People in Da Neighborhood!

[Ms. Kathy]

Despite blindness, he can see it all
Source Link: www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/16848240.htm

Posted on Wed, Mar. 07, 2007

Father of Shawnee Mission West’s Dominique Phifer never misses a game.
By CANDACE BUCKNER
The Kansas City Star

Randy Phifer takes small, slow steps and clutches his wife’s arm, ready to watch a basketball game.

He can’t feel his feet or toes anymore, so he ambles along the sideline like a man much older than his 48 years. He may be slower these days, but even arriving 13 minutes after the scheduled tip-off, Phifer finds the bleachers just as the Shawnee Mission West starting five meets at center court.

Great timing. Phifer’s still got it. He knows just when his son, Dominique, is about to play.

The whistle blows. Phifer relaxes. He leans forward from his second row seat, his eyes shut, and listens.

“I don’t want to miss my son’s games. I taught him how to play and this is the result of my effort way long ago,” Phifer says. “Being able to hear it is good enough to me because I can envision just about anything and everything that goes on.”

Phifer wanted to see Dominique break ankles this year, just like he always taught him. But that’s impossible now since Phifer is blind.

The disease happened slowly. Phifer had high blood pressure ever since his first son, Randy Jr., was born. Diabetes runs in the family. Still, Phifer didn’t understand what was happening when his right eye dimmed in 2004. Suddenly, telephone book pages looked blurry. He should’ve visited an ophthalmologist, but he was too busy running to his sons’ practices and games. Instead, Phifer just strengthened his prescription glasses. But months later, his left eye went bad, too.

“He’d come home from work and make a comment that he had trouble seeing,” Dominique says. “So he stopped working at night.”

Four separate times, doctors operated on his eyes but were unsuccessful. Phifer had a progressive eye disease called Diabetic Retinopathy and was blind by the summer of 2006, just a few months before Dominique’s first season as a starter on the varsity squad.

Still, if Phifer has his way, he’ll be at every game, with a yellow mustard fleece and a black Kangol tilted so low that all you can make out his nose and goatee. You gotta admit, the man is still the picture of Harlem Cool.

Phifer has become so keen at listening that he can almost recognize the rhythm of his son’s dribble. For everything else, Phifer needs his friend Matt Heath, who sits over his right ear and gives play-by-play. But on this night inside the SM North gym, Earsaline Phifer has the call.

“Earsaline tries to do it,” Phifer says. “But she substitutes sounds for words.”

So when she shoops like a ’50s doo-wop singer, Phifer knows that his son just crashed to the hardwood.

Phifer may be blind, and of course a little biased, but he thinks Dominique is the best point guard out there. So was R.J. before he graduated last year. Phifer promises they’ll both play professionally one day. He’s been bragging about his boys for years.

“Practically every day,” says former boss Matt Connolly. “I still have his son’s poster board from R.J.’s senior year up on the wall. Not because I put it up there but because he put it up there.”

When R.J. was 5 and Dominique was 3, Phifer had them doing push ups every night. As they grew, he’d take his boys to the nearest court and teach them how to dribble and make layups. He enrolled them in leagues and when his regimented hours at the Housing Authority got in the way of attending their games, Phifer quit that job. He started working as a water filtration salesman with no base salary or insurance.

“It probably wasn’t the best thing for me,” Phifer says, “but it was the best thing for my heart.”

That’s what good fathers do. They sacrifice. Phifer knew that, although his old man wasn’t much for the fatherhood thing. Ernest Phifer owned a Harlem pool hall and enjoyed the nightlife. Phifer can only remember one baseball game of his that his father saw. Phifer vowed to be there for his kids. Blindness hasn’t changed his devotion.

“It’s sad but at least he’s here,” says R.J., who plays at Neosho Community College. “I know he’d rather be watching us but I know it helps me and my brother play hard because we want to come home and tell dad. It just adds to the motivation that he’s already giving us.”

Phifer has slowly accepted blindness. He has a great sense of humor — one day he wants to tell his story through stand-up comedy — and laughs at himself for occasionally cleaning his eye glasses.

At night, instead of doing push-ups like back in the day, Phifer and Dominique read books. They’re working through Sidney Poitier’s The Measure of a Man.

Phifer can’t learn Braille. Besides his feet and toes, he has lost feeling in his fingertips. That’s another part of the disease and the least of his worries.

Phifer must have heart bypass surgery soon. But not until he attends Dominique’s state playoff games starting today in Emporia.

Second row, Kangol low, eyes shut, proud as ever. He’ll be there.

“People think I’m crazy but who knows, surgery is not guaranteed,” Phifer says. “If it’s going to take me out, it’s going to be after the basketball season.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To reach Candace Buckner, sports reporter at The Star, send e-mail to [e-mail]

[Ms. Kathy]

Prosecutor sees justice even though he's blind
BY JASON KANDEL, Staff Writer
LA Daily News
Source Link: Daily News.com www.dailynews.com/news/ci_5415372

Wrapping up the loose ends of a case, veteran prosecutor Phil Wojdak needed to verify a witness' claim of seeing a sexual assault.

So he climbed over the kitchen sink of a Glendale apartment, scooted out the window and scaled the slanted roof to get a better feel for the situation.

With a detective's assistance, Wojdak concluded the witness was reliable. The vantage point was clear.

Such a meticulous re-creation would be less than remarkable for most hard-working prosecutors - just part of the job.

But Wojdak is blind.

"I did it so I could understand it, so I could explain it to a jury," he said of his rooftop exploits, which helped convict a man of sexually assaulting his own son. "I've got to go where the crime happens, I suppose."

For 22 years, Wojdak has worked for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. His current assignment is prosecuting elder abuse, sexual assault, stalking, family violence and hate crimes.

"His blindness doesn't affect him in any way," said Denis Leeds, the clerk in Department H in Pasadena Superior Court, where Wojdak's lizard-skin cowboy boots and diamond-stud earring are a familiar sight. "He's an excellent attorney. He's very aggressive. He's very passionate about his cases."

And while some might see his blindness as a major obstacle, Wojdak, 49, said he thinks it gives him an advantage.

"When the jury sees that the prosecutor is a blind person, I've got their interest," said Wojdak, who belongs to the 200-member National Association of Blind Lawyers.

The Chicago native wasn't supposed to be a lawyer. Had he not lost his eyesight at 16 - a condition linked to his mother's bout with the German measles during pregnancy - he would have followed his father and four brothers into the family's rare-coin business.

"You have to be able to see coins in order to tell if they're real or not," he said.

Although he aspired to a legal career, his blindness made academic work a struggle. He dictated term papers into a tape recorder, then transcribed them on an electric typewriter. He almost dropped out of college because of the pressure.

"I thought, `My God, if I can't do regular college work, how am I going to do my thesis? How am I going to go to law school? How am I going to take the bar?"'

He took a semester off in 1978, and worked for a political action committee, writing summaries of news stories. He later worked for a Superior Court judge, writing a guide on rules for allowing hearsay evidence in court.

Along the way, he became enamored with arguing before a jury.

"I wanted to show an employer that I could be a productive employee," said Wojdak, who graduated from Hastings Law School in San Francisco in 1984.

"That was really, I thought, the most critical thing that a sighted person would want to understand, that if they hired me I could actually produce the product a sighted person could."

Armed with glowing recommendations from professors and a district attorney, Wojdak got a job as a county prosecutor. Over the last 22 years, he's won about 80 percent of his cases, about average for the office.

Glendale Police Officer Tracy Lowrey has worked dozens of cases with Wojdak, including one in which a man was convicted of molesting a 13-year-old neighbor.

