March 28, 2012-Volume 64: What I Can See and How I Can Fool You

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 64: What I Can See and How I Can Fool You

It has been just over 20 months since my accident and I still get questions about my eyes healing or my vision improving or even what I can see.  The truth is my vision has been the same since the blood cleared out of my eyes in October of 2010, but my brain has been reorganizing itself to its new visual field and therefore I appear as if I see better. The second part of what I see has to do with the way people treat me as a differently abled person, I am treated differently, and not in a good way and that I can see very clearly. These subjects are the focus of this blog. But first…………………..

This week my WTF is the loss of all my important documents.  I recently discovered, after making a trip to my lock box to retrieve my passport and my daughter’s birth certificate, that I no longer had a lock box. After some digging it was found the ex closed the box in November 2010 during the custody battle. I did not know this, I was only told he was taking his items out of the box and he gave ne his key. At the time of closing someone has to watch you take all the items out of the box and the bank assured me it had been emptied. So the million dollar question is where are items like my passport, my will, my daughter’s social security card and birth certificate, etc. The story has changed many times as to what happened.  The end result is that all those items have disappeared.  So I now have two options, to file a police report that the items were stolen or to do nothing and go through the agonizing process of restoring all these items. The passport process alone could do me in.  All I know is this sucks!!!!!

This week I can’t get enough of the return of Mad Men, my absolute most favorite show on TV. So even though the premiere dragged a little I was more focused on the set decoration and clothes. Lately I have been fixated on a royal blue/teal color and a reddish orange and gray as a color scheme to redo my den and bedroom. I have been trying to visualize it in my head. And then, there it was all over the place on Mad Men.  Tons of orange walls and blue walls and blue and red-orange couches mixed with with gray taupe and it so worked. I would like to transport Don Drapers’ living room, sans the white carpet, into my house. I love everything about the rooms on Mad Men; the lamps the artwork—I want it all. Also I am requesting Megan Draper’s entire wardrobe. She wore this awesome black dress at the surprise party that I would totally rock. I even liked Peggy's black dress with the white center piping. That show inspires me. I am ready to take on a few room redo’s. And it is going to be bright and mod.

Speaking of bright, my visual impairment has caused me to want brighter colors around me because I can see them better. My visual acuity has not changed, still 20/800 in the left eye and 20/400 in the right eye. I still have little central vision and your head is still mostly missing if I look directly ay you, I have just learned where to look to make eye contact. And my brain is filling in the gaps with what it thinks should be there, not just with color bands and flashes, even though I still see some yellow. The color bleeding when I would look from a colored wall to a white surface is also gone. I still can’t recognize anyone from a short distance, but I am getting better at voice recognition. I also navigate better because once I have walked or run a path my brain is making a visual spatial map of it so I can remember where there is a step or a turn. My balance is better. At first it felt as if I were walking sideways but now I feel no different than I did as a sighted person and I am just the same clumsy me I was before. My other senses have continued to sharpen, especially my hearing. I use my hearing all the time to gage  the distance of cars when I am crossing streets and I can find a small pill that has dropped on the floor not because I immediately see it, but because I can approximate where it fell by the sound. I think it’s like the echolocation of a bat. Because of these things, to most people it appears as though I am a sighted person.

I still need technology to help me work and read. My next project is a big LED TV because I found that when looking at them in a store at some distance I could make out more of what was going on and that was great. I really need it before True Blood comes back on. I have also found I need to have a bigger screen when I navigate the web because there us so much content it is hard to find all the buttons and catch all the pop-ups when you are zoomed up. So my plan is to begin using my TV as my monitor, which I am figuring out how to do as inexpensively as possible.  I have magnification glasses where I can read 14 font and sometimes 12 but these often fail me at meetings or when trying to read documents or a menu at a dark restaurant. There are new portable magnification units that could help but they cost tons of money. What I have learned is that the technology is available, but it is super expensive. The portable reader is over 1200 dollars.  In fact, many of the aids for those that are blind or low vision seem unnecessarily expensive. I was lucky to get the equipment I needed from the Commission for the Blind, but as technology gets better and I figure out my needs there is no mechanism to upgrade unless it is out of pocket. I am not sure how low vision people can afford what they really need and could be useful. My guess is that they don’t have access to these things. And that is sad.

