Have you ever had something happen to you that made you go weak in the knees? Have you ever thought that your legs were going to give out beneath you? I had not, until my luncheon talk for Guide Dog Users, Inc. at the American Council of the Blind convention earlier this month. Michelle Laramie…
In March, the guide dog affiliate of the American Council of the Blind, asked me to speak at their convention in Columbus, Ohio on July 9th. They wanted to hear about my life and my book. How cool was this? As soon as I realized that my hobby of writing might actually produce a book,…
June 23rd through 29th is vision rehab therapist appreciation week. Vision Aware has posted Chapter 26, Two Clients, One Goal, to their blog site: http://www.visionaware.org/blog.aspx?BlogID=9&BlogEntryID=789 Here’s the audio of Chapter 26, in Sue’s own words and voice. [podloveaudio src=”http://outofthewhirlpool.com/ootwp/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Chapter-26-for-Vision-Aware.mp3″]
When my office was in the Department of Human Services building in Bangor, Maine, an amazing thing happened. At the time I had been blind for about seven years. Having had vision until I was in my mid-twenties I have always visualized the world around me, even when I couldn’t see it. Doctors had long…
My husband, Jim, and I live on eighteen wooded acres in the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau. One of the things we like about our tiny kingdom is the wildlife. We have deer, coyote, Bard Owls that sing duets, hawks, and all sorts of other critters. Unfortunately, we also have snakes. One warm April evening,…
I’m finally coming up for air. The writing of my book, “Out of the Whirlpool, A Memoir of Remorse and Reconciliation” is done. My web master is flowing it into a PDF in preparation for printing and to get it ready for electronic distribution. I’ve recorded the book myself. At first, I imagined that I’d…
On the following web page: http://www.stripes.com/mountain-climbing-program-helps-wounded-vets-overcome-barriers-1.198287#.ULFZf788wWw.twitter is an article about a wonderful program called Soldiers to Summits which is run by the non-profit group, No Barriers USA. The program takes military veterans who have disabilities to scale mountains all over the world with the assistance of experienced guides. Although I have done technical climbing such…
[box]Originally posted on September 6, 2012 on the OHI Grapevine, the blog of the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Office of Health Information (OHI).[/box] At 26 years of age, my life had hit rock bottom. Deeply depressed, I had reached the point where I believed I no longer had options. Placing a loaded gun to my…
Today’s post is a guest blog post on Beth Finke’s Safe and Sound blog. Beth had the winning bid on a JAWS training package that I placed in The Seeing Eye fund raising auction earlier this year. It’s been wonderful working with Beth. I’ve really enjoyed our lessons together. Thanks, Beth, both for the opportunity…
The flight attendant showed me the row in which my window seat was located. I took off Kismet’s harness and directed her into the row. She went right to the window seat and dove under the seat in front of it. She spun around and was sitting pretty by the time I made my own…