Lowrey said Wojdak develops an instant rapport with victims, especially children, making them comfortable with relaying the most intimate details about a crime.

"He's very conscientious about the cases and he loves what he does," Lowrey said.

Planning is key to Wojdak's career. His suits and shirts are color coded, using a system of dog tag-like labels. His ties are arranged on a rack, each described in Braille on a note card kept nearby.

Before a trial, Wojdak paces off the distance from the prosecution table to the court reporter, the jury box and the judge's bench so he can move about with confidence.

"The jury needs to feel confident that the person who's asking them to find someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is someone that they can rely on, who has his own act together enough," he said. "If I look waffley and flaky, then they're not going to find the person guilty based on what I tell them."

Wojdak's computer is equipped with software that reads his e-mails aloud and tells him the letters he's typing.

He has three assistants; they guide him through courthouse hallways, help him keep track of facts, describe prospective jurors.

"Does juror No. 1 seem bored, restless?" said Carly Sutherland, 19, one of the assistants. "If someone doesn't bring a sweater, it indicates that the person doesn't plan ahead."

Despite his organization and professional success, Wojdak doesn't immediately inspire confidence in everyone he meets. One victim wondered aloud whether the blind prosecutor would be able to win a conviction against the men who robbed and raped her in 2004.

"I wasn't sure he could fully represent me as well as someone who could see," said the 20-year-old woman, who works at a Northridge paint store.

After her initial hesitation, she quickly changed her mind. Wojdak listened. He didn't judge. He called occasionally to tell her he hadn't forgotten about her as the case dragged on over two and a half years.

"It was his tone of voice, the words he used," the woman said. "He wouldn't use `rape.' He was very sensitive. He was always asking if I'm OK. He'd never make me feel pressured."

The men were convicted in December.

Defense attorney Jonathan Mandel of Encino, who represented one of the defendants, has a lot of respect for Wojdak.

"I think he's fair and he's always been straight with me," he said. "His ability to synthesize and present information is extraordinary when sight is so important in trial work."

[e-mail]

[phone]

[Ms. Kathy]

Seeing blindness as a new beginning16 April 2007 | 12:24



Richard Lampard running with his support worker Keith Stafford
RICHARD Lampard was sitting at a table chattering to friends when “the lights went out”.

Suddenly completely blind he faced a terrifying future as his world turned upside down.

Today, a year on, JAMES MARSTON tells his inspiring story.

IT started in 2000.


Richard with his guide dog Ivan
Richard was suffering headaches and went to the opticians.

He said: “I thought I needed glasses but they found I had cataracts on both eyes.”

He didn't know it but Richard's eyesight was deteriorating brutally fast.

He said: “The cataract operations didn't really work. I had a lot of tests but they never really found out why my eyes were deteriorating.”


Richard Lampard has had to get used to braille
By 2003 his job as a docker at Felixstowe Docks came to an end. He could no longer see well enough to carry on.

For a while he worked in Whitehouse Enterprises, an Ipswich-based firm specialising in employing adults with disabilities and long term health problems.

Richard, of New Road, Trimley St Mary, said: “I was a key worker there for a while but gave that up in 2006. I have been at the Papworth Trust in Museum Street since.”

In 2006 his eyesight finally failed.

The 44-year-old said: “It was about a year ago. I was sitting at a table and the lights went out. I could see shadows before that.

“I was told it was the next stage of going blind but I didn't know what to do.

“Going blind is not something you can prepare for. It is very hard. It is like going through bereavement. My world had gone completely black and it is the same today.

“It was a quite a vigorous deterioration and no one could help me. They still don't know why it happened and what caused it.

“It is unusual to have no sight at all and it is frightening. For the first two weeks I stayed in my house.”

Always an active man Richard found himself facing a decision.

He said: “It would have been easy to have stayed in and become a recluse but I had to say to myself that I have got to carry on and make the best of it.

“I wasn't sure how I would cope but I wanted to carry on life as best I could. I knew I had to make something of my situation.”

Determined to enjoy life, Richard gradually began to rehabilitate himself and start living his life.

He said: “Ever since I made that decision to life live things have been good. I'm learning things everyday.”

Swimming, running, shooting, Richard, who always enjoyed exercise and fresh air, forced himself to get out of the house and get active.

He said: “The first time I went out alone was very difficult but I put myself into a mood where I didn't care. The majority of people are helpful. I knew I would walk into things and bump into people but I had to do it.

On June 1 last year Richard got his guide dog Ivan. He is also visited twice a week by his support worker Keith Stafford.

He said: “I take Ivan, my guide dog, for a walk every day. I was really lucky. I put my name down and he came up in the first six to eight months.”

Now able to get the bus into Ipswich or Felixstowe, Richard regularly swims at Crown Pools and enjoys running through the country lanes of Trimley.

He said: “I have a mental map in my head and my brain is like a computer. I count steps from places I go to. I go running once a week. Keith is with me and I find running relaxes me.

“It's the only time I can switch off as every other time I have to be aware of what's going on around me.”

A DIY enthusiast Richard, who has a 16-year old son from a previous marriage, is currently redecorating his kitchen and during the summer he is planning to put up a new garden shed.

He said: “It might take longer than it used to but I can still do many of the things I used to do. I do more now that I used to really.”

Currently drawing incapacity benefit, Richard said he would prefer to earn his own living.

He said: “I am 44 and I'd ideally like to go back to full time work. I have twenty years ahead of me and though I might take a bit longer to learn a job there are things I can do.

“I don't want to rely on handouts but each employer I have approached told me they couldn't insure against accidents if they had a blind person working for them.

“I need someone to give me the chance to get back to work.”

Since losing his sight his other senses have compensated.

Richard said: “My ears are now my eyes and my sense of direction has improved. I miss seeing people's facial expressions, a lot of communication is done through body language.

“I have managed to learn Braille and I'm currently studying for IT qualifications in word processing and spreadsheets.

“Someone reads a book to me while I practice my speed at typing. It's also a way for me to enjoy a book.”

Paying tribute to Glenda, his partner of 14 years, Richard said: “It hasn't been easy for her and often when someone goes blind relationships do not last.

“It is very difficult for her that I can't do the things I used to but we have adapted. I wondered how she would cope but she has been a brick.”

Planning to learn ice skating and go bowling Richard has made a decision not to succumb to his disability.

He said: “I'd never really done much running before but I have set myself hurdles to get over which help me grow in confidence.

“I now have to be careful not to take too much on but I want to have a go at trying everything I can. Life is not over yet and in a way going blind is a new beginning.”

Keith has been assigned to Richard as his support worker since August last year.

Keith said: “Richard inspires me and he has a very big heart. He is always achieving new things and his message is that if he can do these things then so can other people.

Richard's world is totally black, which is very difficult, but he wants to make progress. It takes a while but many of the things he found difficult at first are now second nature to him.”

“I'm very lucky to be able to work with him.”

Do you have an inspiring story to tell? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or send us an e-mail to [e-mail]

---

MANY people with serious visual impairments can travel independently assisted by tactile paving and/or using a white cane, the international symbol of blindness.

A long cane is used to extend the user's range of touch sensation, swung in a low sweeping motion across the intended path of travel to detect obstacles.

However, some visually impaired persons do not carry these kinds of canes, opting instead for the shorter, lighter identification (ID) cane. Still others require a support cane.

Each of these is painted white for maximum visibility, and to denote visual impairment on the part of the user.

A small number of people employ guide dogs.

Although the dogs can be trained to navigate various obstacles, they are partially (red-green) color blind and are not capable of interpreting street signs.

The human half of the guide dog team does the directing, based upon skills acquired through previous mobility training.

