3 Years

Friday marked three years since Calvin and I began our partnership together. It honestly feels a hell of a lot longer though. Now, I don’t have enough material to have a week dedicated to Guide Dog posts this year, in fact I was even concerned I wouldn’t have enough material to write a single post, however, I should have known Calvin wouldn’t let me down.

He still makes me laugh on a regular basis, such as storing his toys on the radiator in the living room, which is ideally placed under the bay window, so at a low level for him. You often hear him clawing at the radiator, as he puts his tennis balls or other balls on there, which fit snugly in the slot, so he struggles to get them back out. After a while he will come over and put his chin on my lap and give me the saddest puppy dog face going, so I have to go and help him get them out. He never learns from his mistakes though. He also amuses me when he wants to play ball. A normal dog would drop the ball when you say give so you can throw it for them. Calvin wants you to throw it for him to, but when you try and get it off him, he teases you by moving his head at the last second, so you can’t get it or smacks your hand away playfully with his paw!

Calvin is still keeping me on my toes and our most recent incident, involved me fishing myself out of my local brook! We were walking along happily, when Calvin’s pace picked up and tail started wagging excitedly, which always means he’s spotted another dog. We came to a small side road, I think it’s actually the entrance to something, so he stopped at the curb as he should. We proceeded to cross, but so did a man with his dog, which he said was a puppy, as if I cared and Calvin lost concentration, as he insisted on greeting the other canine. I was dragging him away, as he ignored my commands to continue and found myself standing on a grass verge when we reached the other side of the road. I know there are grass verges each side of the path and since Calvin was still ignoring my commands to find the way, as he looked longingly back at the other dog, I guessed, judging by the traffic that I needed to go left to get back on track. However, I obviously guessed incorrectly, as the next thing I knew, splash, I stepped into the brook, thankfully, which wasn’t very deep, around knee height. It took a split second to register what had happened, I didn’t even know the brook began there, I thought it was further up where it is barred off. I found myself still gripping Calvin’s lead who just stood at the top staring down at me, with an expression of confusion I’m sure. I heard the man with the dog come rushing back who must have heard my yell of shock and was offering his help, but by the time he reached me, I had already hoisted myself back out. He was like I’ll help you back on to the path, I just wanted to tell him to leave me alone, as Calvin began to play with the other dog again! I was disorientated afterwards and just walked for a while not noticing where I was, trying to get over the shock. I totally saw the funny side, but was lucky not to get hurt and not lose my phone, keys or sat nav out of my pockets. Eventually I must have come back down to earth, as the sat nav announced a road leading completely in the wrong direction to my house. I’m not even sure how I got over there, as we would have definitely had to cross a few roads. I walked home in a daze, hoping my jeans didn’t look too bad, it was raining at least, so I had a reason to be a bit wet! Calvin manages to surprise me yet again!

With regards to his work in general, in September, he decided that he no longer sits at curbs and chooses to stand instead. He has tried this a few times in the past, but I have always had to make him sit again, as he would cross roads without stopping. He has managed to master the art of stopping at curbs now, most of the time, so I am letting him get away with it. You hear lots of stories about Guide Dogs getting arthritis in their back legs from having to sit all of the time hence why I am letting it go. Some dogs now are trained not to sit at curbs at all anyway.

Thanks Calvin for three thrilling years!

VICTA Weekend

It has been a long time since I met new people and went on a trip for the visually impaired. When I was sixteen, I had my first experience of meeting other visually impaired people properly when I went on a Spanish Exchange with RNIB. The year after I went to the International Computer Camp (ICC) in Berlin with Look. Both international experiences were amazing socially and brought a whole new side to me out, a confident me. After ICC I started RNC (Royal National College for the blind) in Hereford and so was surrounded by the visually impaired on a daily basis. I was supposed to attend VIEWS in Paris with Look the following summer, but pulled out, as I doubted my independence levels. Thereafter, I was in a relationship with another visually impaired person for over two years and to be quite honest without going into details, wanted a clean break from the VI world. I however, did not detach myself completely and have been going on holidays with three close VI friends for the past few years, which I have previously blogged about.

