THE SHADDOX BOYS

Jacob and Elijah Shaddox are brothers. Jacob is 21 years old and just moved into an apartment with his girlfriend. He graduated from a technical college with an Associate's degree in Computer Maintenance. He works for a school district as a computer technician. Elijah is almost 18 years old. He is hearing impaired, has Tourette Syndrome, OCD and ADHD. He is a junior in high school. Elijah lives with his mom Mary and her wife, his stepmom. Mary has a bachelor's in deaf education and a masters in special education, and is an educational diagnostician. Life is always changing and this blog has chronicled many of these changes and will continue to do so!






Saturday, June 9, 2012

Rechargeable Batteries!

Oh how I love using rechargeable batteries in Elijah's Freedom processors in the summer.(pictured left) It makes life so much easier. We have four rechargeable batteries and I charge two during the day and he uses the other two. At night, I switch them out and the process starts all over again. We use rechargeables all summer long, unless we travel and then we go back to disposable batteries. It is not fun having to carry around a charger and extra batteries, that can be lost! Using the rechargeable batteries also saves me from having to use the disposables, which Elijah can go through in about three days. That is six disposable batteries every three days! That can add up quickly! The rechargeable batteries last him all day too, so we don't have to worry about changing out batteries in the middle of the day!


You may wonder why we don't use rechargeable batteries all year long. Well, Elijah has the Freedom processor that has the battery rack that holds three batteries(pictured right). When he goes to school, he uses an FM system and his battery rack is removed and the FM is inserted, which has its own battery rack with it. He doesn't use his own battery rack(pictured left) all day. His battery rack has been lost at school before, and I don't want to take the chance of losing a $200 rechargeable battery when a battery rack costs around $40 for two of them(I think, it may have gone up). A battery rack is a lot less expensive to replace. Also, the rechargeable batteries will only last so long too, so why use them during the school year when he won't even be USING it with his FM. Even if he had an N5 processor I would use disposable batteries. The FM runs off of the CI batteries and if the rechargeable runs out, then there is no way for him to use his CI because I am not sending a back up rechargeable to school. They could easily be lost. The FM system also uses up that battery quite quickly and the rechargeable just might not last all day. The school district also supplies batteries for school, so he doesn't use his own disposable batteries at school! This means, his disposable batteries are used before school starts, after he gets home and then on the weekends. I don't hassle with trying to use disposable batteries on weekends.

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