The handler might be likened to an aircraft's navigator, who must know how to get from one place to another, and the dog is the pilot, who gets them there safely.

Many blind people will accept help, however, make sure that they are aware that you are going to help them, and offer your arm, not your whole body.

Smoking doubles your chances of sight loss in later life.

Source Link: www.eveningstar.co.uk/content/eveningstar/features/story.aspx?brand=ESTOnline&category=Features&tBrand=ESTOnline&tCategory=Features&itemid=IPED16%20Apr%202007%2012%3A24%3A24%3A777

[Ms. Kathy]

Writer-athlete overcomes anger to carry his blindness over obstacles
By Joe Holleman
Source Link: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/everyday/story/DAC4D457952019DC862572C0007A7686?OpenDocument
Wednesday, Apr. 18 2007

Erik Weihenmayer's résumé would be impressive for anyone. But for someone who has been blind since age 13, it is flat amazing. This is just the short form:

• — On May 25, 2001, he became the only blind person to ever reach the summit of
  Mount Everest.
  
  
• — Weihenmayer, 39, also has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and other famous peaks.
  He is an expert rock climber and skier. He has garnered accolades from Time
  magazine and ESPN, and is a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and a
  winner of the Helen Keller Lifetime Achievement Award.
  
  
• — Weihenmayer (pronounced "Wine-mayor") has written two books: "Touch the Top
  of the World" has been published in six languages and spurred an A&E television
  film that aired last year; "The Adversity Advantage" was released in January.
  
  
• — The documentary of his Everest climb, "Farther Than the Eye Can See," won
  awards at numerous film festivals and was nominated for two Emmys.
  
  
  

Recently, Weihenmayer took part in a telephone interview:



When did your blindness occur, and how did you react?

It happened over a period of a couple of years, from about sixth grade to eighth grade. By the time I started high school, I was blind. I had lied to myself while it was happening, but after I went blind, I became very angry and lashed out at people. I refused to use a cane or learn to read Braille. I was pretty much unlikable.

What made you likable?

One day, I was walking along a dock and, refusing to use a cane, I stepped down on what I thought was solid ground. But it was thin air, and I flipped over and landed on my back. It dawned on me that I could go through life falling down stairs and bumping into things, or I could accept the disability I had and become the best person I could be. It was really that simple.

Who was your role model?

My father was a great example for me. I know he wouldn't be offended to hear me say that he is not the biggest genius in the world, but he is the most honest, straightforward person I have ever known. And when my mom died, I watched how my dad got up every morning at 6:30 to get ready for work and lay out everything for the night's dinner, and how he spent all weekend doing laundry and housework. He took care of things.

Climbing seems to be such a visual experience. What rewards do you get?

There are so many things to appreciate. First, there is the quietness of high altitudes. It's really unlike anything on the ground; you can actually hear the quietness. Then there's the crunch of the snow under your boots, and there are different types of snow and they all make different sounds. When I'm climbing on ice, I like taking a glove off and just running my hand along the smooth face.

And you can tell if a part of the mountain is in the sun or the shade by how warm or cool the rock is to the touch. And feeling the sun on your face when you're at the summit is one of the greatest thrills you can imagine.

How does your situation translate to corporate challenges?

I try to show people that adversity is a spark. You can either let that spark go out or you can use it to fuel your actions. And as corny as it sounds, I try to show people how to do things — to have adventures, to overcome adversity — out of love. It's negative to do something just to prove someone wrong.

Once, someone said I couldn't lead a rock-climbing expedition. Well, I was going to show them. I ultimately succeeded, but there was a point when I almost fell off the rock face — "greasing it," climbers call it — and I realized that I was being stupid in simply trying to prove someone wrong. I learned, at least for myself, that you can be stupid and you can be blind. But being blind and
stupid is not a good combination. So, do something because of your own personal goals.

[e-mail]/314-340-8254

[Ms. Kathy]

Brothers don't let blindness keep them from racing

April 23, 2007

Ethan and Caleb Howard are doing quite well on the track.

Ethan, an Oregon Tech junior, is close to qualifying for the NAIA national track and field championships in the men's 5,000-meter race walk.

Caleb, a Lakeview senior, currently has the top Class 2A 1,500-meter time in Oregon. He also has the second fastest 800 and sixth-best 3,000 this season.

That's not bad, considering both are legally blind.

“We have a genetically linked form of juvenile macular degeneration,” Ethan Howard said. “The name for it is Stargart's disease. Somewhere back a ways (in the family), somebody had it.”

Ethan was diagnosed while a freshman in high school. His younger brother was in elementary school.

“I can see peripherally,” Ethan said. “To go and see something, to focus on it directly, it's cloudy. Neither of us can drive. It's what got us into running.”

The elder of the two played high school football. They still play a little catch, but nothing serious.

“I can catch a football, but I can't read a chalkboard. When I read books, I have to get closer to the pages,” Ethan said, bringing his hand to within inches of his eyes to demonstrate his reading distance.

“We're legally blind, but far from being completely blind. I tell friends they'd be surprised at what I can see and what I can't see.”

Males usually have lesser degrees of the disease than females, and neither's degeneration has gotten worse since it was diagnosed.

“We have both handled it differently,” Caleb Howard said. “I was determined to not let it get me down. I've had more time to adapt, and my teammates have been really understanding.”

So have Ethan's.

It has taken the OIT junior time to get used to being told, on road trips, that it was his turn to drive. Several OIT athletes said that was their way of letting him know he was part of them.

“You just don't let it bother you,” Caleb said.

“We got mixed answers from doctors, but we were told to avoid a lot of sunlight,” Ethan said. “It was also suggested we use visual aids, but we have tried to adapt to the rest of the world as best we can so we don't have to use many visual aids.”

Distance running has become a friendly athletic outlet for the youngest of three brothers. Jacob, the oldest, does not have the disease.

“Marla Runyon (a world-class female distance runner) had the exact same disorder, except that her vision was a little worse than ours,” Ethan said.

Getting around town is not as difficult as it may seem, either. Both get plenty of help from friends.

“Plus,” Caleb said, “Lakeview is so small that you can get anywhere by bike. I would like to stay in Lakeview. I've had to choose things I can do and am thinking about pharmacy.

“Both of my parents (Jeff and Melinda) are, plus my grandpa and great-grandpa both were pharmacists,” the youngest Howard said, adding that Jacob also is in the business.

That's a vision he can hang onto.

- Steve Matthies

Source Link: Herald and News: Klamath Falls, Oregon www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2007/04/23/news/sports/sports1.txt

[Ms. Kathy]

Poet's vision belies his blindness David Simpson, blind since birth, has been named poet laureate of Montgomery County.
By Lea Sitton Stanley
For The Philadelphia Inquirer
Source Link: www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/montgomery/nabes/20070429_Poets_vision_belies_his_blindness.html

The night they named David Simpson poet laureate of Montgomery County, his mother showed up.
So did his twin brother, Dan. When it was all over, Miriam Dell bought each a book from a vendor at Arcadia University, where Simpson was feted April 13. Then she turned to Joanne Leva, founder and director of the laureate program, and poet Carolyn Forche, celebrity judge for this year's competition.

"I don't know why they want books," Dell said. "They both have so many of them, and they can't read them."

Leva's laughter rippled through the phone last week as she told the story. Simpson and his brother have been blind since birth. The mother's grousing trumpeted triumph, not exasperation.

Lack of vision hasn't meant lack of gumption for David Simpson. Now 55, he retired from Verizon in November 2003, after 21 years in mainframe database design. For a quarter-century, he has sung baritone with the Mendelssohn Club, a prominent choral force in Philadelphia, and in December he made his acting debut with the city's Amaryllis Theatre.

