Alex's speech impediment is very minor and in fact I barely notice it. He hates it though, as he was taught to write and speak quite formally, with all the slightly archaic rules of sentence construction.

One thing I have noticed is that people look to me to continue the conversation and the worst offenders are the nurses (or maybe it is that the worst consequences are when it is the nurses). They treat him like his IQ is affected too!

This was partly the subject of the complaint I made back in June/July when the nurses' unwillingness to talk to Alex as well as ignore his attempts to communicate with them left him with pressure sores, critical weight loss and surgical emphysema (air from a chest tube went into his tissues instead of his lungs causing him to blow up like the Michelin Man). Part of the resolution to that complaint included a directive that the nurses should ask Alex how he was feeling at every observation and LISTEN to the answer. How sad that such a directive needed to be written into his notes. I hasten to add this was NOT the oncology crowd but the cardiothoracic staff (Alex called the ward Jurassic Park).

This doesn't help your situation Donna except to let you know that to us you speak very well.

PS A little off topic
prejudices and preconceptions abound - my mother complains that one day people stopped serving her in dress shops. We think it was because she let her coloured hair grow out to her natural grey hair. I have also heard that overweight people are ignored more often than ideal weighted people.

And look at poor old Charm who used to be a silver-tongued devil...now he is just a devil (haven't forgotten the Ozzie kissing reference Charm)