I never really intended to delve into the VI world again, but an event on Face Book intrigued me. A friend shared an event from the charity VICTA Children who I had never really heard of before and they were running an eighteen to twenty-five year old weekend in March. If nothing else the activities were to my liking and the fee nominal, so I thought even if I didn’t like the people I would be able to enjoy myself. Nevertheless, I pulled out, as I always put my athletics first and had Talent Squad training on the same weekend. They were running a second weekend in October so I transferred to that instead.

I was quite apprehensive about going, as the thought of meeting new people was daunting, I convinced myself only those with no lives would attend and I had no idea if VICTA as a charity were any good or not!

Thankfully, I was met at the train station, as promised and Calvin was delighted to discover he had a playmate for the weekend, Fliss. Calvin is never nervous about meeting newbies! The first thing one of the participants said to me was that they recognised me from the documentary ‘Blind Young Things’ and my heart sank just a little bit, remembering that I was quite well-known in the VI world for that and worried that everyone would have a preconception of me.

We arrived at the accommodation and had lunch where there were lots of awkward silences, whilst I secretly panicked about the mischief Calvin was causing running around like a loon and thought I would never find my way around what seemed a complicated building, only because it was unfamiliar of course. We were shown around the building in pairs and I pretended I had mastered the layout in my head, yet in truthfulness felt quite baffled, but didn’t want to convey my weakness! We had an ice breaker activity in the afternoon and somehow I found myself in group one, so on cooking duty for the evening meal. It wasn’t as bad as I feared though, I only had to open a few cans of tomatoes!

After dinner, the awkward silences continued and we all declared how sleepy we felt, simply because we weren’t really interacting with each other! One of the volunteers suggested a game of Trivial Pursuit and I was quick to count myself in, as the competitive me came flooding out. This is when I began to enjoy myself, the mood was light hearted, conversation flowed more easily and the time past much faster. Before then, it was going to be a very long weekend!

On Saturday morning the first activity was canoeing. I had only tried it once before, so was looking forward to doing it again. On the whole it was fun, accidently and on purpose splashing each other, the only downside was the bitter wind. In the afternoon we did crate building and despite my ten thousand layers was still cold so managed to bag myself the instructor’s jacket! Crate building was pretty good, you are harnessed up and stack the crates on top of each other, climbing as you go until you fall off, run out of crates, you can’t build any higher or people find it funny to knock the stack down with you on top! After that we did a dissent, which is like the zip wire, although instead of going horizontal you go vertical. Listening to others jump off first it sounded extremely fast and scary, but once I plucked up the courage to step, note not jump off of the platform, it really wasn’t too bad or fast. It does go faster the heavier you are, so I probably got off lightly! We had a takeaway that evening and amused ourselves with karaoke on the X-Box, which past the time nicely.

On Sunday morning, we were supposed to do rowing, but this got cancelled, so we did orienteering instead. My group lost, but we weren’t really interested in winning and to be fair most of the time was spent fishing Calvin out of lakes, cringing at what he was rolling and diving in and taking bets on who out of him and Fliss would win tug with branches! I was so glad that Fliss’s owner offered to wash Calvin for me, he was a real swamp dog! In the afternoon, we were meant to do caving, but they lost the key, it was a man made cave, therefore we just did archery. Nobody managed to hit the balloons on the targets and it was quite a bit of sitting around involving me moaning how cold I was and everyone offering me their jackets, but I manned up and declined! That night we had a pub dinner, which was actually quite tasty and spent the rest of the evening just chatting. It was commented that I was such a happy person, which amused me greatly, as my mum always gets excited when I smile on the rare occasion and then I realised on reflection, I had become that confident Selina who only appears on trips for the visually impaired.

