Visualeyes

       I can't believe a whole month has gone by since I last blogged! Here's the list of reasons why...um rationalizations...um...excuses:

• A few days after the last post, I went to the beach for a week and we had no Internet access- we hardly had cell phone reception. ( yeah, that excuses me until about June 20th. )
• I realized that I had to do some MAJOR writing to have my manuscript at least solidly first drafted before I leave for the national SCBWI-LA conference in order to perfect my pitch for agents. (yeah...pfftt - that's a "raspberry sound" in case you don't recognize my spelling.)
• We had the 4th of July weekend.
•  I'm still working on perfectly the manuscript that had to be totally rewritten after my writers' group critique.

• I've been lazy. (Okay, that's probably the truest.) 
•  I couldn't think of something good to write about.

Anyway, today I found something to write about.


       Since the beach trip- where I took my newly purchased white cane to practice using it- I have been using my cane more and more. I'm feeling more comfortable out in public walking with it and some friends have said, "hey, you walk more confidently now that you're not constantly watching out for stuff to trip on or bump into!"

       Today, I was out shopping with a good bud of mine. We were walking along the sidewalk of an outdoor shopping mall, heading to lunch, when a man suddenly appears next to us and says: "Hey! Have you heard the good news? God heals the blind!" Now my friend tells me he was sitting at a cafe table, talking to someone sitting with him AND talking on his cell phone when he saw us. He jumped up to come over and speak, so to me, that implies there wasn't a lot of forethought going on! This was impulse proselytizing at it's worst [and I am not a fan of proselytizing at all] but he picked the wrong cookie! This is a woman who "encouraged" her city to replace the broken-up, uneven sidewalk near her home. [got it done within 3 weeks] This is a woman who sent letters to all of the executives and Board of Directors of the local mass transit organization to "encourage" them NOT to eliminate the bus routes she needed to get around the city, and cited  the Americans with Disabilities Act. [And they did save the routes (well parts of them.]


No, that man, who thought he had a poor blind woman on his hands who would jump at the thought that a higher power would remove her vision loss, made a big mistake.


I turned to him, put my mad-teacher-face on, stuck out my finger and said, "DON'T GO THERE MISTER! DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" [it always worked well on 4th graders :-D ]

There must have been something in my face that convinced my friend to take my elbow and urge me to continue crossing the walkway, rather than let me go after him. I wanted to tell him he was being totally rude and offensive. I wanted to tell him that religious solicitations using someone's disability was not good karma. I really wanted to take my cane, which is 52 inches long, and which wasn't too far from his feet and suddenly raise it toward heaven- maybe 2 feet off the ground- and smack him where it hurts! Then I could tell him that maybe he could ask for healing too! (Yeah, I know that wouldn't bring good karma either.)


But I didn't....... because unlike that man, I have a bit of class. And while I have done some stupid things in my life, I am not afflicted with terminal stupidity. 


Let this be a lesson to all wish to proselytize to this woman. Think before you speak....or else you better wear some protection!

Visualeyes 16

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

I am still in Boston, visiting with my mom who is still in the hospital after 2 surgeries in one day, excessively low blood pressure, and needing two units od blood to stabilize her.... and we're keeping our fingers crossed that today will be the day she can be sent to the rehab center- that's physical rehab, not substance abuse, although I'm getting closer to the substance abuse myself with all this sitting around in the hospital!

This past week, as Mom was leaving for the first of two surgeries in ONE day, I was trying to quickly gather up her stuff, not knowing if she'd come back to the same room. I was looking for her glasses but couldn't see them. I asked the nurse- we'll just call her Nurse CrankyPants- if she knew where they were. She pointed to the nightstand and said "over thayer[thick Bahston ahccent].  I still couldn't find them so I asked again. She got snarky with me and said,"they're right there, don't you see them???" Well, being the gentle soul that I am, and a believer in tolerance-for-all, I turned to her, smiled and replied: " I'm sorry but I don't see well. I'm losing my vision, I'm going blind![smile]"  Nurse CrankyPants suddenly became less snarky, grabbed hold of my arms and apologized. Lesson learned. Changing someone's view is always a good feeling :-)

So happy day to you and remember to count your blessings. It could always be worse. Think I'll go eat some chocolate now.......

Write From the Soul 15 (and some Visualeyes too.)

Breathe...inhale...exhale. Breathe...inhale...NO! Don't hold your breath, remember to exhale. Breathing is cleansing.

I don't know about you but in my family, the women, when under stress, tend to only half breathe. We hold our breath for some reason. Sure, we know the breathing will help release the stress, but there's soooo much stress that it's almost as if our heads say "don't take another breath and you won't have to deal with new stressors."
Yeah, right.

