[Ct-nfb] I liked the sentence she said about stupid questions people ask her.

Mon Sep 18 21:06:03 UTC 2017

Yeah and I've heard it said that you have to be a good cane user first 
off. The reason people hav said this by the way is cause when they have 
it was around people that seemed to think that at some point you could 
just tell the dog take me to Justin's place and it would know where that 
is and just take you. Yeah I kid you not. There are people that think 
that. I know that's not curently true. But hmmmmmm I do wander if dogs 
are even smart enough for that and we don't take advantage maybe?

On 9/18/2017 2:26 PM, Justin Salisbury via CT-NFB wrote:
>
> I know that guide dog schools and their proponents benefit from 
> negative portrayals of white cane usage, but it must be recognized 
> that better cane travel instruction could also empower her for greater 
> independence.
>
> Justin M. Salisbury, MA, NOMC, NCRTB, NCUEB
>
> Legislative Committee Chair
>
> Honolulu Chapter
>
> National Federation of the Blind of Hawaii
>
> Email: President at Alumni.ECU.edu <mailto:President at Alumni.ECU.edu>
>
> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-salisbury
>
> “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
>
> William Butler Yeats
>
> *From:*CT-NFB [mailto:ct-nfb-bounces at nfbnet.org] *On Behalf Of 
> *Elizabeth Rival via CT-NFB
> *Sent:* Monday, September 18, 2017 7:09 AM
> *To:* 'NFB of Connecticut Mailing List' <ct-nfb at nfbnet.org>
> *Cc:* Elizabeth Rival <erival at comcast.net>
> *Subject:* [Ct-nfb] I liked the sentence she said about stupid 
> questions people ask her.
>
> *Sonja Gunn: Finding the Joy*
>
> Raising kids is hard. Raising three kids is harder. Raising triplets 
> and navigating the world with a white mobility cane – well, that was 
> just life for Oregon native Sonja Gunn.
>
> “It has its challenges,” she laughs. “I think people look at our 
> situation and think, ‘Thank God that’s not me.’”
>
> Gunn laughs easily and often and exudes a sense of calm and delight. 
> This is a woman who finds the joys in life.
>
> “I’ve always had an easy-going personality,” she says, even after her 
> vision loss was first diagnosed at age 7, with what her doctor 
> described as “macular degeneration.” (Since then, her vision 
> impairment has been categorized as retinitis pigmentosa, specifically, 
> cone-rod dystrophy.)
>
> She pauses a moment when asked what it was like growing up visually 
> impaired. “That’s a hard one to answer,” she finally says. “My parents 
> told me my vision loss was dramatic, but for me it was not.”
>
> Gunn went to school in the days before the Americans with Disabilities 
> Act, but her parents were able to arrange the accommodations she 
> needed to do her schoolwork – at first, large print, but by high 
> school, books on tape. “I had two older siblings, so my parents were 
> already familiar with the teachers.”
>
> In junior high school, she could no longer participate in gym class, 
> which consisted primarily of ball sports. “I had to convince the 
> principal to let me do activities outside the school, like swimming,” 
> she says.
>
> And art. “I was a cartoonist, the blind girl who could draw,” she 
> laughs. “It gave me some respect from the other kids.”
>
> Gunn enjoyed drawing and thought about going to art school, but, she 
> says, “I had to be practical.” She attended Oregon State University 
> and majored in dietetics and nutrition.
>
> In college, Gunn befriended a woman who was also visually impaired. 
> “We memorized everything,” she says, because they didn’t want their 
> fellow students to know they were blind. “We were young women [who 
> wanted] to blend into the sighted world.” They made sure, however, 
> that their professors and advisors were aware of their vision impairment.
>
> She and her friend refused to use white mobility canes, but 
> eventually, the need was too great. “You want to live on your own, but 
> living in a bustling city, you need the help,” Gunn says. But it also 
> brought exasperation. “Having a cane is like holding up a big sign: 
> ‘Ask me stupid questions.’”
>
> Although Gunn received her bachelor’s in dietetics and nutrition, she 
> did not become a registered dietician. Instead, after college, she 
> went to massage school, thinking, “I could do this to make money.” 
> This prompts another laugh: “It is a cliché that blind people become 
> massage therapists, but I found it so fun and rewarding. For me, it 
> was a way to be clinical but in a nicer setting.”
>
> Gunn opened her own practice, but after she got married and her 
> triplets came along – two boys and a girl – she “retired” to become a 
