How colds disorient me

Yes, they sure do! When my head is all stuffed up, then I don’t hear well and I become confused. When I constantly have to take care of a runny nose while traveling or doing something, I lose my concentration and focus, and when my ears are all clogged up then I surely become disoriented.

For the mainstream person it is definitely the same but when you are blind it is a bit more difficult because whereas the mainstream person can use their sight to help them maintain their equilibrium, we do not have that luxury of sight to help us. So what do I do?

Whenever I have a cold, I take things very easy. I try not to work too much outside or at my computer.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to come visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

No hats for me

It could be one of the coldest Canadian winter days, or one of the hottest summer ones. When most people would reach for their hats or caps, I deliberately ignore them, and why? They cause me big problems. As a blind person, I need to depend on my sense of hearing much more than the mainstream person so whenever I put on a hat or cap, my hearing is greatly affected.

If I am crossing a street with a hat or cap on, my sense of hearing is greatly affected and I often become anxious and/or confused. If I am walking along a sidewalk and wearing a hat or cap, the same thing. So, you know what? No hats for me.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and asking you to go out there and tell others about my opinions about the wearing of hats and caps. Come by and visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

Watching soap operas with Mom

This is absolutely one of my favorite times to spend with Mom! Watching our favorite soap opera and boy do we have a great time. Mom is the perfect blow-by-blow commentator. She describes everything to me: facial expressions, gestures, actions, practically everything.

If there is no audio description to a show or movie, then it is very hard for a blind person to follow everything. Especially so when there are silences or all we can hear are things being moved or thrown around in the show and we are left to use our imaginations. Or if someone is reading from a paper or book and it is being displayed on the screen, then we have no clue as to what it is.

I would miss out on all of this if Mom was not beside me to describe what is going on. I would not know what the various characters were wearing if she was not here to tell me and I would not know what the interiors of the various settings look like if she was not here to tell me. Example: restaurants, living rooms, kitchens, and more.

Hopefully more audio description will continue to make its way into our living rooms and I urge broadcasters to be mindful of the growing demand for this facility to their programs. You can learn more by visiting www.wgbh.org.
I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day.

When I seek help

It is often a last minute decision for me whenever I decide to seek help. When I had more vision, it was a bit more difficult for me to decide but now that my vision is at a minimum, the decision is much easier.

What am I going on about today? There are two things that play around in my mind and are uppermost whenever I am faced with a decision to seek help. For what it is worth, here they are.
First: Do I really need the help? If I do indeed need it then how can I make this a win-win situation for me and the one who has either offered to help or the one to whom I am considering asking for help?
Second, I need to ensure that the person whose help I seek or accept will not hesitate in the future to either offer or agree to help another blind person.

So, how do I ensure that all of my objectives are met? It is simple for me! I need to be polite, respectful, courteous, and considerate. Even if I may not want or require someone’s help, I need to be mindful of their feelings if I decide to refuse their helping hand. Just my thoughts on this subject.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to share my thoughts with others. Come by and visit me some time at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

What happens when vision starts to fade?

Not the very best of circumstances, I can tell you for sure. One minute your world is filled with light and life and the next it begins to shrink and darkness starts to creep in. This is what it was like for me when my vision started to fade away over eight years ago before I finally lost almost all of it.

It’s a very nerve-wracking feeling. A feeling of helplessness and a feeling of great uncertainty and sadness. I watched helplessly as my vision started to leave me. I was lost and at a loss. Objects started to disappear right in front of my eyes. Things began to be lost to me and fade away right in front of me.

My world began to get dimmer and dimmer. The room began to feel bigger and emptier; I could not tell what was around me. Faces started to fade away, the skies became dark, and the precious sunlight was no longer a reality for me.

This is what it was like when my vision began to fade away. Colors are gone. Shapes are no more and shadows lengthen to a maximum.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific and encouraging you to go out there and tell others about me. Visit www.nfb.org to learn more.

How do I know what I look like?

A very good question for me to answer. I really never knew what I looked like until the day I was able to see myself in the mirror after my first cornea transplant so many years ago.

When I first saw myself I almost fainted from feelings of surprise, shock, and great excitement. Shock and surprise because I realized that I could actually see myself in the mirror. I was able then to see my facial features and from there as the days went by I could make out the rest of me.

It was quite a shock to discover what I looked like and I quite liked me if I could say so. Over the years I came to accept my looks and I was able to capture and store this image in my memory bank. Now that my vision is at a minimum, I have to depend on this memory to keep me going. I am very sure however that my memory of myself may not match what I look like today; I am older now and probably have more grey hairs hanging around than when I could see myself.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan your friendly accessibility advocate wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Come visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

No way to tell

In the world of a blind person, it is often difficult for us to tell certain things. For example, we have difficulty telling when there is a stain on our clothes; that is, if there is no way to feel it. Sometimes, stains could be crusty but if they are not, then we are in big trouble.