"He's really serious about living," said Leva, also awed by the fact that Simpson has to "describe things he has never seen."

"I have not allowed myself to get old," Simpson said at his Glenside home.

A burly man, just over 6 feet with a silver-streaked braid that trails off at the shoulder blades, he dominated his small study. He was seated in an office chair that swiveled, and his fingers skipped up and down the traditional keyboard on his lap, commanding a computerized voice that rapidly fired off the contents of his computer as he searched for poems to share.

Occasionally, he swiveled around to the braille keyboard at his left to help out. A Casio keyboard sat at his right elbow.

"I decided later in life that I really wanted to write, and kind of by accident," Simpson was saying. An engaging man, he tells his life in anecdotes. This one was about an old girlfriend taking a night course at Temple University, the Voice Within. Her experience took him to the Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.

That was 1993. Within two years, the man who had considered himself "not good enough" to be an English major as an undergraduate at Bucknell University dropped to part time at Verizon and entered New York University to earn a master's in creative writing.

"I just took a sleeping bag up there and slept on classmates' floors," Simpson said. "I was 43 . . . 'old enough to be my father,' " one classmate told him.

"Something like only 30 percent of blind people are gainfully employed," he remembered thinking at the doorstep of the program. "Do I really want to ditch my job? What am I going to do after the two-year program?"

Looking at his life, it would be harder to imagine him not ditching the job. Passion gripped him and, as in the past, he ached to chase after the new challenge relentlessly.

Simpson, who labels himself "competitive," first plied ambition at age 14 when he and his brother nudged their parents into letting them leave the Overbrook School for the Blind for junior high in the Great Valley School District.

"That was one of the first key decisions that I made," he said.

After that it was Bucknell, where, as a freshman Spanish major, he started skipping his

9 a.m. Spanish class to eat Lancaster County pretzels and drink rum-and-cokes with a pal who was "playing me all this choral music."

"It just turned my whole life around," said Simpson, who took a double major in Spanish and music and, later, a master's in organ performance from Westminster Choir College. But a year of organ study in Paris with a master convinced him that "I was good, but I wasn't going to be international."

So he became a computer guy at what was then Bell Atlantic.

"Music and poetry and computer languages are all symbolic languages," he said.

Now, he has become a poet, with an unpublished manuscript and the mantle of county laureate. As usual, he questions whether he is "good enough" for the honor. But that doesn't stop him from asking what he can accomplish in the next year.

He hopes to conduct snippet interviews with area poets and post them online. And he'd like to get into the schools.

"I want students to realize that language matters," Simpson said. "I want them to know the pleasure and the excitement that I've had with words."

Poetry, Simpson said, keeps people alive by sharpening the senses.

"I think we need to be in the moment," he said. "I want people to be alive."

---

Volta
Write this sonnet out. Write it in braille,

Then sweep your fingers down through all its lines

To know its shape, the way someone who's blind

Would come to know it: intimate, tactile.

Let it be a topographical map

Where dots are mountains of two mountain ranges

And the space between is where a river rages,

Cutting a gulf of longing, long and deep.

Or, let it be a circuit, wires hot

With logic whose bright voltage seeks to span

Enjambed lines of poetry. But not

Forever. Fourteen lines. That's the plan.

No more. It tunes us for what lies beneath:

The sonnet of our first to final breath.

- David Simpson

[Ms. Kathy]

Inland man brings hope to the blind
Source Link: PE.com (The Press Enterprise) Southern California News for Inland www.pe.com/lifestyles/stories/PE_Fea_Daily_H_blindawareness0514.3f1cd9f.html#
10:00 PM PDT on Sunday, May 13, 2007

By LAURIE LUCAS
The Press-Enterprise

Pete Benavidez has lost most of his sight, but friends and colleagues praise him as visionary.

He has taken Blind Support Services, Inc. (BSS) from its inauspicious beginnings as a referral service in a community center and a $5,000 budget to a building in Riverside it now owns, a staff of 14, a $1 million budget and programs that reach more than 1,000 Inland clients. And Benavidez is its CEO.

In the last 15 years, all this -- independent living skills, travel, mobility and orientation training, counseling, health and fitness, peer support, computer classes, job services, a seniors' and a children's program -- has blossomed since Benavidez leapfrogged to executive director after two years of volunteering for the private nonprofit agency.

"Pete knows how to make things happen," says Alice Hackney, a training coordinator for blind field services with the state department of rehabilitation. "He changed the old model of dorm living to apartment living where clients would come home and use the skills they'd learned."

As a result, there are four such residential-based programs for the blind and visually impaired in California, she says.

For the next five days during Blind Awareness Week, a program Benavidez launched six years ago, more than 225 participants wearing blindfolds will experience what it's like to live in a world of shadows. They'll listen to movies, learn how to navigate with a white cane, use the bus, read, write and transcribe Braille, coordinate a wardrobe, locate common household objects and work on a computer.

Photo Link: www.pe.com/imagesdaily/2007/05-14/blindawareness0514b_1_400.jpg
David Bauman / The Press-Enterprise

Nearly blind himself, Pete Benavidez says, "I don't want people to fear blindness." That's why he began Blind Awareness Week six years ago, and has pushed for more programs for the visually impaired.

Walter Cabrera, 41, who owns Emily's Paint and Body Shop in Riverside, says he benefited from BSS after losing his sight six years ago.

One of the most valuable things he learned was how to chop and cook food: "On camping trips with friends, they'd joke that the blind guy is the only one who doesn't hurt himself using a knife."

It's not the end of the world to lose your vision, he says, but the beginning of a different world.

'I Tried to Deny It'

Benavidez, 48, has an inherited, progressive and incurable disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which has slowly destroyed most of his sight. All that's left is about 20 percent of his peripheral vision.

But for more than 30 years, "I tried to deny it," he admits. "To be honest, I fooled myself and I tried to fool the world."

At an early age, he began losing his night vision, but wasn't diagnosed until his 20s.

Photo Link: www.pe.com/imagesdaily/2007/05-14/blindawareness0514a_1_400.jpg
David Bauman / The Press-Enterprise

Pete Benavidez, chief executive officer with Blindness Support Services, Inc. in Riverside, has only about 20 percent of his sight.
"I couldn't see fences or stumps in the dark," he recalls. "Deep down, I knew something was the matter. I was trying to pretend nothing was wrong."

Still, he managed to graduate from UC Riverside in 1982 with a degree in sociology.

The worst problem was dating. Benavidez invented elaborate ruses to fool women whom he was courting into believing he could see. Because he couldn't drive, he'd invite his date to meet him at a club or restaurant. He'd arrive early to memorize the layout. At the end of the evening, he'd promise to call his date, and then he'd run around the corner to catch the last bus home.

"I could only pull that off for so long," he says.

He seemed to fare better in his job of five years in support services for Riverside County's Department of Community Action. In 1990, he was hired as a mental health worker with troubled youths. But while crossing a busy street, he was pinned between two cars. He wasn't badly hurt, but was considered "a danger to himself" and let go.

He bit the bullet and collected Supplemental Security Income while volunteering at the fledging BBS from 1993 to 1995.

"He built it from scratch," says Cynthia DeSoto, 48, the agency's director of resource management.

Breaking Stereotypes

During a recent interview in his office, Benavidez shows off some blind-friendly technology: his talking wristhingych, talking phone, talking computer program, talking scanner and closed-circuit TV. The agency owns two cars he can use with a driver. "I'm waiting for the car that drives itself," he jokes.

If he doesn't catch a ride to work with a friend, it takes him an hour by bus.

