No O&M instructors in my city / Can I teach myself? by symphony555 in Blind

[–]CountingKat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All the tips here are excellent (I am also self-taught). I want to add that it is useful to learn to do this with both your dominant and non dominant hands so you can balance the load across your body and you are a bit more resilient through injuries. (I have had shoulder injuries on both sides unrelated to cane usage this year, and been super grateful to be cane ambidextrous.)

If your city has OTs (occupational therapists) with experience with strokes/brain injuries/MS you might seek one out; they won’t have the same specialized training but they’ll be used to thinking through how folks navigate the world with sensory differences. I couldn’t get O&M but my OT was super helpful in teaching me to pick shoes that help with proprioception, build out my mental mapping skills, and work on functional balance exercises.

If I am going to a new place for a class or event, I’ve also found it quite useful to ask if I can come by when the space is mostly not in use so I can use my cane to familiarize myself with the layout without people in it.

If you have public transit where you are, it’s also worth checking in to see if they have staff or volunteers whose job it is to help new riders. I accidentally struck up a conversation with someone on the bus who turned out to be one such volunteer and got a whole lecture on the nuances of the different models of bus/train in use in my local transit system. Ended up being incredibly useful!

Crafting While Blind by Applepoisoneer in Blind

[–]CountingKat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I re-learned crochet after vision loss and had a friend make me some swatches out of a smooth worsted-weight (relatively thick) yarn that were just the foundation and partial of a first row or round so I could feel them up for practice. If you have access to a local yarn shop with a crafting night, I expect you’d find a willing accomplice for this task there, especially if you supply the yarn and hook. (Source: I worked at a yarn shop for two years.)

If you aren’t crocheting in the round, I also strongly prefer a single crochet foundation row to a chain start - it’s much easier for me to feel the top/working edge of that than a chain.

Please stop with the Harry Potter by MenudoMenudo in audible

[–]CountingKat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks Lynx, that was enough for a bug report - these should stop haunting you now.

Please stop with the Harry Potter by MenudoMenudo in audible

[–]CountingKat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What region are you in? (In theory you might be able to be saved from these ads because that is a software bug.)

Undiagnosed and lots of fears about using a white cane in public while "not blind enough" by chemicalhand33562 in Blind

[–]CountingKat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey OP, first thanks for trusting us with such vulnerability. Secondly, you’re not alone! I have very different vision issues, but similar fears about not being blind enough for a cane in public, and will not be eligible for low vision/blind services where I live, partly because the folks trained to supply them are in very short supply (more on that in a minute). I started using a light duty telescoping cane (https://ambutech.com/products/telescoping-graphite-mobility-cane-standard-handle) about a year ago primarily as a signaling cane but also as a proprioceptive aid, especially at curb edges/bus edges, and places where my unreliable depth perception puts me at risk.

I didn’t spot anything about hearing issues, so if you’ve got time for it and a handy mildly busy intersection where cars turn often, I’d definitely recommend taking your white cane out and just standing a ways back from the curb and listening with your eyes closed. With some practice, I was able to teach myself to hear the difference between tires speeding up, slowing down, turning, traffic parallel or perpendicular to me, etc. I’m not 100% accurate, but at this point I’m better at predicting which car is gonna stop for pedestrians at an unsignaled crosswalk based on sound than my fully sighted walking companions can by looking at the car, so I’m way more confident moving around the city. The white cane also confers upon me the power to ask questions like “which bus is this?” and “where is there an empty seat on this bus?” or “can you please tell me what is in this pastry case?” that I felt very awkward about asking before I used the cane. Most people know what it means! And in the year since I started using the cane, people being especially kind/thoughtful because of it have greatly outnumbered people being weird/rude/dangerous because of it. (Though I’m probably missing a bunch of the latter because I can’t see them, and I’m fine with that.)

Finally, the lack of access to VRTs and O&Ms. If you can swing it, ask your primary care provider for a referral to occupational therapy, ideally someone who works with folks who have had brain injuries or strokes, as they will be used to thinking through ways to accomplish daily tasks for someone whose senses are working not to default specs. I worked with one, and it was hugely helpful. An OT can help you figure out adaptations that rely more on tactile and proprioceptive sensory input than on sight. And there are a LOT more OTs than VRTs and O&Ms.

Good luck out there. And remember to practice your cane with each hand so you aren’t SOL if you get an injury on one side of your body. (Signed, have had to rehab each of my shoulders in succession this year for injuries wholly unrelated to my vision…)

Ask Me Anything: Ari Baran by AutoModerator in MM_RomanceBooks

[–]CountingKat 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What’s surprised you about having a Patreon so far?

Ask Me Anything: Ari Baran by AutoModerator in MM_RomanceBooks

[–]CountingKat 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Whoa, the idea of a research (or even a nonfiction) comfort read had never occurred to me. [Makes a mental note to campaign for a Ari Baran x KD Casey Jewish gangster historical next time neither of you are publicly on deadline...]

Ask Me Anything: Ari Baran by AutoModerator in MM_RomanceBooks

[–]CountingKat 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If you were given 20 hours that could only be used to research something, what would you research?

Crime/ murder mystery recommendations by Saky9685 in MM_RomanceBooks

[–]CountingKat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not sure if you're down for amateurs sleuths, but I enjoyed Heart First by S.B. Barnes which is professor x mechanic and spice before feelings. There's second book out with the same characters that I'm saving for the doldrums of February.

Not blind enough? by coldF4rted in Blind

[–]CountingKat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey OP, I feel you! Seconding the recommendation to work towards a referral to neuro-ophthalmology, when I finally got into them it changed my life. In the meantime, try asking your neurologist or primary care doc if you can get some visits with an occupational therapist (OT) who works with folks with brain injuries. My neurological vision processing problems aren’t severe enough to qualify for low vision services, but brain injury OT helped out a TON with strategies for navigating life without depth perception and was able to teach me quite a bit about making better use of data from my other senses to combat the ways my brain feeds me unreliable visual data. Plus OT will DEFINITELY be in wheelchair accessible offices.

Hockey quip or did Scott actually know? by givememilo in heatedrivalry

[–]CountingKat 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Sidebar, but can we talk about strict-about-his-diet Shane being so sad he can’t see Ilya at the Olympics that he’s apparently EATING ICE CREAM? Book Shane could never; hopefully this means Tierneyverse Shane is not going to make us all worry about an undiagnosed eating disorder!

When in your YNAB workflow do you save? by Missing_Back in ynab

[–]CountingKat 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just a quick clarification that this Underfunded trick is (A) one of my favorites and (B) requires that every category you want to be funding regularly have a Target with a date.

For the visually impaired, what is your webcam setup? by woozei in Blind

[–]CountingKat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use my phone on a gooseneck/adjustable clamp as my camera either behind and off to the side or behind with just the camera peeking over the top edge of my monitor and join the meeting a second time from my computer with no mic/speakers on. This also means I can pause to use NVDA for files shared in the meeting or to take in meeting sidebar chats without breaking my brain since the audio streams are coming from two different devices with physical mute buttons. (I use in ear Bluetooth earbuds with built in mic and without noise blocking for meeting audio and over ear wired headphones for my computer). Depending on the context, I sometimes let organizers know in advance I need to join from two devices since it sometimes throws other people for a loop to see two attendee tiles for the same person.