[nagdu] GDF's step refusal

[Tamara Smith-Kinney]

Rebecca,

Me, too!  It's that proprioception thing Rox described.  Sighted people can
use their eyes to fix on a horizon and judge distances and sizes and their
place in relationship to everything around them.  One of the more
entertaining facets of gradual progressive vision loss over the past few
years has been constantly readapting neurologically to the removal of visual
cues from the environment.  It seemed for quite a while there that even
though I kept my skills up and would practice in sleep shade and everything,
that a loss of more vision would just screw me up and turn me into a drunken
sailor to top all drunken sailors.  /lol/

I guess I've finally reached the point where my brain is more with the
"we're blind now" program, so I'm more just minorly cunfused and befuddled
and little off for a few days instead of being completely messed up for a
couple of weeks.  Whew!  It's a good thing I can laugh at myself, because
the worst of it was going on while I was still working, so I would think I
had it together when I showed up to work and suddenly find that walking
around the building was a three stooges type entertainment for the rest of
the company.  OMG!  I was lucky, in that people were very cool, and I had a
great boss in my team lead until I was promoted to Data Manager and worked
for a veep...  I think my team lead's great people skills and ability to
just accept that I had this vision thing going on but it was no big deal
made my experience with that company very pleasant.  Still!  Walking down a
straight hallway to the lunchroom and studdenly having to just stop and
stand still until the world settles back into place around you, in front of
all your coworkers on the same break schedule is not very good for the ego.
/smile/

Interesting to learn about others who experience the same things and how
they cope.  I've been trying to imagine how my very mobile deafblind friends
keep track of where they are and where the rest of the world is without the
sound cues I use...  I think my orientation is better, especially when it's
windy or I have a cold or suddenly discover I've just lost a bit whack of
retinal cells...  So this fall, when I started wearing a woolly hat to the
dog park, I was totally disoriented.  I asked one of my deafblind friends
who had been a long-time cane user until just a month or two before when she
got her TSE GSD which I would totally covet except that I adore my Mitzi
poodle, if woolly hats affected her.  She had to think about it, then
reluctantly admitted that, yes, she didn't like wearing woolly  hats because
she felt confused while wearing them.

Huh.  Discovering some of those little oddities of adapting to loss of one
or more major human senses is actually pretty interesting, especially since
I'm having my own experience with that in slow motion.  The vision loss, any
way.  I'm glad to know if something happens to my hearing I have such great
examples to have already shown me that it's just another change to adapt
to...  But I'll keep the ears working if I have any say, thank you! /smile/

I can see how a guide/hearing dog would be of extra benefit for
deafblindness, especially with the traffic training.  Adding in vestibular
issues...  Rox's well-trained dog team would be essential!  I'm glad guide
dog schools are moving more towards working with people with multiple
mobility and orientation issues.  Not everybody has Rox's skill and
knowledge for training.  /smile/

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Pickrell, Rebecca M (TASC)
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 10:55 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] GDF's step refusal

Wow!

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of The Pawpower Pack
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 11:41 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] GDF's step refusal

right, only for me it is this way all of the time due to my  
deafblindness and my vestibular issues.

Rox and the Herbal HenchHounds
Bristol (retired), Mill'E SD. and Laveau Guide Dog, CGC.
"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point  
out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half- 
wit, and the emperor remains an emperor."-- Neil Gaiman
http://www.pawpowercreations.com/retreat.html
pawpower4me at gmail.com
AIM: Brissysgirl

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