He is separated from his wife of 12 years, with whom he has two sons, Raymond, 23, and Adam, 15. Benavidez says neither one inherited his eye disorder. He is also father to his wife's nephew, Noel Wilson, 16, whom the couple has raised.

"I felt bad about not being able to carry the load of husband," Benavidez admits. "Some blind people can fix things."

He also says it was "tough with his sons. I tried to play catch with them. They understood it's difficult. But what hurt most was that I couldn't drive."

Despite his success at expanding BBS, Benavidez says he has a long way to go: "Seventy to 75 percent of the visually impaired are unemployed." He mentions a few success stories of program graduates. One's a casino supervisor, another a FedEx office worker, others are teachers.

Which brings him back to Blind Awareness Week.

"I don't want people to fear blindness," he says. "I want to break down stereotypes of the blind guy shaking the coffee can ... I want the public to think of blind people as lawyers, doctors and CEOs."

Blind Awareness Week

Organizer: Blindness Support Services, Inc.

What: Educate and immerse the community in blindness. Open to the public

Where: 3696 Beatty Drive, Suite A, Riverside

When: Tuesday-Saturday

Cost: Free

A Day at the Movies 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesday

Initiation into Blindness 9 a.m. -noon or 1-4 p.m. Wednesday-Friday

Blind-Sighted Miniature golf tournament 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Castle Park, 3500 Polk St., Riverside

What: Visually impaired/blind students will challenge-sighted participants who will play blindfolded.

Cost: $250, $500 or $1,000 sponsorships

Information: 951-341-9244 or 951-341-6334

Fax: [phone]

[Ms. Kathy]

I saw this young man on Oprah's show. He reminds me of a couple of students I had who wwere blind from the same condition. I also had a few multi-disabled children who had this ability--some for survival as they were fairly neglected at home

A Teen Who Sees With Sounds

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Sept. 6, 2006.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS) At Sheldon High in Sacramento, Calif., 14-year-old Ben Underwood is a freshman like all the rest — well not exactly like all the rest. In his first week at school, a lot of people at the school haven't guessed that Ben has a secret.

You probably couldn't figure it out watching him in combat at karate class … or hitting his mark in a pillow fight … or zipping down the street on his roller blades. But in class, you'll notice that Ben takes his notes in Braille. He is totally blind. His piercing brown eyes are made of plastic. He says he lost his site two weeks before his third birthday.

Ben had cancer in both eyes. But he discovered a way to beat his blindness. When he was about 6, he started "clicking," and quickly realized that the sound he made with his tongue bounced off things around him, giving him an idea what was there.

CBS News correspondent John Blackstone says it's amazing to walk with Ben and discover what he can "see" with his ears.

"There's a fire hydrant on this side," Ben says a few clicks into their walk. "And a car on this side. Wait, is that, no, that's a trash can or a, hold on, let me see." After some more clicks: Ben walks up to a recycling can. "That's a trash can," he says, laughing as he gives it a kick. "A trash can or recycling bin, one of those."

Ben has much the same talent as the dolphins he visited at Sea World: the ability to use echolocation — returning sound waves — to sense his surroundings.

His clicks even told him to step around a fallen trash bin, amazing Blackstone. "I don't know how you do that," he says.

But the secret to Ben's success goes beyond his clicks.

His mother, Aquanetta Gordan, insists he should have every opportunity — but no pity.

"Why should he get a break — I can't get a break," she says.

Not even because he's blind?

"No, he's not," she says with a laugh. "I mean, to society he's blind, but that doesn't make him handicapped. He just can't see."

Aquanetta has always told Ben he can do anything.

"Once he said to be, 'Mom, I wish I could see.' And I said, 'But Ben, look at what you can do' I said, 'If we had a blackout right now, everybody would have to follow you.'"

Ben admits that during his first few days at high school, he got lost a couple of times. But, he says, so did every other freshman.

The more Ben manages to be ordinary … the more it's clear that he's extraordinary.


Source link: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/06/eveningnews/printable1977730.shtml

[Ms. Kathy]

Here is an update from an article posted on my birthday on the young man, Ben Underwood, from the previous article. Keep him in your prayers as he battles with cancer.

Teenager who sees with sound faces cancer with courage
Gifted insight into survival
By Cynthia Hubert
Sacramento Bee
Monday, August 27, 2007


Photo by Kevin German
Sacramento Bee

Ben Underwood enjoys a lighthearted moment with Marbella Diaz during lunch at T.R. Smedburg Middle School in Sacramento in 2006. Since then, Ben, who is blind and has become famous for "seeing" by sound, has discovered he has cancer.


A triumph of hope, in spite of the precedents
SACRAMENTO — Ben Underwood's braids are long gone.

A thick scar scissors across the top of his bald head, where doctors went in to carve out the cancer in his sinus cavity. A tube for his many medicines is implanted in his upper chest. He slumps in his chair in a Kaiser Permanente waiting room, tired even though he just got out of bed a couple of hours earlier.

Ben's world has flipped. A year ago, it was all about interviews and celebrity and travel. Now, it's all about chemotherapy and blood tests and hospitals.

And survival.

But like just about everything else in his remarkable life, Ben insists the cancer thing is no big deal.

"I'm just gonna kick back and relax," the Elk Grove, Calif., teenager said of his latest setback.

Now 15, Ben lost both of his eyes when he was 3 years old to a cancer called retinoblastoma; he finds his way in the world in a most extraordinary manner.

By clicking his tongue and creating sound waves, he can identify objects in his path and get around safely. Using the technique known as echolocation, along with his keen sense of hearing, he is able to play basketball, skate, ride a bike, tap dance, swim and wrestle, among other things.

He's a whiz at computer games. To the chagrin of some of the adults in his life, he refuses to carry a white cane that would identify him as blind.

Ben's navigational skills, commonly used by bats and dolphins but rarely documented in humans, amaze his doctors and his teachers, but not his mother, Aquanetta Gordon.

"To me, he's just Ben," Gordon said.

Whirlwind of celebrity

During the past year, Ben met Hollywood stars, traveled the country and the world to talk about his life, and was featured dozens of times on national television.

He spoke with musician Stevie Wonder, was featured in People magazine, became an Internet sensation and made an appearance on Oprah Winfrey's show.

No big deal, he said with a shrug.

"She's just like any other older lady, only she's rich," he said of Winfrey.

Ben has come to the hospital today with his mother, his older brother Joe and a family friend.

The brothers continually harass each other, which distracts Ben from his treatment.

"I'm your big brother, so it's my job to beat you up," Joe jokes, after Ben settles into a small treatment room to await chemotherapy. "I'm always gonna do it. Always."


Ben Underwood reads his Braille math book in class in May 2006.
With the precision of a sharpshooter, Ben fires a ball of paper across the room, hitting Joe squarely in the chest.

They erupt in laughter that echoes through the corridors of the building.

"Ben! They're gonna kick you out of here!" Gordon warns.

"Fine!" Ben says. "Good. Let's go!"

More laughter.

Ben insists he understands the seriousness of his situation, but strongly believes he'll get better.

"I think it's gonna be OK," he said.

Another diagnosis

The first symptoms of his latest medical saga surfaced while he and his mother were on a plane returning from Japan, where he is the subject of a film documentary.

"My head hurt so bad," he recalled.

In May, doctors successfully removed from his sinus cavity a large tumor that was spreading toward his brain.

For the next year, he'll have to endure an intense course of chemotherapy.

His doctor said it is unclear whether Ben's cancer is a recurrence of retinoblastoma from his childhood or a different form of the disease caused by the radiation he had as a toddler.