What I also see is how I am treated differently because I am differently abled. Some behaviors are subtle, some less so. Since I have been visually impaired people that don’t know me sometimes assume I am less smart than I really am. In some ways I feel smarter or maybe more resourceful, but I have been talked down to more often than I ever was when I was sighted. The other thing is that I have had more people try to take advantage of me. What I will say is usually someone can only pull that crap once. I am thankful I am assertive. I have also realized that there is some discrimination against the visually impaired and blind. Many companies with which I have dealt say they have no way to send me things electronically so I end up filling out paper documents under my camera which takes twice the time. There are also situations where you have to pick something up in person, which is not as easy for someone that does not drive. And don’t even get me started on ADA compliance, which is a joke. Then there are the subtle ways things have changed. It takes the form of people assuming you cannot do certain things, people not realizing you are relying on them to be someplace and get back home, or people just avoiding you in general. As I have written about before, these things have been disappointing, but I am beginning to understand they are part of the new world in which I live. Having a disability is the same as having other baggage. And some people are worried they may have to help carry the load. This in my case is really not true.

I will not talk about all the things I miss about having sight, because I don’t find that productive. I will say my attitude is and probably will remain positive. And I have every hope and faith that stem cells will allow we to regain my sight in less than 10 years.  And at my age, the years are flying by.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

March 21, 2012-Volume 63: A Cat Tale

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 63: A Cat Tale

This blog is about my cat Brunhilda (Bruni) and her ability to repeatedly defy death in her almost 18 years of existence. Maybe it is strange to write about a pet, but she is a part of the family and recently, when I thought it was the end, I realized how much life would be different without her. And when she went blind suddenly, I realized how hard it was to watch and how hard it must have been for people to see me after my accident. In a strange way, she is kind of a cat version of me. So, her eventful life is the focus of this blog.  But first………………………

My WTF of the week is the fact that people are cheating on trivia night. I recently attended a trivia night that was also a charity event.  The median age of our team, Half J/Half G (which stood for half Jews, half Gentiles) exceeded the other groups by at least 15 years. Let’s just say I could have been the mom of many of the trivia players. But was the group with the most wisdom and collective knowledge winning. No, we were not even close. Some of the groups of youngsters were kicking our butts and seemed to know answers to questions that there was no way they could have known. I was thinking maybe it’s because they are in college and just remember more. After feeling humiliated and a little stupid, one of the Jews made the rounds around the establishment and came back to proclaim that most of the tables were cheating by using their smart phones to Google stuff.  We were not. We were honorably using our collective brainpower. We even had a librarian in our group and they tend to know lots of trivia stuff. Alas, we are no match for twenty-something’s with smart phones.  This week I am out for another trivia night, and instead of trying to win I will feel good about myself because am coming up with answers without cheating. And I can live with myself. Although, if there is a cash prize, I could change my mind.

This week I can’t get enough of taking a “chick-cation”. It is like the man-cation, but for women and is sometimes known as the girlfriend getaway (but I dislike that term). Our chick-cation destination is Costa Rica for its combination of beaches and adventure activities like zip lining and rafting (which I am sure are totally safe for the visually impaired).  We picked Costa Rica because it is also a popular man-cation destination and the women going are all single.  When looking at hotels and reviews I found myself shying away from those in which the reviews used the words family, children or kid. Single moms do not want to go on a vacation and stay in a place where there are kids.  I prefer an adult oriented resort (not like in a Hedonism way, just no kids).  I am beginning my bathing suit readiness plan now.

I have a mostly black with white markings American shorthair named Brunhilda. I saw Brunhilda be born in a drawer in June of 1994. About two weeks after she was born her litter mates started dying. She was the only cat who survived past three weeks, at which time her mom stopped feeding her and I took over. I fed her formula in a baby bottle and put bits of food into her mouth until she was strong enough to get to food. I wiped her to stimulate her using the bathroom just like her mom would have and then I taught her how to use the litter box.

