[nagdu] Death of a Dream

[Elizabeth Rene]

Dear Gail,

Don't give up yet.

And, most certainly, don't disconnect.

This is when you need your friends.

Someone might have a good suggestion for you.

I, for one, know that Southern California has a dry climate.  It's much 
drier than that in the Bay Area, for instance.  GDA is in Southern 
California.

It's interesting, too, that GDB didn't reject you on account of your 
blindness diagnosis.  Did they have that yet?

If they did have your test results,, and gave other reasons for not 
admitting you to a class, then the question of your legal blindness 
shouldn't stand in your way.

You wrote about how hard it would be to take your first, get acquainted with 
the home environment, walks with your new guide dog in the summer.  GDB 
didn't seem to offer you a later class so you could go home in the cooler 
fall or winter months and spend more time outside in comfort.  Surely other 
guide dog graduates have had to go home to climates seasonably unfavorable 
to long walks.  I grew up, and my mother and brothers still live, in 
Minnesota's Twin Cities, where winter temperatures could drop to -50 degrees 
wind chill.  People there go to work on a -20  degree day without a thought, 
taking for granted the necessary seasonal precautions.  There's no way that 
I would work a dog for seven or eight blocks a day in weather like that. 
That's when you get a ride.  At GDA last summer, the temperature soared 
above 100 degrees for several afternoons.  They either kept us indoors, to 
do training exercises in the corridor, or drove us to a nice, cool shopping 
mall, where we could work our dogs there.

You have successfully bonded to and worked dog guides in the past.  That's 
got to count for something with a school flexible enough to consider the 
needs of the individual applicant.

And you've been out there working to improve O&M skills which at least have 
been sufficient for you to navigate with self-trained dogs.  At guide dog 
school over the years, I've encountered classmates with O&M skills way more 
polished (and far less refined) than others.

Hang on.

PS:   If Kansas is such a hole, do you have relatives anywhere else in the 
country who might support your family's efforts to move there?

Elizabeth