Deborah Kendrick
Most AccessWorld readers know there are just about as many ways to experience blindness as there are blind people. Some see light. Some see light and shapes. Some see only in darkened spaces, and some see only in bright light. Some can see you when staring straight ahead, and some can see you if they turn their heads. Some use conventional print and some, even if their eyes can see print, are fluent braille readers. Some drive a car occasionally; a few see nothing at all.
And then, to get to the point of this story, some have experienced many of those manifestations of blindness in a relatively short period of time.
Meet Jackie Ouellet
Jackie Ouellet (pronounced wool-it) was only seven years old when her parents discovered that she had uveitis, a condition that prompts swelling and inflammation of the uvea, one of the layers of tissue in the eye. Although its cause is not always known, Ouellet's was attributed to an immune deficiency. Her vision was blurred in one eye, but she functioned well with topical and oral steroids—until she needed glaucoma surgery. That surgery sparked an autoimmune deficiency and, at age eleven, she became blind in one eye.
Vision in her remaining eye was good enough that she read conventional print for high school and college classes, obtained her driver’s license at age sixteen, and more than one successful, exciting career. With her business and fashion degree, she interned with Ralph Lauren in Manhattan and then landed a job in the buying department of Nordstrom near her home in the Washington DC area. Later, after learning from a friend about opportunities in Thailand, she became a teacher of English to children in a full-immersion program in that country.
Noticing that vision in her good eye was blurring, she flew home for an ophthalmic appointment. The complex surgery that was performed turned out to be horrific. Her eye hemorrhaged for three weeks. Eventually, there would be more surgery to reclaim a small amount of residual vision in that eye for a time, but the major development was that, still in her twenties Jackie Ouellet was suddenly blind.
“I was living my good life,” she says, “traveling the world, teaching in Thailand, active.” She’d never known a blind person and had no idea what she could do without sight.
The "Harvard" of Blind Rehab
Eventually, she reached out to the vocational rehabilitation system in Virginia, only to draw the short straw of a counselor who didn’t know what to do with someone young and healthy who was suddenly blind. Suggestions led her to support groups for people in their seventies and eighties with age-related vision loss, or programs for kids with multiple disabilities. “I need the Harvard of vocational rehab for blind people,” she told her counselor. The counselor told her to Google it.
She learned about three programs (in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Colorado) run by the National Federation of the Blind. She called the one in Colorado, had a conversation with the director, and flew to Denver to check it out. She sayshat decision changed her life: “I flew out to Colorado and met all of these energetic and inspiring people my age who couldn’t see! It was wonderful!”
For the next nine months, she would live at the Colorado Center for the Blind, learning the techniques of blindness. From 8 am to 4 pm every day she wore sleepshades and studied braille, cane travel, and how to perform all those tasks of daily living without eyesight. Wanting to do something physically active, she began studying yoga at a studio that was a bus ride, a light rail ride, and a half-mile walk from her CCB apartment. She fell in love with yoga and decided to take the necessary training to become a certified yoga teacher. Every day for nine months, in rain or cold or snow, she finished her CCB lessons for the day and then headed for the yoga studio. On her way to the studio one day, when she found herself in the middle of four lanes of traffic, she realized that the tiny visual cues she had still been able to use to identify her surroundings were gone. She had another emergency surgery, but doctors were not able to restore any of her vision this time.
By now, Ouellet had had a taste of real independence. She knew that she could be blind and still work and still be active, but she also knew she had to map out a game plan for herself.
Finding Employment
After a whirlwind year of training at the Colorado Center for the Blind, planning her east coast wedding, and becoming a certified yoga instructor, Ouellet was at last settled back in Virginia with her husband and ready to work. She had all her new skills and no job! She applied for positions with the federal government, but was only offered a position far below her level of education and experience. She couldn’t get an office job. She couldn’t get a yoga job. She was blind and competent and unemployed.
A lifelong extravert, she found it hard to meet her new neighbors now that she was blind. She began offering yoga classes at her community clubhouse. She was fine-tuning her skills and meeting her neighbors. She joined a tandem cycling club and participated in Ski for Light (a cross-country ski program for blind people.) She needed to figure out a new career plan, one where she knew she could excel and for which she could take charge of her own employment.
Chiropractic medicine caught her interest from a variety of directions, so that it seemed life was propelling her to that path. Her Internet searches uncovered several chiropractors who were blind, and she began reaching out to them for information and advice. Some never answered. A few answered and were not at all helpful. One in her own state of Virginia, Dr. Duane Hudspath, was warm and welcoming and invited her to shadow him at his office. After seeing him work with his patients, she knew this was something she could do and began looking into programs.