At 6 weeks old she was accidently stepped on by my boyfriend at the time. She was rushed to the ER and had a collapsed lung. They told me she had a 50/50 shot at surviving and hospitalized her and told me to call in the morning. I stayed up all night (mostly giving my boyfriend hell) and at 8am found out she had survived. 

When Bruni was two she started running a fever and would not leave my side. When she was laying on me I noticed there was white pus coming out of her, so I brought her to the vet. They misdiagnosed her and sent ne home, but I just knew they were wrong, so I came back in and said their diagnosis made no sense. They said the only other thing it could be was a uterine infection, but that could never happen in a spayed cat. Well, even though she had been there two years, what they did not seem to put together was that she had not been spayed because I was a poor graduate student and she was an indoor cat. So she was rushed into surgery to have her uterus removed, which the vet showed me in a jar and said “another two days and she would have been dead”.

Then at 3 Bruni choked on a chicken bone. I had eaten chicken for dinner and placed some bones at the bottom of the trash and went to take a bath. When I came out she had knocked over the trash can and was eating and choking on a bone. I started throwing on my clothes and shoes to take her to the ER but then realized I should try to get it out of her throat or perform the Heimlich maneuver, which I did and somehow managed to get it out.

Bruni has tried to escape the house hundreds of times. She is not at all convinced she is an indoor pet. And she has made it out a handful of times. But for some reason she never gets lost. One night I did not realize she had slipped past me and gotten out and when I returned home a few hours later she was sitting on the stoop with a look of “where the hell have you been, let me back in the house”. One time she got in the attic space at my current house, which has a door off a hallway. Again she slipped past me (this seems to be a theme) and walked into a part of the attic where the floor boards are spaced widely apart and could not figure out how to get back out. I was looking up the number for animal control and calling friends while trying to coax her out afraid that she was going to fall through the cracks. Again she got our unscathed-another crisis averted.

Up until she was 15, Bruni was convinced she was an attack cat and did not care much for anyone but me. She would get this look on her face when anyone other than me tried to pet her of “you are not my mommy, do not touch me” and she would bait them by acting as if it was OK and suddenly begin biting really hard. She also attacked my niece, who still has a scar, when she and my sister came into the house when I was not there.

Bruni has mellowed in her old age. She did not really want anything to do with my daughter until a few years ago. I think at first she thought “this little thing smells funny and makes too much noise”, but now she loves her. She also lets people she knows pet her without retaliating. For the past year or so Bruni has had kidney disease, which means I have had to try and shoot pills down her throat. My cunning cat held the pills in her mouth and later spit them out in corners because she knew I could not see them. She also drinks water out of your glass, which is annoying as she often tips them over.

Last week in the middle of the night Bruni tried to jump on the bed and missed and hit a side table. I woke up and found she was trying to walk but could not use her back legs and kept flopping over. Thinking she had broken her back or possibly was dying from kidney failure, I called my sister and we went to the ER. I was completely panicked and realized that even though I knew we at best had a year or two left, I was not at all ready for her to die. I cried all the way to the animal hospital. What we found out was that Bruni was completely blind and was also suffering from compression of the spine and arthritis, all common in older cats. The theory was she went blind, had a jump and miss ad tweaked her already problematic spine. Some of her drunk like walking was due to sensory deprivation because of the blindness. The next day her vet called me to say he feared the blindness was caused by an antibiotic she was on for her kidneys and it had only happened twice in his forty years of practice and should have not happened in the low dose she was on. He also told me it was permanent. For two days I had to carry my cat to get food and water and watch her walk into walls and struggle to keep her balance and it just broke my heart. I thought about how I must have seemed to others when I came home from the hospital almost totally blind and having to be led around. It must have been hard for others to watch. I don’t think I appreciated that until I saw my cat struggling.

