[NAGDU] Introducing a New Member

Wed Nov 29 18:31:04 UTC 2017

I think your comments are well-stated, Tami.

Bree, I have corrected 20/30 vision when my CME isn't acting up, and a 
about a four degree visual field.  I can look others in the eye if I can 
find them, so it is hard for them to see that I am blind. I gave up 
worrying what other people thought about my vision, or lack of it, many 
years ago.

I used a cane for 17 years.  When I started to think about using a guide 
dog, I realized that although I was pretty good with my cane skills, it 
would help a school determine that I had sufficient mobility skills to 
use a pup if I my mobility skills were documented.  I applied to Leader 
in Rochester, Michigan and took their one week Advanced Mobility Program 
about a year before I applied to GDF, Leader and TSE for a pup.  I am 
glad I did, because the blindfold work we did taught me that there is 
life after vision.

24/7 is quite a commitment for care, feeding, relieving, training, and 
love.  I received Claire Rose about two and a half years ago.  She is a 
genius in crowds!  She catches overhead obstacles, like low hanging 
branches, sidewalk cracks and bumps, finds traffic and elevator 
buttons.  She finds the mens' rooms, elevators, exits, entrances, curbs, 
escalators and can find the same way out of a complicated department 
store or building regardless of where we came in.  She finds my wife's 
car in parking lots, the cashier in stores and she weaves around aisles 
as though she has a map in her brain.  She finds me seats in crowded 
waiting rooms and restaurants (if there isn't too much food on the floor).

These are all trade-offs if you are efficiently using a cane, but as my 
field of view deteriorates, I know that she'll be there to help me as my 
retinal degeneration proceeds.

Tami's comment about the motivation of agencies when they provide advice 
or recommendations, may seem cynical (it is), but she is right. You 
always have to look at the interests of others when when evaluating 
their advice, especially when it involves your potential use of their 
resources.  Their are always folks in the system who believe the needy 
should be grateful for what they have.  It's pretty feudal.  The scraps 
you get from the lord of the manor are better than none, right?

Keep asking questions.  You're in the right place to do it.  Oh, and 
welcome aboard.

