Sarah Blake LaRose

I think I have followed the Institute on Theology and Disability since quite early in their online presence. It has been a dream of mine for quite some time to attend a conference and participate actively. In 2020, I had a paper accepted and looked forward to presenting. The conference was canceled that year because of the pandemic.

This year, I am actually here, and I will do a presentation. It won’t be the one that was accepted in 2020. Perhaps I will resurrect that at some point. Not yet.

This is the first time I have traveled since March, 2020. Perhaps some people are tired of hearing people say this. For me, it really brought home how much the pandemic was a traumatic experience.

I already had a lot of anxiety about travel because of certain things associated with being a person with a disability who is traveling. The pandemic put a new face on these things. Ifelt nearly dysfunctional as I tried to consider how to prepare for my flight. Perhaps this post may be helpful in some way to another person who experiences this or to people who are providing service as we are all learning how to live together again.

I will try to highlight both the positive and the negative as I am traveling. On some days there will be more of one than the other. Today there are unfortunately three negatives that I have had to work hard to handle. This is not a post with three bullet points, so they will be sprinkled amid my other trip narrative.

Many people live with the disability that is seen and hidden chronic health conditions that are not seen. Those hidden chronic conditions are the things that put us at higher risk for COVID and for complications from it. Incidentally, they also put us at risk for complications from other illnesses like the flu. I began my isolation in the fall of 2019 when I had a serious episode of bronchitis. My lung doctor was able to prescribe medication that enabled me to be well enough to make a trip to Pakistan. But after this I only came out of hiding to attend training with my dog guide in January, 2020, and to present a paper in March. Many other people with disabilities also stayed home. Some are still doing so.

There are regulations about traveling with a dog guide in place now that are new since my trips in 2020. Users of service dogs must now fill out a form for the Department of Transportation attesting their dog has been trained for public behavior and disability-related tasks, has proper vaccinations and good health, etc. Some airlines have places for the person to upload the form and some want to see copies at the gate. The process of handling the forms is presenting some people with difficulties.

Today I flew with Southwest, which doesn’t require that forms be uploaded. I did not wait for the form to be requested. At the check-in counter, I said, “Is this where I show my service dog form?” This seemed to make life easier for everyone.

Security check went well. Apparently sometimes the process now is to hoist the entire bag into a giant bin and send it on down. For future flights I plan to request that a person identify themself to me and let me know if and when they are going to open my bag to inspect anything. Nothing went wrong with this process today. The person told me everything they were doing. This is just something that would help me through a very chaotic situation. Often when I fly, I am not accompanied to the gate by a person I know. So I need to maintain as much responsibility over my own bags as anyone else if possible. The airport personnel who provides assistance to me isn’t able to recognize my belongings and determine if anything is not put back as it should be.

Since so many people with disabilities were isolated at home for long periods of time, the community is learning all over how to interact with us.Much of the rhetoric about people with disabilities over the last three years has communicated, either overtly or subtlely, that we are disposable and even burdensome to society. When we travel, the weight of this rhetoric is very heavy. I struggled to figure out how to cram all of my medical equipment, medications, and things I need for a professional presentation into carry-on luggage. Some of it didn’t fit. So what could I put in my checked bag? Some things actually should never go there due to risk of damage.

I have lived much of my life feeling that I can never thank people enough, pay them enough money for helping me, etc. I didn’t realize this was the cause of my severe anxiety until I was getting off the plane and the flight attendant was assisting me with getting my bags out of the overhead bin.

If I had not been traveling with a Seeing Eye dog, one of those bags would have gone under the seat in front of me. This couldn’t happen,

It was not necessary for anyone to assist me with taking my baggage off the plane, but this was done. As the flight attendant lifted my laptop bag on wheels to stack it on top of my other rolling carry-on, which was filled with medication and durable medical equipment, she exclaimed about the weight of my laptop bag at least once and asked in a tone that one generally uses with children, “Do you actually need all this stuff in here???? I mean, if it’s medical equipment, I understand, but…”

Often, at this point in conversations, I simply deflate and apologize for bothering the person. This time I didn’t. It wasn’t anyone’s right to question what I brought or why I brought it. If I had been tall enough, I simply would have removed my bags all by myself and she would never have been bothered.

I said, “That is a personal question. Do you actually need to know?”

“I’m just saying…” she continued.

I’m not sorry for taking up space on her plane or for whatever she thought she needed to do for me. I’ve flown all the way to Pakistan and handled my own bags. I appreciate the help with the overhead bins since I am a short person. But nothing is required because I am blind, and the personal critique of what is in my bags is out of line.

I have found that the way I dress does make a difference in how many of these comments I receive and whether people treat me like a little baby who needs to be handed off. Today I wore jeans and a T-shirt. No matter how nice they are, jeans and a T-shirt never give me a professional air. On the next flight I will be in black pants and a blouse and jacket. It will communicate that these bags belong to a woman with a disability who is a professional transporting what she needs for her professional conduct.

At lunch, someone approached my table and criticized me for having my dog lie quietly beside the booth, saying there wasn’t enough space for people to walk and she might be stepped on. The walkway was wide and the servers moved near my dog easily. Still, I questioned whether I could do anything differently. My tablemates assured me that my dog was behaving well and the other person was the problem. In over 30 years of working with dogs, I have never stopped allowing the sighted person to be the one who knows best, even when I am the one with the knowledge and experience of what is best in a given situation for my dog and why.

My final note concerns simply existing in the world as a person who is at the bottom of the height chart. The bed in this hotel room is so tall that I needed to move another piece of furniture next to it in order to get onto it. The floor is tile, so I cannot guarantee that the piece of furniture will not move while I am getting on or off. This is very dangerous and uncomfortable. I am not below average height, and this problem has nothing to do with disability except that I have threumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, and injuring myself while getting out of bed could end up being pretty painful.

I called the front desk and asked whether all the beds were the same height. If there had been an option to move, I might have re-packed my belongings and taken it. I didn’t have to think about it since all the beds are the same height.

There is simply no reason why a bed needs to be 42 inches off the ground! I will admit that it is extremely comfortable and since I don’t have a bathtub to soak in here I will settle for relaxing in this bed to settle the joint pain.

People have been extremely helpful, especially considering that I may be the only blind person here. The key to getting the help I need is to ask good questions.

My dog is a trooper. We have not had a lot of real working opportunities, so she is getting to really show her stuff. In the airports she showed me every bathroom and every vendor counter. She is attracted by bright lights. She remembers a location if we have been there once and will show it to me again. She is about as eager to put her harness on as a kid is to get a new video game.

I will post recaps of the day’s events while I am traveling. At the end of the week I will be at the NFB convention in Houston. Texas is also my old home, so I hope to see some old friends while I am here.