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Today's Chicago Tribune's news section actually has three articles
about blindness. While two of them are factual and harmless enough,
the below combines all the worst stereotypes imaginable. It makes
those who lose sight late in life seem fragile emotional wrecks, the
process of mobility a tortuous ordeal, and the effectiveness of
programs to help us only marginal. The article includes one
interesting admission -- that most people who complete the training
program must return immediately before independence is possible. My
heart goes out to this man, who must be embarrassed by such a
description of him. I hope he yet discovers that so much more is
possible than to spend the rest of his life warning people of the
danger of becoming who he believes he is now. Meanwhile, Barbara
Brotman and the Tribune would do the blind a tremendous service if
she would more accurately describe the possibility of a decent way
forward, as made more likely through participation in a training
program with higher expectations -- one that does more in several
months than teach someone how to pour coffee and complete a
two-block rehearsed walk.<br>
<br>
Bill<br>
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<td>Article from Chicago Tribune News 2012 07 29</td>
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<td>Sun, 29 Jul 2012 19:24:06 -0400 (EDT)</td>
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<th nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>NFB-NEWSLINE Online <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:nfbnewsline@nfb.org"><nfbnewsline@nfb.org></a></td>
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<th nowrap="nowrap" align="RIGHT" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td>William B. Reif <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:billreif@ameritech.net"><billreif@ameritech.net></a></td>
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Learning to live once again after late-in-life blindness. Barbara
Brotman, Tribune reporter. Jim Juchcinski stopped at the front
desk. . You heading out, Mr. Juchcinski? the security guard asked.
Outside, where there were no walls to hold on to? Where there were
cracked sidewalks, cars swerving into parking lots, harried
pedestrians rushing by? Outside, with no arm to grasp, no
teacher's voice to follow, alone on a walk for the first time in
two years? Yes," he said. I'm going to take a stroll. Close your
eyes. Now take a step forward. How far can you get before fear and
disorientation grind you to a halt? Ten steps? Fifteen, before you
open your eyes? Juchcinski doesn't have that option. The Oak Lawn
man is among 29,000 adults in Illinois who are completely blind,
and must walk -- and cook, read, work and go about life -- in the
dark. It is a learned process. And if you have seen someone with a
long white cane walking alongside a sighted person, you may have
spotted a lesson in progress. Juchcinski never thought about
blindness. If he had, he might not have ignored his diabetes for
more than 20 years. Instead, the disease raged out of control, and
diabetic retinopathy began stalking his vision. Blood vessels in
his eyes hemorrhaged faster than surgeries could stem the damage.
On May 25, 2010, Juchcinski awoke from surgery to darkness. He
never saw again. Juchcinski, 60, had worked for 35 years as a pipe
insulator. He worked under contract at all of Commonwealth
Edison's nuclear power plants and several fossil power plants,
often as general foreman or superintendent. Now he needed his wife
to pour his coffee. His mood darkened; his world shrank. He went
out rarely, and then only on the arm of his wife, Kathy. At least
every other day, I started my day with a cry," he said. Which gave
him a lot in common with those who come to the Illinois Center for
Rehabilitation and Education, known as ICRE-Wood, to learn how to
manage life without sight. Everyone cries when they lose their
sight, Derrick Phillips, the center's superintendent, told
students at the first meeting of the session Juchcinski would
join. Phillips is blind, and he had cried too, he told them. But
one day at ICRE-Wood, a couple of other students led him out of
the building and down the street -- three blind men, walking on
their own to a convenience store. Phillips cried again -- only
this time, because he saw the possibilities. ICRE-Wood is the only
state-run vocational training program for blind adults in
Illinois. People come from across the state, some staying in its
dormitory rooms, for its 13-week intensive program in computer
skills, Braille, cooking, cleaning and mobility -- how to travel
independently using a cane. It is a kind of boot camp for the
blind. We deal with people in crisis, people who just lost their
sight," Phillips said. They don't come right away. It often takes
months or even years for people to acknowledge that they are
visually impaired enough to need help, or to learn that there is
help available at ICRE-Wood or agencies like the Chicago
Lighthouse or Second Sense (formerly the Guild for the Blind). Two
years after he lost his sight, Juchcinski sat in the office of Mae
Michels, his orientation and mobility teacher, his solid frame
squeezed into a chair. His T-shirt, which he had had made, hinted
at the joker behind the dark glasses: "Blind Man Walking," it
read. Michels, a diminutive and sprightly 22-year veteran of
teaching mobility to the blind, listened as Juchcinski told her
his goal. I want to walk down the street," he said. I want to walk
my dog. He wasn't sure how he was going to do it. Just walking
around his Oak Lawn condo, he bumped into walls so many times that
he knocked down some of the framed art. He joked with Kathy that
she didn't have to worry about him dying of diabetes; he was going
to die of a head injury. But Michels nodded. She would teach him
to walk down the street. She would take him step by step, starting
with walks down the hallways at ICRE-Wood. The crucial tool would
be his cane, which he had been given but never really taught how
to use. You really need to listen to the cane," she told him. The
cane acts as a hand, helping the user feel the difference between
surfaces like tile floor, pavement and grass. It delivers audible
clues, making a different sound when it hits a brick wall instead
of a wood door. He would also learn to use his senses of hearing,
smell and touch. And his memory: He would have to count doorways
and remember how many he needed to pass before reaching, say, the
washroom. Two weeks into the program, he stood at the front desk
in the main lobby. His path to a walk outside began with learning
how to find his way around the building. Hesitantly, under
Michels' watchful eye, he walked along the edge of the desk toward
the elevator, his cane finding the edge where the desk met the
floor. Scrape, tap. Scrape, tap. Scrape, tap. He got stuck in the
small cubby with the pay phone. He faced the wall for a few
moments, tapping, before finding his way out. He navigated the
long halls by memory, counting doorways to locate classrooms, and
by senses. Every sound was a clue. The echo of Michels' voice
outside the wide stairwell upstairs. The change in his own voice
as he got closer to a wall. The pounding music from the gym. The
cane's metallic echo against a baseboard radiator. Even the air
held information. Sighted people might never notice, but in the
space where one hallway intersects another, there is a slight
breeze. Afterward, back in Michels' office, Juchcinski was
drained. It's like going back to high school," he said. It's a lot
to absorb. A few days later, he got lost in a storeroom. The door
had been left open by mistake. For 25 minutes he tried to find his
way out, bumping into desks and chairs, searching for the door. By
the time a maintenance man came in and found him, he was sweating
from nerves and fear. He was so angry he wanted to quit. But he
didn't. Six weeks before the session's end, he ventured outside
for the first time with Michels. She taught him how to make his
way through the front entrance, with its two automatic doors that
had to be activated by standing on a carpet square. He practiced
repeatedly, at one point nearly losing his balance on the raised
lip between the foyer and the sidewalk. Whoa, that sure wakes you
up," he muttered. On Chicago's Wood Street, he took Michels' arm.