"We're still not completely sure," Kaiser Permanente pediatric oncologist Kent Jolly said. "It's an awkward situation that means we have to design treatment for both possibilities."

Every three weeks, Ben gets alternating chemotherapy infusions. They sap his energy and sometimes make him sick to his stomach.

On his most recent trip to Kaiser, he stepped on a scale and was surprised to see that he had lost six pounds since his last appointment. Because the chemotherapy medicines suppress his body's natural immune system, Ben is at high risk of infections. An inflammation on his leg put him in the hospital for 17 days in July.

His future is uncertain. "We think that his chances of being cured are not very good, but his case is too rare to give meaningful projections," Jolly said.

A mother's support

Because of a genetic defect that curbs his body's ability to fight off cancer, Ben will be at risk for developing various forms of the disease for the rest of his life, Jolly said.

But he has at least one great thing going for him, the doctor said.


Despite being blind, Ben Underwood says he's not afraid of running into anything when he skates around the block in his Sacramento neighborhood. He says he can hear anything that may be approaching.
"Most oncologists feel strongly that a positive attitude and good family support helps," Jolly said. "Ben has that in spades."

Gordon, who works two jobs to pay the bills, is Ben's rock. Gordon said she gets her strength from a higher power.

"It's terrible to see your kid sick and vomiting and weak," she said. "You feel so helpless. I feel like I'm going through it right along with him.

"But this is our life right now, and we've just got to make the best of it while we're still able to smile.

"I'm praying and I'm going to rejoice in his healing. My God says that Ben will live and will not die."

She looked over at Ben, who was smiling and talking in animated fashion about summer camp, Harry Potter and the joys of Kobe beef.

"When I was in Japan, I had the best steak ever," he said. "And I got addicted to tea!"

He's looking forward to visiting with all of his friends this month at Camp Okizu in the Sierra Nevada foothills. He can't wait to find out whether the fictional wizard Harry Potter lives or dies.

"Those books are hecka good," said Ben, who reads in Braille.

In the meantime, he has to deal with chemotherapy. "Not fun," he said.

But no big deal.

"I really hope it doesn't make me nauseated this time, because I'm really not in the mood for that," Ben said.

Now, where did he put his Game Boy?

Source Link:Ventura County Star www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/aug/27/gifted-insight/

[Ms. Kathy]

Blind athlete opens students’ eyes about life
Source: The Southside Times - Beech Grove, Indiana www.ss-times.com/new/?p=356
by Mike Alexander

Craig MacFarlane, 45, is blind, and he would trade all 103 gold medals he’s won in wrestling if he could see again.
But he can’t . . . and he won’t.
Blind since age 2, the Canadian now living in Zionsville knows there are many others worse off. It’s just that he would love to see his parents’ faces, muse the colors of a rainbow and see a tree in all of its glory.
His message to an assembly of Beech Grove High School students Tuesday morning was that they’re all gifted in their own way, and they must be persistent in striving to do their best in dealing with life’s problems and situations.
Foremost, they should complete their high school education and it would be valuable to work toward a two-year or four-year college degree (83 percent of Beech Grove graduates do start such programs).
“Determine what you’re interested in, and home in on it!”
When a small boy, he was among several kids throwing around a welding torch igniter. It struck him in the eyes, and plunged him into darkness.
At age 6, Denbo’s life almost came to a standstill when he was sent 500 miles to attend the nearest school for the blind in Ontario, Canada.
Because he turned his life around despite the “inconvenience” of blindness, he carried the torch for the 1984 World Olympic Games in Los Angeles at the request of President Ronald Reagan, and has become friends with basketball superstar Michael Jordan, race driver Mario Andretti, hockey all-star Gordy Howell, late football player Walter Payton and President George H.W. Bush (the father).
While representing the USA, he won 93 percent of his international wrestling matches. It was being successful at wrestling – a contact sport – that opened several doors to zestful living as a youth.
“You’re only good as your last performance. Much like tests,” he said. To maintain an edge requires focus and intensity, “even on days when you feel down.” A smile to others, opening doors and picking up dropped papers for a classmate are signs of inner strength and “make you feel good about yourself because you’re touching their lives.”
Last year, he had an audience with Pope Benedict for 20 years of touching thousands of kids’ lives at 2,500 schools. He has received in excess of 30,000 letters from teenagers willing to work hard in overcoming life’s obstacles.
By the way, he water skis, plays golf, rides horses and ice skates. But of all athletics, his fantasy is to be a great hockey player.
In spare time recently, he wrote a book: “Inner Vision,” which highlights his life and the attitude he forged in not letting blindness rule his life.
MacFarlane’s website: HYPERLINK “http://www.cmpride.com” www.cmpride.com
MacFarlane’s talk was arranged by Bryan Denbo, financial advisor for Edward Jones investments, 3850 S. Emerson Ave., across the street from the high school.
Denbo and his company also present the Athlete of the Week award, and he personally awards the Athlete of the Month at the school.
His oldest child is a kindergartner in the school system. So, he is likely to be a supporter of Beech Grove schools for several years.

[Ms. Kathy]

Blindness no handicap in this bowling league
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
BY PAM SHEBEST

[e-mail]
Source Link: Kalamazoo Gazette: www.mlive.com/sports/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1200392422241810.xml&coll=7

KALAMAZOO -- Mike Branch lets his fingers slide along the rail as he approaches the lane, then bends his knees and releases the bowling ball.

As it crashes into the pins, he pauses, then says, ``Eight.''

Sure enough, two pins remain.

That wouldn't be too unusual, except that Branch is bowling in the Kalamazoo Blind Bowlers League and, on his team, he's the totally blind bowler.

``I've bowled for so long (30 years), I'm not always right, but I can guess by the sound (how many pins fall),'' said Branch, 54, who is president of the league.

``Last week, I hit one really bad and I could hear (the pins) falling one at a time. It's probably the worst hit I ever made and I got a strike. ... But they all look the same on the score sheet.''

Branch's league, which bowls Friday nights at Holiday Lanes, has three-person teams. Each has a totally blind, a partially sighted and a sighted bowler.
For this league, a thin rail, about waist level, is positioned beside the approach and the bowlers use it to line up their shots.

Branch's teammates are Marty Moon (sighted) and Mike Dubnicka (partially sighted), and Moon helps both, especially with spares.

Moon's help was needed at the beginning of league play on Friday, after Branch threw his first ball. When he paused, Moon said, ``1-2, Mike.''

Branch responded, ``Ooh, musta just missed.''

After trying to pick up the spare -- and hearing his ball clunk into the gutter -- Branch added, ``I hate that sound. Did it hook left? (It did).''

Blindness no handicap in this bowling league

Branch's average this year is 84, although a few weeks ago he bowled a 163.

``Three years ago, (my average) was 106,'' Branch said. ``Must be my ball's fault.''

Ken Lhamon, 26, who is vice president of the league, is also the totally blind bowler on his team.

In his second year bowling, Lhamon has improved his average from 60-something to 84 this year.

``The hardest part is lining up with the pins, especially when you're trying to get your spares,'' Lhamon said. ``You have to visualize where the pins are and where you're standing.

``I visualize how wide the alley is and I know the 1-pin is in the center and they go out from there.''

Brian Stroud, 43, who is blind, is on a two-man team with Terry Sinkler.

``He's sighted,'' Stroud said. ``He'd better be. He's driving the car.''

Stroud, who moved to Kalamazoo 10 months ago to take a job as business development manager of Midwest Enterprises for the Blind, Inc., learned to bowl at the School for the Blind in Batavia, N.Y. He was also a wrestler and swimmer, he skis and he plays guitar and drums -- and, with a quick wit, he's usually in the center of laughter, a common sound during this league.

