Dot physical

I'm mostly deaf in one ear but the dot physical is easy to pass even with that .

 

...So what you are telling me, is the last lady who did my dot physical took advantage of me.

I had to step up and down the steps to simulate climbing up and out of the truck, she said.
I had to carry this big heavy box full of weights down the hall with the eye chart and back twice to “get my heart rate up”
Then run in place for 5 minutes, I told her I didn’t run for or from anyone, so we had a heated discussion.
Then she made me raise my shirt to listen to my heart rate after doing squats.

She made me drop trousers and boxers to do a hernia check.
I told her anyone with a hernia couldn’t carry that heavy ### box across the room once, let alone no way twice.

Now I feel violated.

 

That’s because both the forced whisper and the audiometric device tests are for “the better ear”. So as long as you can meet the standards with the better ear you can be totally deaf in the other ear.

 

You forgot about the rectal exam.

 

My doctor does the whisper and some finger clicks , he doesn't know I'm mostly deaf . He does whisper and noise test loud so even I can hear it anyway.

 

You might be violated but you're probably healthy.
I didn't have to do any of the stress tests except for stepping onto a low stool and back down several times. Blood pressure and heart rate was taken before and after.
Maybe they figure that since I'm 73 and I also have a FAA flight medical (from the same Doctor ) they don't want to take any chances and work me too hard.
I've been getting my physicals from the same Doctor for over thirty years. I have his eye chart memorized.

 

Desk top tests by device does not a formal soundproof survey make.

 

I once had a lens made with a friendly eye surgeon late in trucking about 1998 or so. The eye test would go like this.

Read this line please.

Im reading off the copyright and printer information at the very bottom in tiny print.

That usually gets em. That has changed once they dropped the fresh lens in for cataract in one eye. The other is probably going to get a lens at some point next year when it gets big enough to be cut out. Having endure what I endured in 2009 I will not return to the depression and suicide thoughts of that year. Its not good for a deaf man to be blind as I was.

I understand they have some other nifty things going on so even if I did get blind there is a possibility of installing receptors and gain some form of electronic sight. Similar to what a camera sensor plate sees today. SO its not all lost.

I do worry for my ex though the VA is going to have to chop both of her eyes out and drop new lenses in. And I keep encouraging her that she is going to have brand new eyes when they finish and not to stress like she watch me did in 2009. That was a important year for all of us.

 

If the examiner is an ex-basketball player that has hands big enough to palm 2 basketballs in one hand, and says you need a prostate exam, find another examiner.

 

My last formal DOT examiner was a woman. Or supposed to be. Pretty too as far that goes. But she was so cold and almost unable to be human I thought there was really something wrong with her. But she gave me a two year card and that was the last one. I still got it somewhere in the shelf. But if she knows whats good for her life she needs to find someone who can thaw her out. In a manner of speaking. Its not good to go through life dead.