I honestly had a brilliant time, it was so refreshing to meet new people, you obviously get on better with some people than others, but everyone was good company in general. As testimony to my nice time, VICTA are holding a Christmas meal/party next month and I have booked to go. Partly because I want to buy a new dress, but mostly because I am eager to have another great experience. Thank you VICTA and all the new lovely people I met!

Where does a horse put its bit?! (Trivial Pursuit)

Nicki Minaj

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Nicki Minaj in concert. The concert was enjoyable overall, but perhaps i’m not quite cool enough to appreciate her fully!

I love her hits like Starships, Pound the Alarm and Super Base and even like some of her naughtier stuff on her Pink Friday albums. However, although I know she is a rapper by trade, I wasn’t prepared for the vast amount of hard core rapping. What made me feel even more out of place was that the crowd seemed to know all of the words to these raps that I had never heard of in my life!

I found I had a similar experience with one of the support acts Tyga. Personally, I had never heard of the bloke before, yet the crowd were mad for him and filled in the pauses in his songs. I’m definitely not down with it!

The other support act was Misha B and since she was from X Factor was more on my level. I thought she was great and proves that these reality shows can dig up some great talent, even if the public don’t vote for them to win.

Overall it was a good experience, I don’t think i’ll be rushing to see her again though, sorry Nicki!

When you know you are great, you have no need to hate

Final Year

I am finally in my last year of my English Language and Literature degree with The Open University. After being on track for a First, the final assessments (OES) on my last two modules, A215 Creative Writing and E301 The Art of English, dropped my marks from a 2.1 to a 2.2 for each module. This means I am now on course to get a 2.2 classification despite scoring Distinctions on my first three modules. I didn’t expect to get Distinctions this time, but thought I would end up with at least 2.1s, as my actual assignments were in that region throughout. What’s more frustrating is that I was happy with my final assessments, which are worth 50% of your grade for the year, so I have no idea where I went wrong. My final module with the OU is EA300 Children’s Literature and whatever I score on that will determine my degree classification.

A215 Creative Writing
TMA 01 77%
TMA 02 76%
TMA 03 78%
TMA 04 82%
TMA 05 78%
OCAs 78%
OES 57%
Grade 3 Pass

E301 The Art of English
TMA 01 59%
TMA 02 76%
TMA 03 84%
TMA 04 85%
TMA 05 80%
TMA 06 74%
OCAs 78%
OES 60%
Grade 3 Pass

Success is never final and failure is never complete

Operation 15

A couple of days after I got back from holiday, I had my fifteenth eye operation. Surprisingly, it had been six years since my last eye surgery, how time flies. When I was younger, I got so used to having operations that the surgery never scared me, but the needle always did. Gradually, my needle phobia got worse and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t help getting hysterical about it, it’s so embarrassing. People always think it’s the pain of the needle that frightens me silly, but that’s a load of rubbish, I can take pain. It is the fact that the needle is in me, in my skin, in my body that freaks me out.

Since it had been a while since my last eye operation, I was quite anxious, especially because for the first time I would actually be awake for it. The surgery was to remove calcium build up on the front of my cornea, which had been causing me immense eye pain. The build-up is a result of having an oil bubble in my eye, which once held my retina in place, now it just keeps my eye from shrinking and preserves it until technology advances.

Today is Halloween, so I thought I would share this story that sent shivers down my spine and might well do yours. Please stop reading if you would prefer not to hear about my eye operation in gory detail!

I arrived at Moorfields Eye Hospital and went up to the day surgery clinic. It was basically a corridor of old people, some of whom had already had their surgery and others were waiting. There were no beds, just rows of chairs and to find a free seat was a challenge. The nurse checked my blood pressure and was alarmed to read that I would be awake for my operation, as she thought usually people having my surgery were put to sleep. This made me feel a little iller, perhaps it wasn’t minor surgery after all. I was sent downstairs to see my consultant who marked my left eye with an X, just to make sure he operated on the correct eye. That part always amuses me.