At one time, the league had 45 bowlers. Now it's down to between 13 and 15.

If there aren't enough totally blind or partially sighted bowlers for a team, it can have two sighted, but the second sighted must have an average below 120.

``I think bowling is down all over,'' said Moon, who has bowled in the league for 20 years and helps organize trips to tournaments.

``We used to charter a tour bus (for tournaments) and we'd fill it,'' he said.

``We go to the midwest in March, states in May and nationals over Labor Day weekend. Next year, we're also going to Erie, Pa., to an invitational-type tournament.

``We could really use some corporate sponsorship, which is tax deductible,'' he added.

With the second half of the season just getting under way, new bowlers still have a chance to join.

Call Holiday at 375-6100.

TOURNEYS: Several tournaments are on the calendar in the next three months:

v Riley Stewart Memorial Men's Senior (over 55) Scratch, Feb. 2-3 at Holiday. Entries close Jan. 27.

v Mary Balinski Seniors Doubles and Singles, Feb. 8, 9, 15, 16 at Eastland. Entries close Feb. 1.

v Kalamazoo City Open: Team event March 15, 22; doubles March 16, 24, at AMF Harpo's. Entries close March 1.

Entry forms are available at all bowling centers.

v Women's city tournament, Jan. 13, 14, 26, 27 (with noon shifts), at Continental.

CLASH ON SATURDAY: The Continental Doubles Clash begins at noon Saturday Cost is $60 per team; add $5 when signing up the day of the event.

HATS OFF: To JR Reece, who bowled games of 300, 280 and 215 for a 795 series in the Kings & Queens youth league Saturday morning at Continental.

CENTURY GAME: Joy Stefanski, Airway, 253 (151 average).

TRIPLICATE: Tahreed Armstrong, Airway, 172; Jason Johnson, Airway, 223..

FIRST 700: Steve Warnicke, Eastland, 702.

FIRST 600: Linda Richmond, Airway, 661.

FIRST 500: Laura Frybarger, Continental, 541.

[Ms. Kathy]

Organ donation in the spotlight
FORMER NURSE WROTE PLAY TO GET MINORITIES INVOLVED
By Merlene Davis
HERALD-LEADER COLUMNIST

Source Link: Herald Leader--Kentucky.com www.kentucky.com/139/story/334753.html

PABLO ALCALA
Patrick Easley portrayed the doctor opposite Bridgitte Thompson as Granny in a rehearsal of "Be Careful of the Stones You Throw." Photo by Pablo Alcala | Staff
To say Charlette D. Thompson has led an interesting life is the least one can say about the former ICU nurse, organ donor recruiter, the gospel-singing member of Charlette's Web, playwright, wife, mother, grandmother, and minister.

She is also featured in a recently published book about organ donation, The Gift that Heals, by Reg Green.

And interwoven through all of that, Thompson spent seven years of her adult life legally blind.

Still, if she believes God is telling her to turn down another road, to live through another of life's detours, she would follow that lead unquestioningly.

"When I lost my sight I struggled for a little while," she said of her faith in God. "I said, 'Lord, you called me to be a nurse and I can't do those things.'

"Before, I would pray to God and say, 'I want more spiritual sight.'

"Well, he closed my eyes physically and opened them spiritually, so be careful what you pray for," she said, laughing.

It was during those seven years of blindness that Thompson not only traveled alone to Mississippi to work in triage with victims of hurricane Katrina for 14 days, but she also wrote a play to spotlight the importance of organ donations within minority communities.

That play, Be Careful of the Stones You Throw, will be performed Saturday at 7:30 p.m., at the University of Kentucky Singletary Center for the Arts.

She wrote the play, which features several musical numbers and local talent, in 2004 when she was lamenting her inability to reach out to the family members of patients on life-support to ask them to donate their loved one's organs to save the lives of others.

It was a calling she had answered for more 15 years as the minority coordinator for the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates. At the same time, she was working full-time as a nurse in the intensive care units of various hospitals, including 15 years at UK.

After watching minorities dying for want of organ transplants, she wanted to "empower minorities about how organ donation works," she said,

"I wanted to get rid of some of the phobias and misconceptions that we have," she said.

Back then, Thompson was on 24-hour call. If a black patient was brain dead, hospital officials would call her to speak with the family.

"The families would say, 'Why would you ask us now?'

"But there is no other time," Thompson said. "Any other time there is still hope. But when the brain is gone, you are dead."

She was better able to reach out to family members in their grief because she would pray before approaching them, she said, and she would ask them to pray with her when she entered the room.

"I did it because I had the patience and the love," she said. "There were so many people on that list (of awaiting recipients) who were dying every day. It was senseless to take our organs and bury them."

That work slowed to a crawl after 1998 when doctors found a tumor in her brain. After two surgeries, she had lost 90 percent of her eyesight.

Her nursing license lapsed as she resigned herself to her situation. She learned Braille and learned to live with limited sight.

But that's not what God wanted, she said.

About six months before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in September 2005, Thompson says, she felt led by God to renew her nursing license. She didn't understand why, but she had by then learned to follow that lead.

Using a magnifying glass that enlarged the print 10 times, Thompson struggled through more than 20 tests and "aced them all," she said.

Then Katrina hit and she was led to travel to Mississippi and help in any way she could.

"God said I couldn't take anyone with me and compared by blindness to Jacob's limp. He said the blindness 'will make you dependent on me.'"

She traveled to a Mississippi church to help 5,000 displaced residents who were given refuge there. She soon was placed in charge of the medical unit because other volunteers still worked full-time at other facilities.

"He sharpened all my other senses so much, I could use my stethoscope and tell them to do this and do that," Thompson said of the patients. "They never knew I was blind."

More and more, she learned to lean on God, she said, to the point where she even put away her cane.

"I was addicted to that cane," she said. "But toward the end of that year I got used to relying on God."

Then one morning early in 2006 she arose as usual and began moving around her house.

"I didn't even realize I was seeing better," she said.

But she was. She was seeing well enough to drive and get around by herself. And no one knows why.

Her optic nerves still lack blood flow, but a small mass that doctors had watched for years had disappeared, she learned. Doctors aren't sure, however, if that change could bring back her sight.

But Thompson knows. She was obedient to God and learned to follow his will. That's why she can see again and that's why her spiritual insight is so keen.

So keen, in fact, she and her husband, Richard, have founded Open Doors Ministries, a church that meets at the Brenda Cowan/Phillis Wheatley Center, 647 Chestnut Street.

Still though, her desire to increase the number of minorities who sign organ donor cards has not waned. That's why she has once again brought her play to the stage.

Among the cast are organ recipients, who tell their stories to better drive home the need for more minority participation in the donor program. Opportunities will be available to sign donor cards and the donor registry, and to find out more information, Thompson said.

All seats are $7, with proceeds going to fund more public awareness campaigns.

Thompson has no regrets about her loss of sight or the turns her life has taken.

When she was blind, her husband would read the Bible to her, and one night a particular scripture in Job jumped out.

"It said something about how God allowed us to suffer these things because he could trust us to go through them praising him and coming out," Thompson said.

God certainly picked the right woman.

[Ms. Kathy]

First blind mayor takes up office
Taunton's first blind mayor was due to be sworn into office on Wednesday.
Councillor Richard Lees lost his sight at the age of 16 after being stung by a swarm of wasps, which badly affected his immune system.

He will go about his civic duties accompanied by his partially-sighted wife Sue and his guide dog Ramble.

Cllr Lees, who works as a student advocate, said that he hoped the civic honour would be an encouragement to others with disabilities.