After two days Bruni, in another miracle recovery, regained her sight and began acting like her usual self.  We still have to deal with the kidney’s failing, but she can see and get around and seems to be happy. Bruni has overcome so many crazy situations. She is a survivor. And so is her mom. I know losing her will change me. But for right now I am enjoying her company and doing everything I can to prolong her life.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

March 7, 2012-Volume 62: Getting Back to What is Important

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl- Volume 62: Getting Back to What is Important

After getting rid of Debbie Downer I am now focusing on getting back to what is important to me and reconnecting with the community. The things that are important and that are key in how I live are speaking truth to power, integrity, walking the talk and being the change. Living these things is not always easy, and interestingly does not always make you popular, but to me they are essential.  I found a poem that expresses much of how I want to live and how it inspires me is the focus of this blog.   But first……………

My WTF of the week is the fact that I got groped in a bar this past weekend. And let me be clear that having a drunken middle aged man place his hands on you when not invited to do so is not at all an acceptable thing. The groping incident happened in a bar called the Tin Roof.  I was there with two younger friends but for some reason was the target of the groping. The first act of groping occurred when he put his hands on my hips and attempted to push me into his groin area, at which point I shoved him and told him to step back (loudly and laced with obscenities).  About five minutes later I was turned towards the bar when I felt someone full on whole-handed grab my buttocks.  I turned around and there was the groper. At this point I lost it, put my finger in his face and told him to never place his hands on me again and to back the F up immediately.  After about five minutes of added emphasis on the back the F up and go away he left, only to make a third attempt, at which point I asked for someone to get the bouncer. The bouncer came out and talked to the guy so he did not grope me again, he just groped another woman.  The guys standing nearest us who witnessed this said they had been at least 5 other women's "boyfriends" that night because this guy had also groped them and they needed protection.  A big shout out to the Tin Roof for allowing this sloppy drunk man to basically sexually harass women in their establishment.  I will never go there again.  And guys, it is not at all cool to grab or touch a woman whom you do not know and who has not invited you to do so.  And why does this keep happening to me. First the dirty talking man of last year and now a groper. Boy do I attract the winners.

This week I can’t get enough of the fact there is about a 90% chance that my daughter and I will be going to NYC for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I bet those balloons will look really, really huge in person. Sadie is already planning her trip and purchases at the American Girl store (I am putting her to work to earn some money) and FAO Swartz. I am thinking about Canal street fake Gucci and Prada bags, the Dion Von Furstenberg store in the Meat packing district and eating in Little Italy. We will probably be there 4 or 5 days and I plan to take the city by storm. I have so much energy when I am there and there are just so many things to do. The fact my daughter gets to experience NYC and the parade at her age is awesome.  

Living my life authentically and living it with integrity is not always easy. I have also noticed that it is sometimes not popular to speak truth, live with passion and be a nonconformist. I find these all essential, but it often puts me at odds with people. And it doesn’t mean crazy or negative things don't keep happening. As I put out positive energy, the universe brought me the poem below and I aspire to live it. It is by Rudyard Kipling and note he uses Man to mean everyone, so this poem is applicable to all.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

This poem is something to hold in front of me. It reminds me to stay true to myself, while at the same time not judging others. That is something on which I have to work. I admittedly can have a hard time not stating how I feel about the actions of others, and in that I am judging. It reminds me to take risks, to keep the faith and that I have the power to rebuild. It reminds me to not get caught up in the drama around me, which is also hard not to do. Lastly it reminds me not to take myself too seriously and to be humble and to treat all with respect.  I hope it also inspires you.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock

March 1, 2012-Volume 61: “Debbie Downer” is no more (I took a dose of my own medicine)

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 61: “Debbie Downer” is no more (I took a dose of my own medicine)

So maybe I said the blog was on hiatus, but I decided I still have lots to say and luckily I have rediscovered my sense of humor.  I could have called the blog the B*tch is Back, but I am really not one of those (except when forced into it). I also could have called it the very lengthy title of “How I Realized that I am a Woman of Incredible Strength and Awesome Problem Solving (when I am not on the defense)”.  After a rough two months I admit I was beaten down with no reserves and I had become my own worst nightmare-a “Debbie Downer” pessimist always talk about negative crap person.  How I snapped out of it is the focus of this blog.  But first……….

