Ramblings about My Concerns about Rehab

The occupational therapist was on holiday last week – argh! That meant that two of my four hours of OT were cancelled – the trainee mostly teaches me and he did on Wednesday as well, but on Thursday he was ill. It also meant I couldn’t ask her about “De Boomgaard” on Monday and still [...]

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About Stereotypes and Explaining Blindness

In CPH training yesterday, for some reason, we got to speak of what I should and shouldn’t explain about my blindness again. I think we got to speak about it cause of my talking about the discussion with Kira on MOnday. I don’t remember how exactly the discussion went and it was all pretty confusing, [...]

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Thoughts on Monday’s Sight Training, Residual Vision, and Adjustment to Blindness

I started the week with sight training with Kira on Monday. We were going to try out tinted glasses. She had a whole lot of them, but after my first selection I still had seven pairs. After another round of selecting, I had five, then two. After the hour’s try-out I managed to end up [...]

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Frustrations about Progress at Rehab and What to Do Next

I’m feeling terribly frustrated by my situation at rehab. I’m thirteen weeks through my programme and my parents and Sigrid say I’ve learnt nothing – while when we had open house, they said I had. But yeah, that was to my counsellor, and my Dad appears to be a champion at hiding his feelings, as [...]

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Notes on Wednesday’s Discussion with Kira

I called Kira (one of the sight training folks) on Monday to ask if she had time for me cause I had some questions. In advance, I’d prepared a paper explaining my condition, residual vision, lighting etc. and had put questions in it in italics. So as I saw Kira on Wednesday she read the [...]

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CPH Thoughts for Today

Yesterday, another student who is in my CPH group approached me asking if I knew whether the trainer would be there today. She had been absent all week and no-one had heard whether she’d be there today. When having dinner, a residential staff folk told us that according to her, we could go home. I [...]

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A Visit to the Training Home

I visited “De Boomgaard” (the independent living training home) on Wednesday. First, I got an explanation about what this training home is like. Residents get a coach who will help them set goals and schedule things they’ll learn and activities. Every three months, you’ll review goals and see what you’ve reached and what you’ll still [...]

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Thoughts on Special Education and Inclusion

Yesterday, I read some artciles on special education and they reminded me of my own situation. Particularly, the articles advocating inclusion, like the one entitled For Whom the School Bell Tolls, make sense. Of course, the aim of special schools is to prepare disabled children for “the real world”, but all I remember them doing, [...]

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Reading a Book Chapter on Emotional Adjustment and Rehabilitation

I’m currently reading chapter VIII of the book Freedom for the Blind: The Secret Is Empowerment by James H. Omvig. The chapter is about emotional adjustment. It is written from an NFB point of view on blindness, and that’s noticeable in some negative ways, but others are very correct and I’m sad they’re not that [...]

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Another Friday Morning with CPH

This morning, CPH was once again interesting. At first, each of us were asked if we had anything interesting to say in advance, like if we’d been busy with a CPH topic over the past week. Ellen asked me to explain to another student who hadn’t attended last week, what things I’d learnt last Friday. [...]

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