"I also find this honour to be particularly moving because I will be the first blind mayor of Taunton Deane and also possibly in the country," he said.

"As you can imagine, being made mayor is full of emotion and shows that having a disability does not have to stop you accomplishing life's dreams."

Cllr Lees, who is the Liberal Democrat councillor for Eastgate, has written his own autobiography, A Stinging Tale, and is a registered speaker for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

The Mayor Making Ceremony was due to take place at 1830BST at Bishop Fox's School, Taunton.

Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/somerset/4536363.stm

[Ms. Kathy]

Independent.ie
Theia's lesson in courage
Trinity's only blind student will not let her inability to see hinder her education
Source Link: www.independent.ie/lifestyle/theias-lesson-in-courage-1313098.html

By Willie Dillon
Tuesday March 11 2008

In Theia Regan's mind's eye, her sister Helen will always be five years old. Helen is now aged 20. But she was five when Theia lost her sight after suffering a serious illness. "For me, she's still got the face of a five-year-old, which doesn't quite fit her voice."

Dubliner Theia is the only fully blind student at Trinity College. Her lack of sight is something she accepts -- she has the unmistakable air of a young woman who feels there's not much point in doing anything but getting on with her life.

Coming through the school system with flying colours is no easy achievement when you're blind. Going on to study for a theology degree at a prestigious university is harder still.

The technology revolution has brought many benefits to blind and visually impaired people. A major advance has been the ability of computers to read on-screen text and convert it into audio. But the key to their success at school and in work is still an old-fashioned system of raised dots on a page, devised more than 180 years ago: braille.

Despite all the electronic wizardry of the past two decades, it remains the surest route to success and fulfilment for those who cannot see. Theia believes her progress through school and college would have been a lot more difficult if she didn't have braille. "It would be like taking a sighted person's books away and giving them tapes instead."

The 21-year-old from Sandycove can still remember faces, photos and colours from when she could still see. They are cherished memories which she is determined not to lose. She says she most misses not being able to see her family. "I can't change their image in my mind."

She believes blindness gave her the determination to overcome the obstacles which school threw up.

"I think for me, it did. It depends on the person you are, on whether the glass is half full or half empty. Of course you're allowed to have the down days as well. You can't do a Pollyanna on it the whole time.

"You have to be practical. You have to know your limits. You have to say, right, there's going to be no heroics. If you run into difficulties, you ask for help, if possible beforehand. The trick about being blind is you have to pre-empt everything -- expect the worst and hope for better."

Theia says she has been very lucky; she is otherwise perfectly healthy. She gets to and from college with the aid of a white cane. She chose not to take on the emotional attachment of a guide dog. "The dog has to retire after 10 years. But you just replace the white cane as you need to. There isn't any heartbreak over it."

She says she was the first blind girl they had at secondary school in Loreto, Dalkey. There aren't a lot of blind pupils in mainstream education and most never get beyond Junior Cert, which she describes as "a dreadful shame".

Getting braille schoolbooks was a struggle. Some didn't arrive until right before her Leaving Cert. And braille texts are enormous. "Braille is voluminous. Take the book of Lord of the Rings. It's three volumes in print, but it converts into 26 rather large volumes in braille. It's a massive amount of reading. And my theology books now would be considerably bigger than that. I'd say I'm responsible for a lot of deforestation.

"At school, it's not a terribly good excuse when you say I haven't got that essay in because I didn't have the book -- it sounds very weak. Or when you come in and say my history book is 18 volumes, compared to the single volume that everybody else has."

Where she didn't have the books, other help was at hand.

"A lot of my family and some of the remedial teachers offered to read on to tape for me, or just to read to me. But being read to isn't an adequate way of learning because you can't read it back to yourself."

On the first day of her Leaving Cert in 2005, her English paper arrived in print form -- not in braille as expected. A third of the paper consisted of pictures. An exam supervisor had to describe the pictures to her.

Theia says a blind person won't get through school and university without a lot of "grit and willpower". "You've got to decide whether you're going to make it or not. I was really, really blessed in that I got fantastic backing from family and friends.

"I think if one person manages to break through the school system -- and if I'm lucky, college -- then maybe it will be a touch easier for the next person. And maybe people will realise that helping a blind person in class isn't quite as frightening as it looks."

Being a young blind person can be "very challenging" socially, she admits. Not everybody is comfortable in the company of someone who can't see. She also faces particular difficulties in noisy social settings. A blind person relies hugely on being able to hear everything that's going on around them.

"I really don't do well with pubs and clubs and late nights. In the pub, you can't really focus in on other people. I think honesty is the best policy. I've told people, I'm not going out with you because I can't hear you, not because of anything else.

"I like going for walks. Or I might cook a meal for a few friends and have them around. But if that doesn't suit them, I'm quite happy to reach out by maybe going to the cinema or bowling. What's important for the world of the blind is to come up with alternatives.

"And these don't have to be alternatives that suit you down to the ground. It has to be something half way. So even if the sighted world doesn't meet you half way, you have to meet them. There's always a way."

She adds: "I think I'm very lucky that I've had both worlds, because I can communicate now in a different way to sighted people. It means you can bring them a bit of what's in the blind world, and bring some of the sighted world to the blind."

‘Books were a precious commodity’
The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) has 12,000 blind and visually impaired people on its database. But chief executive Des Kenny says there could be as many as 60,000 people with sight defects in the country.

Most visual difficulties are age-related, he says; better medical intervention means there are now fewer blind young people.

There are no statistics for the number of blind people in the workforce. Traditionally, they became switchboard operators or got a place in a sheltered workshop. Nowadays, blind people are finding a niche in the technology sector.

Growing up in Newbridge in the 1950s, Des says he might have become a stable lad, but for a playtime accident when he was seven. He was flicked in the eye by the corner of a tent groundsheet. An infection set in and later spread to the other eye -- leaving him completely blind.

NCBI has an extensive braille library in Finglas. Technology means that books can be printed quicker -- and there's a far greater range.

"In the old days, you tended to get only thingyens and old biographies of admirals of the Raj. It was felt blind people shouldn't be reading rubbish, because the books were such a precious commodity."

When Bertie Ahern opened the NCBI library in 2006, he got a special memento of the occasion -- braille and audio copies of P.S. I Love You.

- Willie Dillon

[Ms. Kathy]

Brian McKeever

Gary Kingston
Vancouver Sun


Tuesday, March 11, 2008


The man who couldn't shoot straight in Turin appears to have found his aim and that's good news for the Canadian Para-Nordic team as it looks ahead to 2010.

Visually impaired Brian McKeever, with his brother Robin as his guide, won three consecutive International Paralympic Committee World Cup gold medals two weeks ago in Norway, including two in biathlon.

McKeever, who has less than 10 per cent vision as a result of a degenerative condition called Stargardt's disease, has a legitimate shot at gold in all five Nordic events at Whistler in 2010. At Turin, he won two gold and a silver in the three cross-country races and was third and eighth in the biathlon events when he struggled with his shooting.

In winning bronze in the 7.5-kilometre biathlon, McKeever missed seven of 15 targets -- tied for worst among the top 12 competitors -- costing him nearly three minutes in penalty laps.

"I'm glad it wasn't me, I think I would have turned the gun on myself," Robin cracked then.

Visually impaired athletes are assisted in biathlon's rifle shooting by acoustic signals, which depending on signal intensity, indicate when the athlete is on target.

McKeever also qualified for the Canadian team at the able-bodied world cross-country championships last year and is hoping to race in the Olympics in 2010.

[e-mail]

Source Link: The Vancouver Sun www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=6b90a493-e225-4503-97e7-9d75f1a75e17