did physical therapy to get back on my feet and walk with a walker. The place was 40 minutes south of our house. This was what you call the Deep South. The situation was not good. I couldn’t understand the heavy drawls and they kept giving me sleeping pills. Kevin took me out of there the next day and finally I got to go home. We’re taking care of me. I’m just taking antacids and I’m drinking plenty of water in hopes to raise my red blood count. I’m using my walker a little on my own and will start physical therapy soon. We’re doing fine.

Trish Hubschman is the author of 6 Tracy Gayle mystery novels, the most recent being, “More Gayle’s Tales.”
Trish is deaf/blind and lives in South Carolina with her husband, Kevin Hubschman, author of a poetry collection and two reality fiction novels.
They have a dog, Henry. Both Trish and Kevin went to college in New York and have bachelor’s degrees in English.
To check out Trish’s gooks, visit:
https://www.dldbooks.com/Hubschman/
For info on Kevin’s books, visit:
https://www.dldbooks.com/kevinhubschman/

Posted by Patty L. Fletcher – Author and Content Promoter.

About Patty L. Fletcher

Updated November 2024

Patty L. Fletcher is a woman of passion and exploration.

She studies the art of manifestation and is a seeker of knowledge and the wisdom to know what to do with it when it’s learned.

To learn more visit: https://pattysworlds.com/about/

If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start from any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Mary Pickford