Earlier this week I fell and fractured my heel. I am using a walker during my recovery and my dog guide is on vacation. That is background for this post. I have written a lot about my travels with dog guides. This week I feel it is important to write some things about how we travel without dogs.
I answer a lot of questions from people who want to know how their newly blind relative can get a dog. So first, a dog guide is not the first way that a blind person learns to travel. Guide dog schools require that a person have the ability to travel first without the dog and be able to orient themselves in the environment before ever getting the dog. This is because the person will need to give the dog directions about where to go. So the person has to use their senses of hearing, position in space, and even the feel of the ground under their feet to determine what is happening in the environment and where they are. People also use their sense of smell to identify landmarks like bakeries and coffee shops, and some of us use our remaining sight to identify things that are familiar to us. (They don’t look the same as they do to you, and we are aware of this.)
Many people choose never to get a dog and that is perfectly fine. I think often people assume that a dog is the most important part of independence for people who are blind. A dog is a choice, but it is the blind person’s own ability that makes independence happen. The dog adds certain characteristics to it that I will discuss another day.
When we learn to travel without dogs, we use canes. These are not support canes like what you might see older people using. There is nothing wrong with our legs or balance, and support canes will not help us. What we use is a cane that is long and narrow. It is for feeling the area in front of us in a back and forth motion. We are not using it to push things out of the way, so if you see it coming please don’t rush to get out of the way. It is just for knowing what is there. It will touch what is in front of us and tell us that we need to make a change in our direction to avoid something. If we touch you we will go around.
The cane also tells us when there are steps. If we want to go up or down, we stop feeling ahead and go up or down. We may or may not hold the railing, depending on our needs. Many blind people feel very comfortable on steps. We can also use the cane to feel the height of the steps. If we have taken a particular flight of steps in the past, we don’t need to do this again because we already know this information.
Many blind people build maps of familiar spaces in their minds and feel comfortable walking wround with or without their canes. If you see us doing this, it doesn’t mean you need to be afraid. It would be helpful if you tell us when you move the furniture. 🙂
Some blind people use their canes by tapping the area in front of them. This allows the sound of the cane to give them information about the environment. I prefer to keep my cane on the ground so that I have direct information about the whole area immediately in front of me. Echoing sound waves are actually distracting for me.
The other day, when I was working with the person on learning to use the walker, we started out with one without wheels. So I had to lift it, put it down ahead of me, take my step, and repeat. I could do it, but I didn’t like it and felt there were some potential problems for me. I was afraid that I would put it down on something I didn’t know was there in front of me, like an animal or someone else’s foot. I also thought that if I was outside I could easily set it forward and veer off a sidewalk and not have the opportunity to backtrack. It would be a stability nightmare. So I asked for one with wheels.
The person at orthopedics thought the walker with wheels might roll away. It can’t. It only has two wheels. Also, I’ve known a lot of people who used walkers with wheels. None of the walkers ever rolled away.
I am having no problems. The walker is doing the same things for me that a cane would do and also providing me the support that I need in recovery. I have the ability to touch what is in front of me and change my direction if I need to, though I am doing less bumping than anticipated. I feel that if I were to veer and a wheel contacted the edge of the sidewalk outside, I would still have time to adjust course without losing the support.
- Learning From My Younger Self - February 10, 2024
- more reflections on ITD - June 30, 2023
- On travel while at ITD: reflections after day 1 - June 27, 2023
- ITD day 1 - June 27, 2023
- ITD day 1 - June 27, 2023
- Job Descriptions, Inclusivity, and Equity for People with Disabilities - October 15, 2022
- Traveling without a Guide Dog: Experience with Cane and Walker - October 14, 2022
- Disability and Church, Intersection - June 11, 2022
- Review: When Chronic Pain and Illness Take Everything Away - June 11, 2022
- Grammar and Style Resources for Writers - June 9, 2022