Stains on clothes or on furniture are a great challenge to decipher. Similarly, we are unable to tell if there is writing on a sheet of paper unless we have a scanner with the appropriate scanning software close by to help us.

We are also unable to tell if our computer screen is really on unless we have a light detector to tell us what is going on and there is so much more that we have difficulty with. These are just a few examples.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my words with others. Visit www.rnib.org to learn more.

Reference points

As someone who had a fair amount of vision but now I have lost almost all of it, I use reference points to help me get by. I have references implanted in my mind and I use them all the time to help me to do such things as refer to my surroundings, remember how things would look, plus much more.

I use reference points in my mind to locate objects within my home. I use reference points in my mind to help me locate buildings and other locations, and I use reference points in my mind to help me find things in my closets and cabinets.

Here are some examples:
Close to my kettle would tell me that my spice rack is close by or that my hand soap is not too far away on my counter.
Close to my microwave would tell me that my toaster is also close by.
My spider plant would tell me that not too far away is one of my wing chairs.
My ski jacket would tell me that on the same side of the closet are my winter jackets.
Hanging pants in my closet would tell me that right next door are my business suits.

I also use color associations to help me decipher. So that if someone tells me that the cheese is yellow, I have an immediate caption in my mind that this is the cheese that I am after. Similarly, if I am told that the wall is blue, then I know that in all likelihood it is probably the same color or similar in color to my bathroom’s walls.

These are all my reference points and I use them all the time. Probably no different from how a sighted person navigates through their daily lives.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Visit www.afb.org to learn more.

Downtown with Mom

Whenever Mom and I go on an outing, it is almost always filled with fun, surprises, and introspection. A few months ago she and I ventured downtown in her home city to run some errands and what a morning it was.

The day was very hot and sunny as we started our outing. The traffic was heavy, the sidewalks were crowded, and there were many pedestrians walking along. We were real troopers and as Mom took charge, I allowed myself to be taken in by the ambiance.

Captain Mom described all of the buildings around me. She told me about what was going on around me, what people were wearing, how they looked, and so on. As we walked along I realized that my captain was giving me a talking tour of downtown and o how I loved it all.

We spent about two hours downtown and at the end of it all I had experienced something new and enjoyable.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and inviting you to go out there and tell others about my experiences. Come visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

The challenge of trusting

When it comes to trust, it is always a very difficult thing for most of us, but when you are blind it is even more difficult. The mainstream world uses a variety of variables and cues to help them determine how to trust and who to trust. As a blind person, I have to depend almost exclusively on what I hear.

So I use things such as the tone of one’s voice, their speech patterns, and their intonations. I listen carefully and I take my time to analyze. I always try not to fall into the trap of falling for a sweet voice and a fast speaking person. I also trust my instincts and my vibes.

Obviously, I cannot use visual cues such as how one dresses, how they look, and so on. So I have to depend almost solely on my sense of hearing.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and encouraging you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Visit www.nfb.org to learn more.

Are you asleep mom?

Now that my vision no longer affords me the ability to see when someone is asleep, I just simply have to ask the question whenever I am unsure. Two years ago when my mom was ill, I had to do just that. On so many days when she was just lying there very quietly, I could not tell what was going on with her and I had to ask if she was asleep.

Sometimes if I heard her snoring softly then that was my indicator, but most of the time I either had to go and touch her lightly or just ask. It became a game with us. Sometimes she pretended to be asleep but when I went to make sure that she really was, she would burst out laughing. Ah yes, that was my mom!

I often wonder how I would do if I had to check to see if a baby were asleep or not? Fun and games, aye?

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Come visit me at www.sterlingcreations.ca.

Memories of ball games

Ah yes! Those cherished memories of those ball games that I played in my childhood with Dad, my brothers, and my cousins. From football to cricket, catch, and throwing the ball around in the ocean. Dad and I had a special ball game that we played; we would bump the ball to each other and try to see who could keep the ball bumping the longest.

I usually played with a large ball of a bright color, usually red but sometimes a multi-colored one. It was so much fun. I played in the hallway of our home. I played on our patio, and I played on the beach and in the savanna and park. I played in the sea and I loved it all. I used my sense of hearing to help me play and my limited vision enabled me to see the large colored ball.

Ah yes! Those memorable ball games! Forever embedded in my memory.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and tell others about my memories. Visit www.nfb.org to learn more about how blind persons play with balls.