She described the route as they walked it, in detail, down to the
texture of the grass in the parkway. The week before his classes
were to end, Juchcinski began a day in a funk. I was having a bad
morning," he told Michels. I said, 'I'm frickin' tired of being
blind.' " But the morning got better. With Michels at his side,
Juchcinski walked the entire route that would be his solo -- this
time, heading north on Wood Street. He gripped a new cane with an
easy-rolling ball for a tip to "shoreline" the edge of the
sidewalk, using it as his guide, as he walked to the parking lot
up the block. A quick lesson in how to cross it -- listen for
cars, check for the slant in the sidewalk down to the street --
and Juchcinski was ready to take his first solo walk. So ready, in
fact, that he decided to add another first. Not only would he walk
outside by himself, but he also would keep walking past the route
he had practiced and go all the way to the intersection with
Taylor Street. On a blazing hot morning in mid-July, the last day
of his session, Juchcinski stood at ICRE-Wood's front desk, three
months of training behind him and his first solo walk ahead of
him. I'm ready to rock 'n' roll," he said. Happy trails," Michels
said, smiling. Take your time," the security guard called out. I
have no choice," Juchcinski said. He went out the door. Down the
edge of the sidewalk. Down the ramp. North on Wood Street. Early
morning commuters rushed past. The Pink Line rumbled. Sirens
wailed. And then, halfway to the parking lot along ICRE-Wood's
chain-link fence, tears slipped out from behind his dark glasses.
He was crying with pride. He was walking by himself -- slowly, but
with confidence. After sniffling a few times and murmuring, "I'll
man up," he kept walking. But he had lost concentration. He veered
to the other side of the walk. When his cane touched grass, he
knew something was wrong. I think I went too far to the left," he
murmured. He stepped into the grass and nearly lost his balance.
He righted himself, crossed back over the sidewalk again and got
to the rubber domes marking the parking lot entrance. He waited
and listened. Then he started crossing the parking lot entrance.
But he veered right, and walked into the lot. His cane touched a
parked car. He turned around, but the cane got stuck in the
wrought-iron fence. Michels tells students to ask bystanders for
help if they need it. Juchcinski did and within a moment was out
of the parking lot. It was time to cross uncharted territory. He
stepped forward on the unfamiliar sidewalk. Methodically, he swept
the cane from the center of the sidewalk to where it met dirt at
its right edge. Step after step, he followed that shoreline until
his cane reached something that felt different -- the raised domes
marking the end of the sidewalk. He was at the corner of Wood and
Taylor streets, and he was grinning. He kept grinning even after
he collided with a fellow student while walking back. And after he
stumbled into a tree and landscaping rocks next to the front door.
In 29 minutes, he had traveled 0.12 miles, and a long way toward
independence. Like 80 percent of students, Juchcinski will go on
to a second 13-week session at ICRE-Wood. He is learning more than
mobility; he has been pouring his own coffee for months. After
graduation, he has another goal: to become a motivational speaker
for people with diabetes, offering his blindness as a powerful
warning. He walked into the lobby, where Michels was waiting with
a smile and congratulations. Students are required to check back
in at the front desk. Juchcinski stood in front of the security
guard. I'm just coming back," he said, "from a walk." ----------
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:blbbrotman@tribune.com">blbbrotman@tribune.com</a> chicagotribune.com/blindness See a video of
Jim Juchcinski learning to become independent again. ct12 0011
120729 N S 0000000000 00005490. ILLUSTRATION: Photo(s) Graphic(s).
Photo: Jim Juchcinski, 60, of Oak Lawn, with mobility instructor
Mae Michels, steps toward independence outside a Chicago center.
HEATHER CHARLES/TRIBUNE PHOTO Photo: Jim Juchcinski, who lost his
sight in 2010 because of diabetic retinopathy, learns to walk
independently again, guided by mobility teacher Mae Michels.
HEATHER CHARLES/TRIBUNE PHOTOS Photo: With Michels' help,
Juchcinski has learned to use his sense of touch and a cane to
detect differences in surfaces -- such as tile floor, pavement and
grass -- while walking. Graphic: Vision loss from diabetes
Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in U.S.
adults ages 20 to 74. The disease involves damage to the blood
vessels of the retina. PREVALENCE AMONG DIABETICS In the U.S.
Diabetics with retinopathy: 28.5% Retinopathy occurs more often in
male diabetics Men: 31.6% Women: 25.7% 899,000 Americans with
vision threatening diabetic retinopathy SOURCE: Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention/TRIBUNE\ - See microfilm for
complete graphic.<br>
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