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

Elizabeth Rival erival at comcast.net
Tue Sep 19 20:41:04 UTC 2017


Justin, Maybe you should stick to what you know. No, guide dog schools don’t
benefit from bad Caine users. No, guide dog schools don’t benefit from
negative anything.  Don’t knock it till you try it for a few years. Beth  

 

From: CT-NFB [mailto:ct-nfb-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Justin
Salisbury via CT-NFB
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2017 2:27 PM
To: NFB of Connecticut Mailing List <ct-nfb at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Justin Salisbury <PRESIDENT at alumni.ecu.edu>
Subject: Re: [Ct-nfb] I liked the sentence she said about stupid questions
people ask her.

 

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>
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
<mailto:ct-nfb at nfbnet.org> >
Cc: Elizabeth Rival <erival at comcast.net <mailto: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

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/ct-nfb_nfbnet.org/attachments/20170919/a5092226/attachment.html>


More information about the CT-NFB mailing list