I then had a long wait upstairs, the nurse kept coming to me for different reasons, I was waiting for the anaesthetist to pay me a visit to explain how my eye would be numbed, but he never came. Eventually, the nurse came with a wheelchair and told me to get in. She didn’t explain that it was time for my operation and feeling panicked to where I would be going, you tend to panic more when you can’t see I find, the tears began to roll down my face. My mum asked if she could come with me and the nurse replied comically ‘why?’! My mum followed anyway!

I’m not too sure why I couldn’t walk to theatre, maybe the nurses aren’t trained in guiding people, so I rolled up in this wheelchair. There were lots of medics in theatre already and were all asking why I was upset. I’m sorry was it just me who was aware that I was about to have my fifteenth eye operation at the age of twenty-four and on top of that I was going to be awake for it! Of course I didn’t blurt that out, as much as I would have liked to.

They seemed surprised that I didn’t know how my eye was going to be numbed and weren’t too sure themselves. Apparently, sometimes the operation could be done with numbing eye drops, which filled me with relief until they said that wouldn’t work for me with my minor nystagmus, meaning I wouldn’t be able to keep my eye still, so they would have to inject my eye. Oh my god, I could have died, why didn’t the ground open up and swallow me! I was going to have to have a needle in my eye, in my eye, in my eye!!!

They offered to put me to sleep instead, but this still would involved a needle, so I turned them down, as I had eaten lunch and wasn’t in the mood to be throwing up afterwards. I can’t believe some crazy part of me agreed to have a needle in my eye! Argh!

Apparently it is inconvenient to cry when they are trying to stick a needle in your eye, which was most annoying, so I had to divert to making caveman noises, grunting here and there. The injection took an age, it stung horribly, despite having the numbing eye drops. My whole body was shaking uncontrollably afterwards, even when they wheeled me into the next room. They attached me to a heart monitor and I couldn’t count the beeps on the machine they were going so fast. I smiled to myself every time the machine made an odd noise, jumping or sounding a sort of alarm, as if I was about to go into cardiac arrest like you see on Holby City. I knew I was clearly freaking out.

If things couldn’t get any worse, they placed a sticky sheet over my face, which had a little cut out area for my eye. If I wasn’t already struggling to breathe normally, this wasn’t helping. The surgeon went to begin and the first prod hurt, as if I was being stabbed with lots of little needles. The numbing procedure hadn’t worked, my eye wasn’t numb because it had only just occurred to them that I had lots of scar tissue from previous surgery. Therefore, they had to pour lots and lots of drops in my eye, which infuriated me more because they were leaking all over my hair! This meant I had to focus on a light throughout the surgery to keep my eye still. When you only have light perception, this is a tough task. They kept having to tell me to focus on the light, as my mind was drifting thinking why on earth am I letting them do this to me.

Although I could no longer feel what they were doing, I could hear every scrape they made, as they scraped the calcium off of my cornea. It sounded like they were scraping paint off of a window and sent shivers down my spine like when somebody scratches a blackboard. They put a contact lens bandage on my eye, as a barrier whilst the skin grew back and was meant to reduce the pain. Totally traumatised, the whole thing lasted around an hour.

As I said, this was my fifteenth eye operation and previously, after retina surgery, I got so used to having it, I didn’t need pain killers. After this surgery, I was allowed home a short while afterwards. I was desperate to lie down, yet there were no beds. I had to travel on the tube back to the car and then had a two hour drive home. The pain slowly increased. I lay on the back seat of the car in agony with my eye oozing non-stop. As son as I got home I downed some pain killers and ate something. However, it wasn’t long before I was throwing up, I think from the sheer pain, it was unbelievable.

My eye hurt all week and until I had the contact lens bandage removed the following week. I would love to say I’m now cured and the trauma was all worth it, but my eye is still playing up from time to time, which is just my rotten luck. I have a follow-up appointment in January and if I do need more surgery, I’m definitely going to make sure they knock me out!