> stay-at-home mom. “I had the babies, and I didn’t want to go 
> anywhere,” she says. “I was home all the time.”
>
> Three kids and a cane
>
> Gunn has been a proficient cane user for more than 20 years, but when 
> her kids started kindergarten, cane travel was no longer as helpful as 
> it used to be. “I got busy, busy, busy,” she says, as she started 
> volunteering at their school. “I was spending so much time maneuvering 
> through the campus and fields and doorways.” She found she was bumping 
> into poles and other things on the school grounds. Just when she 
> needed to speed up, she was slowing down.
>
> Although the thought of a guide dog had been in her mind since her 
> college days, Gunn began to seriously consider a dog about five years 
> before she took up the harness.
>
> She had experienced some rapid changes in her vision during that time 
> – “I’ve had sudden loss, then you get used to that for a while, and it 
> suddenly changes again,” she says. Still, she wanted to wait until her 
> children were in the third grade. When they reached that milestone, 
> she told herself: “This is the time, Sonja.”
>
> Gunn was already familiar with guide dogs. “I had lots of girlfriends 
> who have guide dogs, so I had background with their experiences.”
>
> She began her search in April 2014, making calls and interviewing 
> different schools to find the one that suited her best. When she did 
> her research on the Guide Dog Foundation, “I had a really good feeling 
> about this school.” Everyone she dealt with “was welcoming and 
> encouraging,” and she liked our training methods.
>
> Gunn also appreciated that the on-campus class was two weeks only. 
> “When you have little kids, it’s hard to get away for a month,” she 
> says. “When I put all the things together, I said, ‘I’d like to go to 
> New York. I’d really like to get my dog from the Foundation.’”
>
> In August, she was invited to join the September class. It could not 
> have come at a worse time. Gunn’s husband works for a local utility 
> and is responsible for maintaining its substations. During the summer, 
> they hire between six and 10 contractors to make necessary repairs at 
> each station.
>
> At first he asked her not to go, but then, she says, “He rearranged 
> all the contractors and their schedules. It was very sweet.”
>
> Ready. Set. Go!
>
> The day students arrive for class, they begin their training, with 
> orientation to the building and a lecture. The next day, they meet 
> their new guide dogs, and training begins in earnest.
>
> Gunn could not have been more pleased with the match the instructors 
> made for her. “I was slowing down with a cane, so I was hoping a guide 
> dog would move me forward. They matched me with a dog who’s got a calm 
> nature but a fast walker.”
>
> She really liked, she adds, “that we were on the move, with lots and 
> lots of work. I didn’t want too much sitting and waiting. It was 
> fast-paced, which is who I am.”
>
> After the first day on campus, guide dog training primarily takes 
> place in the real world: in parks and malls, on suburban streets, and 
> even in New York City, with its crowded subways and frenetic streets.
>
> At the end of the two-week class, Gunn was ready to return home with 
> her dog and put into action all she had learned during training.
>
> New confidence
>
> Gunn and her guide dog have been partners for almost three years, and 
> she makes sure to keep up with his training.
>
> “Just being at the side of a guide dog and having them move you 
> through things without even knowing they’re there is just wonderful 
> for me,” she says. “I can move fast, I can hold my head up and have 
> good posture.
>
> “All those things are important because now I feel much better about 
> going places on my own,” she adds.
>
> The upcoming school year will mean more changes to the Gunn household. 
> The triplets are almost 12 and will be starting middle school, Gunn 
> reports. “They’re excited, and it will bring new challenges to our 
> family. We’ll be busier than before.”
>
> And by her side will be her guide dog, keeping her calm and focused 
> and ready to go.
>
> Photos:
>
> (1) A woman dressed in a red sleeveless blouse and gray shorts walks 
> along the side of a road, holding the harness of a black Labrador 
> Retriever. The caption reads: Sonja and her guide dog taking a walk 
> around her neighborhood. /Photo courtesy Sonja Gunn/
>
> (2) Sonja, dressed in a pink T-shirt, blue jeans, and wearing a blue 
> visor navigates around an obstacle on the Foundation campus. The 
> caption reads: Learning to go around obstacles as a team. /Photo by 
> Rebecca Eden/
>
>
>
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