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At Leader Dog for AMP "Vacation"
by Jeremy Curry on Monday, November 17 2008While traveling around for GW, you might expect that I would take a vacation at home. Well, I normally would if I could. But, this time, my vacation is spent back on the road.
Most of you know that I am low vision, but many of you do not know that I have lost a lot more vision this year. It is rather typical that I have stable vision for about five years before it takes a significant plunge, and then is stable for a while again. Since I did not lose my sight until I turned 18 years old, I never had any formal cane training, but I have grown quite accustomed to using my cane when traveling. However, I decided it was time to get some formal orientation and mobility training. Leader Dog is the closest guide dog school to where I live, and they offer a week-long program called the Accelerated Mobility Program, or AMP for short. For this whole week, I’ll be undergoing intense orientation and mobility training. I arrived yesterday, and it happens to be the first snow of the season. Apparently, there is also black ice today, but I’m hoping that I won’t have to go out on that. Smile.
As I have told those of you who have asked about this what I am doing, several people asked that I post what happens in our blog. The next step after the AMP training is to get a guide dog. But, that won’t happen for some time. While cane travel is great, and there are many people out there who are far better at it than me, I think a guide dog is going to be the best solution for me. As I move forward toward that goal, I’ll let you all know how it goes, so you can watch my story; especially if you have ever considered getting a guide dog.
So far, the most interesting part about this “vacation” is that it is a working vacation to make me an even better traveler, as well as to talk to the school about various GW items. Wait, that doesn’t seem like much of a vacation? Grin. Signing off for now . . .