*David and Claire Rose in Clearwater, FL*
*david at bakerinet.com

*
On 11/29/2017 12:36 PM, Tami Jarvis via NAGDU wrote:
> Bree,
>
> Welcome. Yes, you've come to the right place. I'm Tami, working my 
> second owner-trained poodle guide. I have retinitis pigmentosa, so 
> have done the whole progressive vision loss into blindness thing. 
> Well, not the whole thing, since I'm still not totally blind, but I am 
> working on it and will get there when I get there. /lol/
>
> Other people with extensive experience with dogs from the various 
> training programs will give you good information. In general, they do 
> provide dogs to people with partial vision loss, though that was not 
> always the case. Now the operating assumption is more that if you need 
> a cane, you need a dog for the same reasons if you choose dog over cane.
>
> Dealing with vision loss means dealing with a lot of feelings, and 
> everyone does it their own way. Being in an in-between state where you 
> don't know where you fit in comes with additional feelings and 
> confusions. Your feelings are your own, and how you deal with them is 
> for you to do. However... It sounds like you've been dealt a heavy 
> guilt load from somewhere, including by the case worker who told you 
> you should be grateful. Wrong. Just... wrong. People in the resource 
> fields will tell you that, and usually what it means is that they 
> don't want to spend money on you, so they're hoping you'll go away and 
> shut up. What they'll be telling the totally blind clients is that 
> they can't do anything anyway, so the agency needs to spend the 
> resources on people with some vision. So, if you feel either guilty or 
> grateful for reasons of your own, that's entirely normal as part of 
> the adjustment process. So is feeling angry, bitter, maybe okay, and 
> lots of other things. But if you can avoid letting someone else tell 
> you what you ought to feel, then that's a good.
>
> As for using a guide dog when you have good cane mobility skills, it 
> really is a matter of choice. A dog is great with some of the areas 
> you mention, and I definitely prefer navigating those same sorts of 
> difficult places with the dog. The dog does not come with an off 
> switch, however, so you can't just stick in the corner out of the way 
> when you get home. The cane does not have off days or suddenly decide 
> to go sniff the bushes over there while neatly convincing you it is 
> taking you around an obstacle. A cane also won't see that quiet car 
> blowing through the red light and zooming towards the crosswalk where 
> you are walking, nor will it knock you back and back again so the car 
> speeds by inches in front of you instead of right over you. And so on. 
> The decision for most people seems to come down to a weighing of pros 
> and cons and an examination of lifestyle and preferences.
>
> There are something like 13 programs to choose from (someone will 
> correct me if I'm wrong on the number), so there is good availability 
> of guide dogs. I've also heard the bit about not taking a guide dog 
> away from someone who really needs one, but that's, well, bunk. First, 
> you really need a cane, so you really need a guide dog. Second, if you 
> do decide on a dog and are matched with one, then it is true that 
> someone else who needs a guide dog will not get that dog. That person 
> will get a different dog. If you have partial vision and want a guide 
> dog, people will lay that guilt trip on you, though, along with all 
> the others. Sigh. Considering you own needs versus those of others 
> when consuming finite resources is laudable, but I think it is 
> important to remember that if the resources are made available for 
> blind people and you are a blind person, then they are available for 
> you if you need them. It's usually people trying to hoard those 
> resources who will tell you otherwise. If you were totally blind, the 
> excuses would be different is all. Sigh.
>
> Anyway, that's just my take, and you will hear many others and get 
> lots of information to filter through as you make your decision about 
> what is best for you. Do feel free to let us know how you decide, 
> either way.
>
> Tami
>
> On 11/29/2017 12:41 AM, Bree R. via NAGDU wrote:
>> Thank you for letting me join your list. I don't know if this is a 
>> list that can help me. Or if I belong here. I think I want to at 
>> least try to get some more info about guide dogs before I decide 
>> whether or not a guide dog would help me with travel.
>>
>> I finished mobility training through ACBVI before I moved last 
>> spring. I met a few people who had guide dogs and I wondered if they 
>> were even an option for me. I know I should talk to the guide dog 
>> schools to ask but it's intimidating since what if they just say no & 
>> I'm wasting their time.
>>
>> I don't think or don't know if I should even try because I have done 
>> mobility training and it helped a lot. I don't think I have to have a 
>> guide dog to be safe. Or take someone's dog who needs them more than 
>> me. Mostly because my better eye I can see out of is corrected or can 
>> be to 20/70. I think that I would not think of a guide dog if I could 
>> see enough to not use a cane & if the people I met didn't make me 
>> wonder.
>>
>>
>> ACBVI said it is low vision but not blindness & I know guide dogs are 
>> for people who are really are blind. I just can't use what I can see 
>> very well I guess is how to explain it because what I see doesn't 
>> match what is there. I don't have RP but it's similar they said 
>> except there's just rod and cone dystrophy and mostly it's a male 
>> condition so they didn't know what was going on for a long time. I 
>> wear glasses over contract lenses which is how I can see 20/70 in one 
>> eye and it's like 20/200 on the other. My glasses are made with 
>> crystals and they're supposed to help them work together but it 
>> doesn't always work and sometimes makes it worse. I am night blind 
>> since I was a kid and have amblyopia where my right eye won't look 
>> straight and also photophobia. I think if I could see 20/70 really 
>> like 20/70 is then I wouldn't need a cane even it's just it is not 
>> the same trying to walk or get around as it is to read letters on a 
>> chart.
>>
>> The counselor at the last session I had with Voc Rehab told me my 
>> vision is really not bad at all and to be grateful and I am. I think 
>> that is why I don't want to call and talk to guide dog schools 
>> because I feel guilty.
>>
>> I wanted to ask someone with a guide dog though if I really couldn't 
>> try to have a guide dog. I remembered the name of the NFB from 
>> something a while ago so I found a google result for your list when I 
>> searched NFB and guide dogs.
>>
>> I hope it's ok for me to ask this here. I mean I know Im glad I can 
>> still see and all and I hope I don't keep having worse vision but I'm 
>> 27 and it has been getting worse for many years now. I feel bad 
>> though if I sound ungrateful. I'm really not. I just wonder if it is 
>> true that I cannot try to get a guide dog and that they are for only 
>> totally blind people. I sort of wish I could try to have one now 
>> because it seems like it would be much better to travel and to not 
>> have to run into something to know its there with my cane and to move 
>> around things a dog would see especially in the winter when it's hard 
>> to tell where curbs and roads are and the snow makes it hard to find 
>> landmarks.
>>
>> I hope it isnt breaking any rules for me to post here and thank you. 
>> I am nervous as you maybe can tell.
>>
>> Bree
>>
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>
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