'Cause if you're not breathing, you're not alive and if you're not living, you sure don't have more stress! (How wacked out is THAT!!!)

My mom has been in the hospital in Boston for almost a week. She fell, broke her kneecap in half, and needed surgery. Before that could be done, it was discovered she needed a pacemaker too. Because she takes a blood thinner from previous heart surgery, they couldn't operate until the blood was "thick" enough.  That took 3 days. As a result, she had a pacemaker implanted on Wednesday at 8 AM and knee repair surgery at 6 PM the same day. Now 2 surgeries in one day would be wearing for a 20 year old, difficult for a 40 year old. Try 80 year old!

There were many prayers ascending for her yesterday.

Top that off with my trying to get a flight from Atlanta to Boston with only a 4 day notice, without having to ransom anyone. Oh yeah, the East Coast was due for a big Nor'easter storm.

Still thinking it's not too stressful? Well add in that my sister and her family were scheduled to go out of town next week for school break, and still don't know if they'll make it. Sure, I came in for 2 weeks to "be on patrol" as my sister and i call watching over a parent in the hospital [don't always trust those docs and nurses since they have too many patients to attend to] but I can't drive any more! Can you say "buy a taxi for a week?"

Surgeries went well but mom is in mucho pain now with the knee. So in between morning and afternoon visits to the hospital, we are checking out rehab facilities because they want to move mom to one tomorrow or Saturday (which is manageable for me while family is out of town.)

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that there are other health issues going on in the family currently and it's kind of creepy staying in my mom's house/condo alone without her there. Doesn't make for restful sleep.

Did I mention I'm flying back to Atlanta for the SpringMingle Writers' conference the weekend of 2/26-28 and then turning around and flying back to Boston for 10 days?

Then I have to fly back to Atlanta on March 13th because the Foundation Fighting Blindness VisionWalk is on the 14th and I can't miss that.

Of course, I need time to get my taxes done and I'm due back in Boston for Passover at the end of March.

Now can you spell S-T-R-E-S-S???????

Breathe Gail.... inhale AND exhale. Again.

Visualeyes 15

In my last Write From the Soul post, I talked about visiting a friend's goat farm on Thursday. I left out some other animals we encountered. Kay and Glen have two huge, and I do mean humungous, dogs named Smith and Wessen. Wessen didn't give two hoots about us, but Smith was gentle and sweet and did I mention huge???? As you can see in the photo, Smith was the size of a small horse only with long, shaggy hair.
She is a Pyrenees Mountain Dog (I think I got the breed correct) and if she stood up on her back legs, she'd

be taller than me! What's so marvelous about this photo to me is that I am truly
comfortable with her. That amazes me because prior to two years ago, I was afraid of huge dogs and up until about 6 months ago, I didn't really care for dogs at all. A little back story...... As a child I was stocky and not very athletic, and I had to outrun a greyhound, the dog, not the bus! Now the dog was long and lean, and built for speed so you can imagine how motivated my stocky legs were to run their hardest! The only reason I managed to escape being a greyhound munchie snack was I'd  had a good head start. As a result, most of my life, I was afraid of big dogs. They, of course, always seemed rather fond of me. This led me to not really liking any dogs. I tended to look at them with disdain as if I couldn't find the time to even give them a pat. (Yeah, I wasn't fooling any of the dogs, just keeping myself from from panic.)

Six months ago, I started giving some thought to losing more of my sight and what that would mean. I decided rather than always walk around with a cane, I'd prefer to have a guide dog. Of course, it's difficult to convince a guide dog school that you're a candidate if you don't like dogs:-)
That started my campaign to learn to like dogs. I've made a concerted effort to interact with dogs since then. I admit that really huge ones, like Smith, still give me pause occasionally, but I can safely say that I'm no longer afraid and I appreciate their companionship and their love for their humans.

So..... a picture of me and a big ol' dog is quite an accomplishment. Thank goodness,these dogs aren't used as guide dogs. I have a feeling that the only way I could walk around with this guy is if I were riding him, not holding a harness. Not a pretty image!

Visualeyes 12

This has been a busy week in preparation for tomorrow's meeting. It is the kickoff for The Foundation Fighting Blindness Atlanta Chapter annual fundraiser called VisionWalk. This is the 4th year for this walk and it's my 3rd year participating.This year is different from the others for several reasons:

1. I am a co-captain of the Support Group Team, one of the largest teams. In the past, I have been a team of one.
2. I am a chapter Board  Member now (yeah, fancy title that comes with business cards but it really just means I've become active in the group so they add me to the Board. Oh, and you have to print out your own business cards!)
3. This year, my vision has gotten worse so I'm aware of the need for fundraising more than before.

