Touching - for us dreamers

This is for all of us out there who dare to dream big despite the odds, despite the lack of belief in us, despite disabilities that "appear" to restrict our capabilities. Despite what the world says we can do anything we put our hearts to!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um9KsrH377A

Thai Pantene television commercial. Its simply brilliant. The story of a deaf and mute girl who learns to play the violin against all odds. One of the most touching advertisements Ive seen in a long, long time.

My Big Drop

I finally did my independent drop today. It was the one requirement I was most afraid of. It is similar to my support drop (where I get dropped off in the city and have to find my way back under blindfold) but this time I did it without anyone with me. I was all by myself. Scary! I did it though.

I was dropped off in a residential neighborhood next to Broadway. At first I checked based on where the sun was and found that I was on a north south road so that meant that the busy street I heard to my left was also a north south road. Most north south roads have buses. So I knew I needed to get over there. I got to the intersection of the road I was on and could not find a wheelchair ramp (which is a helpful important marker to use in aligning to cross a street). Not all residential streets have them. So I got off the sidewalk and used the gutter along the sidewalk to line myself up and listened for a while before crossing the street. I made it across. Phew!!!

OK so now I headed toward the busy road and got stuck next to an air conditioning unit (at least that's my guess) and was freaked out about how to get around it. Was afraid of chopping fingers off. Gee the irrational things that go through the mind when blind! I finally got around it and finally got to the busy road. I wanted to go right so I wouldn't have to cross a street next to the busy LOUD road and got stuck by a fence and tree.Couldn't find a way around it and needed to go left and cross the smaller street next to Broadway. A nice guy come and asked if I needed help and I was so happy that he was there to get me across. Still didn't use up my question though. I phrased it so it wasn't a question. Then I got stuck on the sidewalk and couldn't figure out how to get realigned...probably nerves messing with my brain b/c of this loud nerve racking street next to me. The guy came out again to rescue me and took me to the bus stop down the sidewalk a ways. I had said "I'm just looking for a bus stop!" Even though I didn't ask a question I was so upset that it meant that I cheated. The bus came and took me to the light rail station. That was my question "DO you go to Light rail?" When I got off I got stuck on the bus island and the driver got off and walked me across...I did say I was supposed to do it by myself but people do like to help blind folks out. Once again I thought I cheated and cried on light rail. I was so afraid I'd have to re-do this drop and that I cheated myself out of a real accomplishment. Everyone at the center thought I did fine and didn't cheat. It took some convincing to myself though.

All in all I did survive and I learned that people are more helpful than is always realized. Even if I do go deaf blind ...as long as I'm in a busy area I will always have the help I need to cross busy streets. Nice to know!!!

Mini Meal

On Friday I served my mini meal for 15 under blindfold. I had most of the food prepared and ready the day before. Sausage soup, Brazilian cheese bread, and then I prepared the green beans the day of. I did ok, but got a tad annoyed and stressed that people were all coming into my cooking space and impeding. I was very frustrated and wanted to yell at everyone to get the #$%& out of my kitchen. So polite huh!!! I served it without much problem and it turned out well except for the gluten free bread. Yuck!!! My friend Mark helped serve the food.

Mini meal

Another graduation requirement is to make a meal for 15 people under blindfold. I started cooking mine today and will serve it tomorrow. I'm doing a sausage soup that I love, green beans, and gluten free tapioca flour Brazillian cheese bread. We'll see how they taste tomorrow. I took all morning. Making meals when blind usually takes three times as long. It gets tiring. But I did it!

Support drop

Today I had a support drop. It is one of the graduation requirements for the program. We get dropped off somewhere in the city and have to find our way back to the center and can only ask one question. We don't know where we are dropped and have to use our special techniques to find our way back. I got dropped off in a residential area and started by listening for a busy street and heading towards it. It was a few blocks away. Once I got to it I walked alongside of it hoping to find a bus stop. Of course I missed them all and kept walking. We did get to an intersection with a median and that confused the heck out of me. My instructor came with (support drop means you have someone with you). He stopped me from walking right in front of an oncoming truck. Phew!!! Anyways I kept walking until I got to another big street and since I hadn't found any bus stops I decided to go north. (I was able to figure out my directions N,E,S,W based on where the sun was on my face). After going north a few blocks I got honked at by the bus. I was so happy he stopped me and honked. I was able to get on and find out (using my one question) that the big street I wanted was Evans and it was the one I had been walking on all along. Go figure. The bus drove me back to that same block and this time I found a bus stop. Actually I was passing it and felt the cold air from inside the bus and heard the driver shout. I was so happy to be on that bus. I was so hot outside and this was going on about 2.5 hours. I knew this bus route and got back to a light rail station and got to the center from there.

I was so happy I screamed "I made it" as soon as I walked into the door of the center. Whoohoo!

NFB Convention 2010

Convention went well but it was too long. A week is way too long. I really hated the beginning of the week b/c the individual sessions were boring and I didn't get much out of meetings like "Blind parents group" or "Blind Educators" b/c people spent more time complaining about their life circumstances than talking about tips or tricks or valuable information. Once we started general sessions the week went better. I learned a lot about the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) philosophy, about blindness issues in society, about attitudes and mentalities, about research, etc.