My WTF of the week is the fact that my Kinda Gay Husband has gone straight. After 17 years of friendship, I am now a relationship advice giver and sounding board about my Kinda Gay Husband’s relationship with A WOMAN.  As we are talking I am thinking wait a minute we are supposed to be talking about the latest entertainment gossip, or the Housewives and Bravo programming or what clothes you recently purchased or what new movie or music we like. There are no books to help me handle this new transition. I looked up titles like When Your Gay Husband Decides to Swing the Other Way, Divorcing Your Gay Husband or Am I Still a Hag? But alas, since there are no tomes of advice, I am on my own.  Really, I am handling it well and only want him to be happy.  And I give pretty good relationship advice and truly want it to work out for him. But I squirm a little when the intimate details are discussed (and do I need to hear about the piercing thing--my ears are burning). Please don’t be mad person about whom I am speaking who reads my blog because you are family to me.

This week I can’t get enough of Lana Del Rey. Who cares if her real name is Elisabeth Grant or that she comes from an uber-wealthy NYC family.  Her Born to Die album is completely awesome and her contralto voice is mesmerizing. I am singing several of her songs now. Plus she has a 60’s Nancy Sinatra/Jane Fonda vibe and wears some amazing vintage clothes. And her hair is in that wave I recently attempted at my women’s event.  Ok, so maybe I am just a little envious because her wardrobe is Ba-nanas and I would love to be able to sing like her.   Check out her YouTube videos and download some songs and then admit it-you want to be her or be with her.  Also I just heard a rumor that Trader Joe’s is gracing our hamlet of Columbia, SC with their presence. I actually yelled and jumped up and down like a giddy school girl as my child screamed “mango mochi” when I heard this.  First Whole Foods, then Trader Joe’s, we have arrived!

This year has been no picnic. As things blew up and fell down around me, much of it out of my control, my energy was sapped. Pair that with not getting much sleep or much food and you end up with a person in survival mode.  In survival mode you are just trying to get from one day to the next. In survival mode you have no reserves, you are depleted. It is like you are raw and everything affects you. It is difficult to think clearly and rationally and allow your cognition to lead you to a better place. In survival mode you hunker down to protect yourself, which means disappearing for a while and disengaging. You have no energy for socializing or being involved or connected to others. And for some, survival mode means we sometimes vent all the crazy and emotional stuff that is going on. If we don’t vent, we explode or implode.  The release that venting brings gets us through to the next day. So, survival mode is where I have lived for the past 9 weeks. And I have found that it is possible to be in survival mode and still be growing personally, although I am not sure how I was pulling that off.

The problem with survival mode and the rawness of that emotional time and the venting is that you become, or I became, a Debbie Downer. When I did talk to people all I did was talk about all the negative stuff going on in my life. Maybe because it was really difficult to find positive things to talk about.  Interestingly, I am usually a really optimistic and positive person who can typically laugh at my situation. I can find the humor in the tragic. But I learned when things get really bad, you lose your ability to laugh at things or let them roll off your back. I am a person who complains about people who are downers and who are pessimistic and only talk about bad stuff and take a “isn’t my life horrible” attitude. And yet, in the midst of my crisis, I became one. And have now learned that sometimes, being a Debbie Downer is unavoidable.  But what I also learned is that there has to be an end to it, a way out of it, and you have to gather yourself and get out the other side. And that is what I did.

About 9 days ago or so, I hit the wall. The wall caused me to give up, throw up my hands and surrender to the Universe and to God that I was powerless.  And it was in that surrendering that I found a way out.  All of a sudden I saw a way to solve the issues at hand and my rational; problem solving resourceful self was back. The solution is going into place next week and I think it will be a good thing for my daughter and me, even though I gave up time with her.  I got to a solution and saw my way through the forest because I focused on what I could control, stopped feeling sorry for myself, and stopped seeing myself as a victim under attack. These are all the things I work with clients to do, and yet, for weeks, I was not doing them myself. I regained my power because I shut down my emotional self, took lots of breaths, and popped into my rational brain, and that brain tends to work well, even under stress.  

Now that I am back and not in survival mode all the time (some days are still rough), I can focus on thriving. That means once again thinking about myself, my place in the world, in what I want to be involved and how I want to reconnect with people and the community.  And for me, it is also time to ask myself the ongoing question of how to do all these things as a differently abled person, which presents different challenges. That part of myself I cannot deny or ignore. I am not sure what this next phase will look like. I just know it will look different. Hopefully it will be surprising in a good way.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock