Bureaucracy and the Quest for a New Hearing Aid

This morning I got up for an 8:30 appointment with my audiologist, not for a hearing test but because my hearing aid is falling apart! Seriously, it's got to be about 8 or 9 years old since I just graduated from college and I got it when I was entering high school. It is literally falling apart. There are cracks along the cover with the electronics inside and the seal along the middle of it is worn out on the edge.

Now comes the process- let's hope the aid I've got holds out for this-the process of going through the bureaucratic and broke state of California so I don't have to pay for it my-poor-broke-college-graduate-sans-employment-self. The whole department of rehabilitation thing is kind of annoying, but then, it's money I don't have to take out of my (pretty much empty) pocket. I've learned something though, since I began working with the DOR... Hiding my hearing loss hasn't been worth the thousands of dollars I could've saved by letting it be known earlier.

I was talking to my voc rehab counselor just a couple weeks ago about how I had "slipped through the cracks." Apparently, during my sophomore counseling meeting, when the counselor suggested I see some school psychologist I really didn't want to talk to... that was the time to let them help. He was probably the guy who could've gotten me "in the system." But no, I refused to see him. Then in community college I worked with the disabilities office. I still denied captioning, but I took the opportunity for priority registration and "voluntary notetakers" (which turned out to be useless), but I apparently spoke to the very person who should have sent me to voc rehab. Alas, this had been coming up in casual conversation (but nothing serious, and no exact directions on getting "into the system") with disabilities office lady as well as my audiologist for a couple of years before anyone ever really clued me in. Once my aunt and I had talked seriously about it (as she has a friend who works for DOR) and my audiologist actually walked across the hall with me to the DOR office, I finally got monetary help for my last year of college.

They gave me a puny Cal State rate per semester for tuition, and at my pricey private university that didn't go very far, but it was $4,000 or so less that I had to take out in loans, so it definitely helped. They also covered books and supplies, though, which really added up, my being an English major and all. To think, they would have covered everything at community college! The money from that full time job I'd been working at during those 2 years could have been saved for times like now, when I find myself unemployed with the imminent threat of loan bills looming. I could really use that money now... and the last three times I had car troubles.

So to any high schooler with a hearing loss or parent of a high schooler with hearing loss I say, "Let the school know! Get yourself in the system!" Whether you want to blend in with the crowd and deny captioning services or not, go see the school psychologist guy you swear you don't need to see because you "do fine sitting front row center." Get yourself in the system and save yourself thousands of dollars! Yes, it is kind of a pain to go through all the bureaucracy, but in the end, free money is free money, (whether it really exists in the government's budget or not, the school will hold the government responsible for payment instead of you). Be assertive! Be your own advocate! Declare your hearing loss! It's part of who you are, whether you like to admit it or not. Don't let yourself slip through the cracks. I learned the hard way.