Happy Halloween

Corfu

There is an in joke with all of my friends that I’m always cold, but to be perfectly honest nine times out of ten I am! In the summer when it’s warm enough to be in a t-shirt by most people’s standards, I can normally be found with a jacket on. This is why each year I have to get away for some serious sunshine.

It was all quite promising to begin with in Corfu, nice large holiday complex, two pools and on the beach, but after a couple of days the skies turned grey. We arrived on Monday 10 September and by Thursday evening we all got drenched legging it back in flip flops from reception to our room, which was about a good ten minute walk.

So on Friday the rain continued along with thunder and lightning, we decided to take the hotel shuttle into Corfu town, as did the rest of the hotel. You couldn’t book a place on the fifty seater coach and a couple of hundred people were waiting for it. You could see the Brits forming an orderly queue, but I assured my parents that the French and Germans aren’t really into being polite with these sorts of things, so we joined in the barging to get on. When we arrived in Corfu town it was heart sinking to find that there wasn’t just one big shopping mall where we could stay dry and shop at leisure. Therefore, we spent the day getting drenched yet again and didn’t really buy anything either. We arrived back at the hotel in the early evening where there had been a power cut, fallen trees and things set on fire. Very alarming!

Saturday morning was cold and dull, but no rain, so I trained on the beach and my parents played tennis. They always play tennis on holiday. By the afternoon it was raining again and I was declaring it one of the worst holidays ever!

Sunday brought some hazy sunshine, which meant some relaxing by the pool, but it wasn’t long until it gave way to the rain again. The locals were all delighted, as there is a water shortage on the island and they hadn’t seen rain for four months. However, I found it challenging to share in their joy!

Thankfully, the final day was hot once more and judging by the weather over here at the moment, I’m guessing that was the last I’ll be seeing of the sunshine this year. Overall it was a mixed holiday, I’m not sure there is much to do in Corfu, but as I said the hotel was nice.

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day!

The London 2012 Paralympics

Wow, wow, wow!!! Wasn’t it just brilliant?! I knew I was always going to enjoy watching it, but for the whole of the country to get behind the games was just amazing and exceeded expectation. I had tickets for three mornings of athletics, one set were given to me by UK Athletics and the other two sets I bought previously, as I wanted to watch what would have perhaps been my events. When I wasn’t in the jam packed stadium, I watched the athletics on Channel 4’s Extra platforms either at home or my coach had it on his laptop running whilst I trained. It was very surreal watching so many athletes I’ve raced and know, it honestly filled me with pride.

Team GB were exceptional and the level of competition absolutely phenomenal. It’s pretty clear that China rule disability sport, but that is understandable with a disabled population of sixty million! I came to quite enjoy listening to the Chinese national anthem, it’s catchy! I am really pleased that the next Olympics and Paralympics will be in Brazil though, not only because it’s hot, but because they already have an extremely strong Paralympic Team, so you just know that they will put on a great show too.

Going back to the standard of competition, in the T11 100m, not only was the world record broken and now stands at 12.01secs (set by the same girl I raced in May at the Paralympic Test event), in the heats five girls went sub 13secs right before my eyes. I have only just managed to start running sub 15secs consistently with a hell of a lot of hard work. It made me think for a split second that I can’t compete with them, but then why can’t I?! I don’t really know what makes them so much better than me, but I intend to work it out.

Last year I had a go at long jump, but gave it up after finding I was unable to run in a straight line consistently. To my surprise, when in the stadium watching the men’s F11 long jump and women’s F11/12 long jump, I discovered neither can any of the other totally blind athletes. So maybe I’ll pick it up again. My best was 3.21m off of seven strides, the others were doing double the amount of strides and jumping around 4m, which I don’t think is out of the realms of possibility for me at all.

I have to admit it was a bit gutting at times not competing, yet at the same time it has fuelled my hunger for success. I so desperately want to do what they were doing.

Channel 4 did a good job at hosting the games and I seriously hope that there will be coverage of the world champs next year, as well as extensive coverage of the next Paralympic Games in Rio 2016.

Sport doesn’t care who you are, anyone can take part!