[nagdu] Man's dogs will set blind kids free

[Pickrell, Rebecca M (TASC)]

This is an excellent point. Thank you for sharing your experience. Kind
of the flip side of "Anything is possible if you aren't the one doing
all the work".

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of The Pawpower Pack
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 9:01 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Man's dogs will set blind kids free

This is all very interesting for me to read.  I can speak from  
experience as I've come to a loss of a sense from both ways.
I was born blind, grew up in public school yada yada yada although my  
parents didn't encourage the use of braille or the cane until high  
school.  Blindness has just been a fact of life.

When I was in my mid twenties I was diagnosed with a progressive inner  
ear disorder which would eventually leave me deaf although the doctors  
thought I would be much, much older when it happened.  However the ear  
disease is such that when it first comes, you lose all of your hearing  
over night, and gradually get it back.  It will come and go like that  
with each time it comes back being less than before.  Eventually this  
leads to deafness.

So I know what it is like to go to bed thinking all is right with the  
world and to wake up the next morning being unable to function in the  
way you are used to.  The six weeks before my hearing came back for  
the first time were some of the hardest of my life.  I wasn't a  
braille reader, and it was the disease which made me realize that I  
needed to learn it so I began to study it intensely.  I had learned  
some before, but now it was serious.

For years it was like that, sometimes I could hear; sometimes I  
couldn't.

I live in New Orleans and was evacuated with my family during Katrina  
and the failure of the federal levees.
We returned seven months later and because my ear disease is triggered  
by allergies and because there was a great deal of mold, of which I  
happen to be very allergic to in the city at the time, I became  
profoundly deaf within six weeks.  It is irreversible.

I am learning American Sign Language and find my strength in the Deaf  
and Deaf blind community who do not view it as a disease but instead  
appreciate our rich culture and our beautiful language.  They have  
been my example in this.  If I hadn't had such strong Deaf and  
Deafblind role models during this process I could very well have seen  
myself saying such things as "I'd like to die." and "my life is over  
now."

The really funny thing is, there are blind people in my own life who  
bristle when sighted people tell them that they would kill themselves  
if they went blind.  Yet these same people have turned to me and said  
that "I don't know how you do it.  If I lost my hearing I'd die or  
kill myself."
I don't really know what the point of this is.  I think blindness  
looks to us like a simple inconvenience because we've lived with it.   
If you woke up tomorrow and couldn't hear, how would you feel about  
that?  Would that be a simple inconvenience for you?  Probably not  
because you don't have the compensatory skills and the support.

It's all in attitude, I guess.  I am very thankful for the people in  
my life who helped keep it real and helped me to be strong and stay  
determined.  Some people aren't that lucky and they don't have support  
or they don't have the right kind of support or they're just not a  
stubborn fighter like I am; like most of us are.

Just some thoughts for what they're worth.


Rox and the "Kitchen Bitches:"
Bristol (retired), Mill'E SD. and Laveau Guide Dog, CGC.
"My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am."
http://www.pawpowercreations.com/retreat.html
pawpower4me at gmail.com
AIM: Brissysgirl

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