It was with great sadness that I learned Stephen Marriott, former member of the American Foundation for the Blind Board of Trustees, passed away over the weekend after a long battle with a degenerative mitochondrial disease.
It is with a heavy heart that I announce Arthur Weisberg, member of the American Foundation for the Blind Board of Trustees, passed away on November 24, 2012.
Art was a dear friend and supporter of AFB and a huge champion of our work in Huntington, West Virginia. Personally, Art was a mentor to me. Every time we spoke, I picked up on some new, unexpected life lesson. I often say that Art's book, the wonderfully unpretentious "Call Me Art," should be required reading.
I have a longstanding love-hate relationship with television. And, for 20 years now, video description has hung like a shadow over this relationship.
We're home! Ralph drove Paige and me home this week and worked with us in my home neighborhood for several hours.
I guess most people fly home, so the trainers take them to the airport and go through security with them to the gate. This is great, since the dogs have not flown before and often the people don't have much experience with it, either. And, getting a dog through an airport is different from getting a cane through. I'll have that experience sometime in the near future.
Before I came to the Seeing Eye to get my dog, all my friends and coworkers wanted to know what I would do when I wasn't in class. I wondered the same thing. Would I be able to work? Could I train for a marathon? How about a triathlon? Could I catch up on my reading? I imagine other people planning to get a dog might be wondering the same thing. To what extent is my life on hold?
Tomorrow Paige and I will have been working together for three weeks (I'm at the Seeing Eye getting my first guide dog, if you're just tuning in). We're really starting to work together as a team. We're a little rough around the edges in a few places, but we do mostly look like we know what we're doing.
A lot of people have asked me how dogs and people are matched up. I'll try to describe what I've observed about the process at one school, the Seeing Eye, and maybe other people will fill in or contradict me. I'm sure every school has its own way of doing it.
I'm at the Seeing Eye, getting my first dog guide. I arrived July 22 and it's been the experience of a lifetime. This is the seventh post on the subject, so if you'd like to start at the beginning, go to the July 23rd post, Getting a Dog, Day 1.
It was a week ago yesterday afternoon that Paige's leash was handed to me. I can't believe how much I've learned. I can't believe how much I have yet to learn.
A friend of mine who is a cane user came to visit last Sunday. He asked me the same question I've been asked a hundred times: "Does it make much difference walking with a dog instead of a cane?"
In the past, all I could say was, "I hope so. That's the plan."