Many people that see me walking around with the cane ask me why I use it. I usually just respond ,, because I'm legally blind". It's hard for me to explain CVI to every single person that I meet! :) I even have heard ,, What is this" ? when people see the cane. For me it seems like we need to bring more awareness towards the cane for people to understand.
Before my diagnosis I always tripped over or bumped into almost everything, as I wrote in the previous blog post. When the official diagnosis came, it was suggested to me to try the white cane. I was very sceptical in the beginning. Naturally nobody wants to have a ,,stamp" on themselves, or stand out even more. I thought to myself - ,, people will start bullying me again. I must see too well to qualify for the cane". Now, I'm happy to have decided to give it a go. I started orientation and mobility lessons and saw quite quickly the huge benefit the white cane gives me. I can now see that it has literally saved my life a number of times. I am able to cross a street without the fear of getting hit by a car. I am able to enter the bus and sit down before the driver takes off and I fall. People will give me more time to look for things when shopping, and/or tell me if I drop something. I am able to find an obstacle before tripping and hurting myself. ( One example, a couple of years before diagn0sis I was walking to class when I tripped over a plastic band and fell. I ended up fracturing a bone in my wrist and had to have a cast on for quite a time. Of course this could have been prevented if I had my diagnosis back then. I can almost guarantee that I would have gotten hit by some vehicle by now if it wasn't for the cane. Who knows how that would have ended?Not to mention all the embarrassing things that happened to me before I got the cane, falling flat on the floor at the bus, in front of everyone, even once falling into somebody's lap .... I sat down in the far back of the bus after that. Me, walking on the street and bumping into someone, who might not take it well, and get angry because of it. Me in the grocery store taking too long to find things, so people will get impatient.
Sometimes, if I just have to walk a few steps outside, even just to throw the garbage out or buy a carton of milk in the store beside my home, I decide to not take the cane with me ,,just because it's so short walk. I think I may never leave the cane at home again, because without it I now always feel so embarrassed being outside, I feel I'm in people's way, that I slow people down because of how slowly I walk ( both CVI and CP are the culprits here). With the cane I'm able to walk faster, and if I have music in my ears I can walk even more rapidly. Here you can see the impact of music on walking for disabled people:
So, when I got the cane, my mobility got better, my self - esteem got better, danger of getting hurt was severely reduced. For me, if someone would ask me ,, Should my CVI kid use the white cane my response would be - ,,Ask yourself - should your kid use seatbelts while in the car, or a helmet while biking?"
The white cane soothes broken self-esteem. It helps you move around. It let's people know that you might need longer time. It saves lives!