interview

today I had an interview with another guide dog school that I applied to for J's retirement ticket hopefully in a few more years (at least 1, I'm hoping more like 2, maybe 3)

This interview seemed to go over better than the other school. This school also has a program where they train dogs for disabled war vets and the trainer who did my interview said they are having more and more applicants with neurological based disabilities than ever before and that he just recently interviewed a vet at the VA who described neurologically based vision problems just like mine. Except mine are caused by my autism (the sensory integration and spatial processing disorders fall under that one heading I'm told) and the vets were probably caused by a brain injury of some sort (though I of course don't know that for sure)

I told him the story, to make a point, of how a few months back I was out to dinner with my folks and sisters and we were having dessert. I ordered ice cream or something similar and it was put in front of me and I could recognize the dish and I could recognize the actual dessert, but there was this silver colored thing in the dish and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. I kept staring and staring at it trying to figure it out. Then finally I reached forward and touched it and immediately went "Oh! It's a SPOON!" Stuff like that happens to me on a rather frequent basis. It's like something between the visual input and the recognition output gets scrambled.

The reason I use a guide dog is because of stuff like that. My brain just doesn't process the environment correctly so I walk into walls, I trip off or up curbs, I can't tell if a car coming at me has actually slowed down or come to a halt. It's like I can see everything but I just can't make my brain figure out what it's seeing. There is physically nothing wrong with my vision other than being slightly nearsighted, I'm not legally blind, the Commission of the Blind will have nothing to do with me, I had to pay for Orientation and Mobility Training out of pocket since no gov't or otherwise funded group would fund it for me, but in so many situations I basically am blind it's kind of ridiculous that they won't deal with me.

Anyway back to the intervew, over all it went well. We took a walk with J and then I had to show him how I use my long cane and then we did a "Juno" walk where I hold onto a short guide handler with the instructor on the other end and he does all sorts of stuff a dog might do to find out how well I am at following a dog, and what speed I like to go and what pull I like in a harness and how good I am at giving corrections and if I can be trained out of some "bad" habits (I trained J myself, we have a system that works for us, but many times it is anything but conventional)

So I hear back from that school in 2-4wks. The other school probably not till December. It's just sit tight and wait for now. I hope I get accepted as I rather think either school would work well for me.