[Nfbv-fairfax] How to Find the Right Options to Vision Loss

[Cathy Schroeder]

On a Saturday a month or so ago, I was tooling around George Mason University with my white cane traveling the miles of sidewalks, enjoying the outdoors and the warm fall weather. I live just a block or two from GMU. 

 

I was passing a set of small college shops when a family of three was just coming out of one of them when I heard a woman's voice call out to me, "What is your name?”

 

"My name is John Bailey,” I said.

 

The woman said that she recognized me from seeing me several years earlier, while I was walking around the neighborhood with my cane as she was receiving mobility training as a vision teacher.

 

She told me her name and the name of her small son and her blind husband. I noticed her husband didn't carry a white cane. I said I remembered us meeting several years earlier and I then took the opportunity to invite them to a program on the facts about caring for a guide dogs presented by the Fairfax Chapter in September.  

 

The son then said proudly, "We don't need one. I am my father's guard dog!” 

 

His mother corrected him by saying, "You are his guide dog.”

 

The wife thanked me for my invitation and told me that they already knew about guide dogs. They left, with the son pulling his father along.

 

There are lots of ways of adapting to vision loss. Unfortunately, many of them rely on becoming totally reliant on a sighted person. Right now, the small boy feels good that he can help his blind father. But, what in a dozen years or so when the now young man wants to have his own life? How will he then feel about having to be his totally blind and totally dependent father's guide dog? I'll bet that today's good feelings will soon turn to resentment and anger.

 

When finding a solution to the challenges of living with vision loss, we need to know what our options are and which ones will lead to independence and away from total reliance. One of the best ways to learn what your options are is by asking experts who have gone through the same challenges as you.  And, they can be found at your local meeting of the National Federation of the Blind Chapter.

 

Are your low vision solutions working for you? Want to find better ones? Visit www.NFBV.org and attend a chapter meeting to discover options you may not have thought of!

 

The Fairfax Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia meets the third Thursday of the month. For information about our meeting time and location, call John Bailey at 

 

(703) 994-2040 

 

or email at 

 

john_bailey17 at hotmail.com.

 

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