The other co-captain, Jim, and I decided to add a motto to our team T-shirts. Since the organization is the Foundation Fighting Blindness, I kind of went with that fighting theme. The Support Group tries to promote public awareness of retinal degenerative conditions as well as supporting research and helping people deal with their challenges. I put those together and came up with SPAR. It stands for Support, Public Awareness, Research. Our motto is: Come SPAR with us in the fight against blindness.
Okay, so it's a little corny but it worked better using SPAR than RAPS or RASP or ASP-R or RSPA. Trying writing a motto with those words!

I have never really felt comfortable doing fundraising and asking people for money. But now that I don't drive, I equate it to asking people for rides places. I can't always get to where I want to by myself, so I have to ask for help. The worst thing someone can  say is "sorry, I can't give you a ride today" and I'm not any worse off. I have to find a bus or take a taxi. Sometimes, though someone says SURE or GLAD TO HELP and if I hadn't asked them, it wouldn't have happened.

It's the same in asking for donations for the VisionWalk. Sure, some people I ask will say no or I can't right now, but some will say YES. And if I don't ask, it doesn't happen. That means research doesn't happen, that means treatments and cures aren't found, and mostly, that means more of us will go on losing sight and becoming blind. And I'm not giving up my sight without a fight.

So friends and followers, and friends of followers, I'm asking all of you if you'd be willing to help me out and thousands of other people, including children. If you'd like to make a donation- and any amount is gratefully accepted- you can do so online at: www.fightblindness.org/goto/gailhandler
If you'd rather you can send a check to: Foundation Fighting Blindness
                                                            4600 Marriot Dr, Suite 340
                                                            Raleigh, NC27612
Just put my name in the memo line of the check so our team gets the credit towards our goal.
Thanks in advance to those who can contribute. And for those who can't, don't worry about it. It was worth asking. :-)

Visualeyes 6

It will be hard to top my last post! I just loved all those reasons to be happy without a car :-) Although I suspect the day the car gets sold and goes away permanently(gulp) will be an emotional day, I am trying to embrace this new phase with "vigor." The dictionary gives the following definitions for vigor:

1. Physical or mental strength, energy, or force.

2. The capacity for natural growth and survival

3. Strong feeling; enthusiasm or intensity.

4. Legal effectiveness or validity.

 

I think I've really picked the exact word for my actions. I'm heading to the mass transit office (not right this second, but next week on Monday) to obtain a monthly pass for those with disabilities. While I don't classify myself as "disabled," legally I am, so I'm taking advantage of the 40% savings. Who wouldn't prefer to pay 90 cents instead of $2.00 for a bus/train ride? A monthly, unlimited rides bus pass is usually $60, but now I can get 40% off that. (You do the math, percentages make me goofy.) There's definitions #1 and 4 in place.

 

As for #3, well, I'm taking on the city of Dunwoody. On their web site, there's a place to suggest city repairs. The sidewalk between my condo and the the street I must walk on in order to get the bus has many cracked sections and parts where the sidewalk has dropped lower. Twice I have twisted my ankle in walking over this area. So I've put in a repair ticket today suggesting it needs to be fixed soon. The ticket has a place to list the level of importance for the repair- low, medium, high, critical. I started out with high trying to be fair to all the other tickets I assumed were out there. But by the time I finished writing the description and mentioned that someone I knew HAD fallen there and broke an ankle, plus the fact that when I begin to use a white cane, the tip can get caught resulting in falling, I decided the need was definitely critical. Well it is to me!!! So we'll see if the city follows through on this issue. They don't know me yet, but I have a tendency to be persistent about things that matter to me. Yeah, yeah, I hear some of you out snickering and saying "you mean obsessive, don't you?" You use your words and I'll use mine. OK? Fine.

Definition #2 is the most important of the four to me. I am all about survival and for me, survival means I need to grow. This journey can be frustrating and painful and makes you want to scream sometimes. But in the end, I either grow and make the necessary changes and adapt, or just become a hermit and stay in my jammies all day, everyday. While staying in your jammies doesn't sound so bad, I'm the kind of person who needs to be out doing SOMETHING every day. I don't have to go shopping, but I do need to go somewhere, even if it's just for a walk. I get "cabin fever" in record-setting time. So the second definition of vigor is the one I like the best. Onward blind voyagers with vigor!!!!  Okay, I took literary license there, I'm not blind yet but would it has sounded as good if I'd said" onward voyagers with limited vision, with vigor"????? I don't think so.