Kansas City Here We Come
When her husband’s desire to pursue a Ph.D. led the couple to a move to Lawrence, Kansas, Jackie was thrilled to learn that an excellent chiropractic program was not far away. They moved to Overland Park, to be near Cleveland University Kansas City (formerly Cleveland Chiropractic College.)
In May 2015, the final vestige of her vision fled, and she could no longer see light streaming through the window or the fireworks on the Fourth of July. She had, however, the skills she needed to be an independent, competent blind person. In May 2016, she began the intense, four-year program to become a chiropractor, a course of study that would claim most of her time and energy. Her marriage, regrettably, ended soon afterward, but her determination to succeed never faltered.
Jackie Ouellet completed her chiropractic course studies, but the road was never easy. Some professors embraced the challenge of having a blind student, while others flatly refused to meet with her outside of class or go the proverbial extra mile. She had professors who made tactile drawings with puffy paint and other materials and those who talked relentlessly with her to ensure that visual concepts were conveyed. There were instructors who would use her as the demonstration model for a technique or medical concept, so that she would get a first-hand picture of the concept being taught.
In the beginning, her father flew from Virginia to Kansas a few weeks each term to serve as a study partner, helping her access and absorb the required course material. Sadly, her father died suddenly three years ago, and while she is still grieving, she found new ways to continue working. She hired other students to read and study material with her, making her own notes and sometimes making drawings herself on a tactile drawing pad to help reinforce the visual elements needed in medical practice. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the physical graduation ceremony was canceled, but her diploma arrived in the mail in April 2020. She has taken and passed three of the four required national board exams. The fourth, which has been rescheduled twice due first to an accessibility issue and then to COVID-19, is now scheduled for July. After that, she has only to become licensed in the state where she intends to practice (at this time, Virginia, to return to her Washington DC roots). At 38, she is ready and eager to launch her new career.
Essential Tools for Success
Jackie Ouellet is quick to say that, as she puts it, “I clawed my way through this program.” It was, in other words, all-consuming and extremely hard work. That said, she is profoundly grateful for every bit of support she received from myriad directions and eager to share her perspective with others.
The ingredients most responsible for her success, she says, have been a solid support system and an equally solid belief in herself. “My father was my favorite cheerleader,” she says. After he was gone, she depended upon support from others, including some of her professors.
One professor would repeatedly tell the chiropractic students that none were islands. You need to support one another, help one another, and recognize that no one is completely independent. On the surface, Ouellet says, that philosophy might seem to be at odds with what she learned at the Colorado Center for the Blind. The lessons she learned there, she says, have been invaluable in every aspect of life—the braille that she uses for labeling (admitting that it was not her strongest suit), the daily living and social skills, and especially the training that gave her the freedom to travel anywhere with confidence and a white cane. Sometimes, though, the message of independence is flavored with the notion that, if you can’t do a thing entirely on your own, you are not a good blind person.
Ouellet is proud of her independence, but says that she could not have completed her chiropractic program without solid support from others. Professors who were willing to find alternative techniques for enabling her to experience images and diagrams were her heroes.
In terms of technology, her methods are surprisingly simple. Nearly all her studying was accomplished with an iPhone running VoiceOver. She read tests on an iPad, dictating her responses to a scribe for entering in paper booklets or on touchpad screens. During her various internships, she compiled reports and diagnostic information all on her iPhone. To access course schedules, assignments, and even check her grades she accessed the schools Canvas system with her iPhone.
She has had plenty of experience working with patients and finds that minimal adaptations are required. While she has a few accessible medical tools—a talking thermometer and talking blood pressure cuff—she says many bits of information can be gleaned by using a sighted scribe to whom she dictates her notes and observations. Whether a patient has any visible wounds, scars, or discolorations, for instance, is information she can obtain through the eyes of someone working for her. The actual practice of chiropractic treatment is well suited to a person who is blind, since it is all hands-on.
“I’m really looking forward to applying for licensure and setting up my own practice,” she says. By establishing her own practice, there will be no need to convince another employer to hire her. She will only need to convince patients that she is good at what she does.
Another future pleasure she anticipates is the opportunity to mentor other blind people interested in following her lead. She was grateful when another blind chiropractor generously shared information with her, and sees that as part of her own role when she ultimately opens the office of Dr. Jacqueline Ouellet.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
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