I had a lot of trouble with my vision earlier today, is so frustrating especially when even the smallest pit of light is intolerable and my eyes hurt. The hours drag by with nothing to fill the time, wish I'd learned to knit, how hard can it be clicking away with needles, a fixed amount of clicks per row and nether a care if stitches are dropped. Given the crazy trends around today I could create multi holed scarf's, people with vision have created worse things.
People like me can't even use text messaging on mobile phones, type talk phones are obviously no good either. I heard of a specially adapted phone initially created for the blind. The larger screen and buttons mean it's possible for some deaf blind people to use. The cost of £2,500 puts it out of most people's price range. If you want to hear and see or communicate there are so many things on the market to help, but in each case cost is outrageous. RNID and RNIB only provide limited amounts of equipment, employment laws mean such things must be provided but the employer. The truth is firms and some charitable companies only give paid employment to a limited amount of disabled people. One deafblind charity only employs two such people, both with mild to moderate dual sensory loss. There's an awful lot of highly educated disabled people, some obviously can't work but those who can would love the chance of a job that used their specific skills and especially one in a field that benefits from first hand knowledge and experiences. Although I love the voluntary work I do, sometimes I think its slightly unfair when I put in the same hours as the rest of the team and give 100% commitment yet they are fortunate to be on the payroll while I'm not.
Thankfully by this afternoon I could open my eye again. I took the opportunity to fire off half a dozen emails, two trying to promote Touching Lives project, one to the local council regarding an elderly neighbour who desperately needs a wet room and the rest to various MP's who no doubt hate me and file my emails under trash.
Finally one of my grandsons came to stay the night. Like most of my older grandchildren he loves learning about everything, it gives me the chance to talk about my favourite subjects. Like most of my conversations these days I did the talking and he listened. The joy with grandchildren is they don't care if I misunderstand them, they patiently repeat themselves or try to use dual finger spelling, they seem un-flustered and more relaxed about communicating than most adults do. The relief this brings is best described by imagining a wild horse kicking down the paddock fence that entraps him and bolting for freedom...
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