Good day Bloggets. I have just got in with a wagging one I had to get out of the house after the rain over the past few days, it’s a relief that today is nice. Sadly, nowhere nice to go, but at least out, shops and met with a friend for a quick chat. Waggatail worked so well, I walk around with her and I just can’t understand what gets into the mindset of a guide dog. They know we can’t see, I’m sure of this. They know it’s their job to lead us. But do they ever wonder why it’s their job and responsibility? We were walking along, I was smiling, probably looking like the local looney who escaped from the funny farm. Feeling so proud of her and thinking we really put a lot of trust into our dogs. Imagine if you can see, or even if you can’t but don’t have a guide dog. It’s not even like you can close your eyes, as I remember when I closed my eyes, there were still shadows and some form of light or colour that came in through my lids. So, I don’t know really how to give you an example. Perhaps you will have to use your imagination? So, you are totally blind, and you need to get a mile away. Over a busy road or three and weaving in and out of people and obstacles. Up and down steps. Avoiding hanging items like those awful trees with wet leaves or spiky sharp thorns which love to hang onto me. One place we go has dreadful steps that lead up to another floor though they are outdoor. But they are made from metal and if you judge it wrongly, you will end up with concussion. So, you always have to be so aware.
We learn a route from a member of staff, a mobility instructor, from our local guide dog society. Over and over again without a dog so we know it in our head. Now, in this day in age, sighted people rely so much on technology to get them from A to B. Our sat nav is our minds. I do wonder if that is one reason my mind forgets a lot now? I have over used it. There is so much to remember day to day. Even in our house to navigate. Kitchen remembering what cupboard certain things are in. avoiding obstacles on the way to where we need to be in the kitchen, then dusting remembering ornaments, floors, what part we have covered. Washing what colour things are. Remembering as we have aps on our iPhone we use but it takes so long to do so we only use when absolute necessary. The work place, where desks are, bins, equipment and so on and that isn’t including getting there, leading back to my first part of the blog. Once we know the route, then the guide dog is taught the way with an instructor. Bless the dogs, they learn and together we make a partnership. Our dogs go where we tell them. If we say find Left, they do and right so on and so on. I say to Waggatail find the kerb, and she does, then stops, hopefully, and we wait until it’s safe to cross. Again, I have to give the command to cross, and again, hopefully, if I misjudge and there is one of those awful silent vehicles comes along, she will refuse to walk. When Hub used to work in London, twice he was saved by his last guide dog, our darling Long Chops. AKA Suki. One would hope, my Wagging one will be as safe…
When I get to the location of the building I need to walk into, I ask Wagga to find the door. She does and almost always it’s the right door. My last dog Black Beauty struggled with doors bless her, she got them confused with windows….
Some years ago, before my guide dog days, it used to baffle me just how blind people put one foot in front of the other in an environment other than the houses they knew.
Then I was trained the white cane by the most amazing inspirational man called David Johnston. If not for him I would not be who I am today. If only he knew just how much he influenced my life.
Harness off our dogs are like your pets. They can be very naughty. Like before I let the two of them out as Hub is working from home today, and they were running around the garden chasing each other after a while, I called on them. They wouldn’t come in. I had to revert to the D word. No, screen readers, not the B for biscuit, but D, for Daddy. Where’s Daddy, that did it, the little monkeys came running in to see him. All full of expectation their Daddy was going to play with them, haha, did they get a shock when he was on the phone? So, I had to calm them down but LF was just happy to see his Dad. Goshhe is so clingy towards his Dad even when he has been to the office with him all day, he comes home and for the first half hour, he lays across his feet. The other night he sat on his feet and put his head on Hubs lap and stayed there for the full news on TV so for half an hour. They are so loving. And so, loved.
BW off work today. He has just got up. It’s very late. Cooked breakfast/lunch/almost evening meal, haha, now he is off to the gym then off to town to meet with one of his besties and meeting his new girlfriend. I’m glad he is meeting her on his own, as I imagine his bestie would want to show his girl off to BW alone as I think more than BW would be too much. BW can hold his own as far as conversation is concerned if the chat leads to an intelligent one. His pal’s girl is Spanish, but has come to England to find work. Gosh, of all places she has come to, London? From lovely Spain? Where she lived in Spain, she had the beach on her doorstep. So, from there to London?
Hub and I were saying the other day, when we retire, we want to move abroad. It is my dream to do so. But where? I pray by then I will have sight so the world would be our oyster. Hmm. That is a dream. To be able to see.
I don’t look for latest news for months, as it just depresses me. Too many organisations companies looking playing with our lives rather than getting together forget the race and be all winners by concluding all their information. Collaborating all research and hopefully then we will get somewhere. But today I weakened and took a look at the latest news.
It surprised me in just how many scans are out there, scans that used to be kind of under the carpet on page ten of Google, now on page one. I guess they pay Google a lot of money and sadly that money has come from people who are so desperate for vision or should I say to hold onto whatever vision they may have, as once we lost our sight, the great pain is over. It’s like when someone is dying, it’s awful. They die, we are devastated, the funeral takes place and were given some kind of relief. Then it’s a case of learning how to exist in a totally different way, not live, just exist for some. For others, they continue having a fantastic life, in fact, I know of people who have a better life now blind, than what they had when they had sight, but, that is because they have so much support and courage. Get up and go. But I know of more people who wake up each day in agony to face another day in the darkness. They exist. Never go out, sinking deeper into a dark depression. Turned down by friends and family who no longer want to know them. And for them I feel for. I hope for a cure.
I do get slightly frustrated when we are supposed to get excited over a huge set of glasses which are attached to a wire that is connected in some way behind our ear to our brain, just to see shapes. I really don’t want to see grey shapes. I want to see at least like I used to be able to. Gosh, please, before I forget how to see completely? Because I haven’t seen photographs of my parents for 19 years, sadly I have almost forgotten what they look like in my memory. Because I am not looking at their photograph each day week or once in a blue moon. Some colours are fading too I find I am only remembering the basic colours.
Five years ago, when I started to look into various research, we were dealing with mice.
We still are.
So, in the meanwhile, I shall live in hope. Hope is all we have and I am sure that our cure will happen by accident, like all the news of late of fish. Really two lots of news over the past few weeks, from discovering the zebra fish restores its own retina, to more news of a ichthyologist, I think that is the correct word, well scientist, has worked with Skates and come across an interesting theory.
So we have got bored with the rats, now onto the poor fish. Why not skip all the animal cruelty and move onto life time prisoners? Controversial? They have done really bad things, what have the animal’s creatures done. There is an interesting connection though between the bible, Jesus giving sight to a blind man, fish, and for our eye disease, we are meant to take vitamin A. Fish!
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170405101940.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170405101940.htm
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