I also found it helpful being able to research technology that I can use to help me in my graduate work and teaching. I have been so afraid of the notion that one morning I could wake up with no vision or that one of my blackouts would result in my vision never coming back. But now I feel more confident that with the aid of certain technology I could continue grad work and find a way to succeed. Too bad everything blind related costs an arm and a leg though.

We had convention in a huge hotel. I've never been in one this big. With 3,000 blind people and all their canes and dogs...I was ready to scream. Smack, smack, smack. We all collided into each other on a regular basis and people were getting rather annoyed with each other. My friend broke two canes and I ended up letting her use mine, which left me with nothing. I still have some vision that I was able to get around the old fashioned way without breaking any arms or legs in the process. :-)

I have to say I'm not sure I want to go to another convention. Just a tad stressful and way too many people. I was grateful I wasn't forced to wear sleep shades the whole time. I would have sat on the floor and cried. The whole building was made of marble and the few times I did use sleep shades I couldn't hear much useful info. It was so loud and echoey. I also tripped like 5 people in a matter of minutes. Whoops!!! I am so glad to be back home!

Interesting Dynamic

I do notice an interesting dynamic for me as a high functioning partially blind person that it seems I am very much straddling both worlds. I’m too blind to be sighted and I’m too sighted to be blind. There is an attitude that permeates the blind community that anyone with sight or some sight is or could be an enemy to the blind. Or someone with partial sight has denial issues b/c they need to allow themselves to be more blind and live like they are totally blind. It’s this whole “they think they are superior” or it’s “us vs. them” attitude that is prevalent. Then as a blind person I deal with the other side of the coin too with the sighted community. I don’t really fit in either one and it becomes very apparent at times. I think I would use this analogy as a comparison. An adopted black child into a white family would notice they are different somehow. They know they are loved and accepted by their family and friends, but they feel out of place among black people b/c they have a white family and they feel out of place in their white family b/c they are black. As much as we’d like that not to be the case there is always a noticeable difference in their mind and their perception of what goes through other people’s minds (some true and some not). I know that people care about me yet I know that I sort of stand out. I embarrass some family members and notice the questioning glances of some friends when I have my cane. They aren't quite ready to accept me this way. I just notice there is a difference between me and my sighted friends and family, and I notice a difference between me and my blind friends. To them I have a lot of sight and don’t understand them as well or identify the same. I just feel like I don’t fit. Bothers me more sometimes than it does at other times. I do have special friends that really enjoy trying to understand what I am learning and going through and that means a lot to me. I think I have this website for that reason. I really want people to “see” what I’m learning and love it when they show interest in this aspect of my life. I even have a friend that comes to the center regularly. That means a lot to me.


I noticed again how my visual field is affected. My blindness is so deceptive b/c your brain fills in the peripheral gaps with memory so you don’t really realize that you aren’t seeing what is there in real time. Rather it’s stored memory. My friend held up her hands for me to read and I noticed that as she held them up next to each other I had to actually look from one to the other and make her slow down in her counting (since we were trying to be extra quiet during the convention speech). I could not see them at the same time. I used to be able to count fingers on both hands without problem and know right away without having to process what I just saw. That is a small field. Hard to believe it’ll get significantly smaller. It was one of those “it hit me” moments. I couldn’t even blame it on poor lighting conditions.

Convention: attitudes discussed

I was actually quite surprised at convention when I found out how bad blindness is dismissed in the public school system. They don’t feel it is necessary for blind children to know how to read Braille or children partially blind losing vision are not taught how either. It doesn’t make sense to me why the school system excludes blindness as a handicap that is worth specific instruction. Listening to a tape or having someone read print to you is considered enough. The NFB have been fighting the lack of Braille literacy for a while now. I’m so surprised how much I didn’t know actually happened.

There’s a couple in Missouri that had their baby taken away at the hospital because the hospital social worker felt that two blind parents would not be able to take care of a baby. Blind people are more than capable and often develop tricks or methods to do things sighted people do without much difficulty. Bells on toddler shoes, really good baby proofing, hands and fingers to change diapers (which sighted people do anyways), etc.

I was so ignorant to the mentality that society has towards blind people and how extensively deep it went. It is considered the worst of disabilities to have and the most disabling (aside from quadriplegia). I agree that it’s awful to have but I know and have seen many blind people function better than a lot of sighted people do. And perhaps after getting used to it it isn’t so bad after awhile…you learn to use other senses to fully enjoy the world around you. Sight becomes less important. The hard part is dealing with a very sight based society and putting up with the notions that “you can’t do anything b/c you are blind.” I even had the notion as a partially blind person that total blindness would render me useless and incapable. I know that’s not true now and if anyone could overcome the challenges I know I could.
Even with deafness attached to it I know I’d find a way to overcome. It’s the social element that is hardest to deal with, and the limited freedoms (i.e. driving).

Convention

We are flying out tomorrow morning to Dallas TX to go to a week long convention. It's the yearly NFB convention (National Federation of the Blind). Over 3000 blind people are expected and I am not looking forward to it. So many people and so much activity. I've been given permission to go without sleep shades so it'll be nice just focusing on info gathering rather than spending time worrying about travelling amongst this ginormous crowd of craziness and busyness. I'll let you know how convention is going when I get the chance.