Yesterday I was talking to a person who had met Alley only twice. Both meetings between Alley and this person (a friend of a friend) were brief encounters, but they did include a conversation about school and other pleasant exchanges. I just actually met this new friend a few days ago, and during my conversation with her yesterday, I mentioned Alley's cochlear implant (and the fact that Alley is completely deaf without it).
My new friend was amazed. Whe she met Alley, Alley had her hair down (as she often does). There was no way for anyone to know that Alley had the cochlear implant. Alley can hear amazingly well, and her speech is great. So, there are no cochlear implant clues. Our new friend had no idea that Alley had a cochlear implant, or that Alley was completely deaf without it. This is great for Alley, because it allows her to control details about her personal medical information (to some exent).
But then I got to thinking -- what if people needed to know Alley is deaf and has a cochlear implant and she could not tell them? Is there an need for her to wear a medical alert bracelet? I googled around, and sure enough, there are cochlear implant medical alert bracelets out there. (In fact, it had turned up when I was messing around creating the Cochlear Implant Auctions page the other day - but I did not think about it at the time.)
Here is one example from eBay:
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MEDICAL ID BRACELET ITALIAN CHARMS COCHLEAR IMPLANT SL |  |
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US $12.49 | 7d 2h 33m |
Obviously, if "No items matching your keywords were found," there are none for sale on ebay at the moment. Come back to this post in a few hours...they always come back.
I bought one from eBay for Alley.
So, my question to you is -- do you or your children wear these? I guess this would be very important in the case where an MRI might be needed in an emergercy (as one example). What are your thoughts?
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