sally.geek.nz

Category: Kindness

  • How I see it … message to a motorist

    In Auckland, many motorists are going from A to B at any time. Many drivers are conscientious and drive with care and consideration for other road users; however, some do not. First, I will describe a situation I found myself in today with my guide dog Sienna and then reiterate the message I would like to give those who do not have situational awareness while driving.

    After leaving work early with the intention to work from home after my monitor shorted and would no longer work with IT, removing it for repair, I began my walk home. Sienna, my guide dog and I were on our second walk without the guide dog instructor present. Earlier that morning, we had a fantastic walk to work with no mishaps along the way.

    Sienna and I at work on Tuesday with our Guide Dog Instructor.

    One of the things I have noticed about Sienna is that she is a very social dog. For example, last week, she dragged the small table she was tethered to towards the door of my office so that she could interact with the passers-by while I was teaching or in online meetings; I noticed pretty late in her escapade after people had stopped to talk with her. Similarly, when she knows we are heading home, she tends to go slower as if to say, “do we have to go home” and wants to interact with people on the way home. I want to let it be known that she gets plenty of time to play and socialise with others and I am told that this is quite common for new guide dogs to want to be out.

    As soon as we crossed a road near work, Sienna figured out we were going home and decided to go very slowly. She did everything right; it was just at about 1/4 of her usual speed when working. To give you context, I can walk home in about 25 – 30 minutes and it took me about 90 minutes today; I tried all of the usual tricks to get her to speed up and ended up stopping along the way to get a drink for me and give her some time out. This worked perfectly and she walked along at average speed and happily until we got to the next set of traffic lights.

    One of Sienna’s favourite things is targeting or finding the correct traffic light signal to cross the road. We did this perfectly and waited for the signal indicating it was safe to cross. I was still giving her a treat for finding the correct traffic light pole when the signal beeped and vibrated, so we were a few seconds late taking off to cross. However, the signal was still beeping, and cars stopped, meaning it was still safe to cross.

    The road we were crossing had two lanes going in each direction and a middle lane for traffic turning right, so we crossed five lanes of traffic. When the way was clear and the signal was beeping, we started to cross. After crossing one and a half lanes, a car ran the red light opposite us, going around 50km per hour in the lane we were crossing. The intersection was on my right and noisy, so I could not see it or fully hear approaching the traffic over idling cars and the beeping traffic signals, so I didn’t notice the car coming.

    Sienna stopped when she heard the car (as she is trained to do), I asked her to go forward to try and get out of the lane, and she hesitated and the car swerved and went behind us, driving away at speed.

    Sienna and I continued to cross the road reaching the other side safely but a little shaken. The lights then changed and other cars stopped at the lights pulled away. We sat for a while on the other side of the road and then continued on our way home.

    Only having 10 degrees of vision left, I could see that the car pulling that ran the red light was a white station wagon and was probably in an early 1990s shape, but I couldn’t pick up any more detail. I will not make any assumptions about the driver or reason for running a red light. Still, all drivers need to maintain situational awareness to be safe in charge of a vehicle. With this in mind, I have no way of ever finding this driver. Still, the message I would like to give them is to be aware of the situation (including red traffic lights and pedestrians) and consider other road users’ safety.

    Sienna and I continued our walk home and she was going slowly, with none of her usual tail wags and being extremely cautious when guiding me. We continued at her pace to find the footpath entirely blocked by a construction gate and pallets and no people to be seen anywhere. I asked Sienna to find a way around, but the only options were stepping out into the road (there was room) or going back to the traffic lights to cross where the car ran the red light. Sienna was unwilling to step onto the road and not keen to go back to the previous intersection.

    Sienna in front of a cofusing foopath obsticle. today on our walk home.

    The only way I could then get past this obstruction was to move a road cone that was in burried knee high grass to get her through. After this, she stopped every 20 meters or so, and would move along when encouraged but it was tough going. Eventually, I stopped, took off her harness and let her sniff around for a while. I attempted to walk home with her on the lead with my white cane but she was into everyones garden, grass and sniffing so I only walked about 10 meters off harness and just with her lead.

    Luckily this did the trick and I was able to get her harness back on and she walked home slowely in harness. She was cautious but by the time we got in the front door there were some tail wags. After some play, food and a peanut butter kong Sienna is now asleep and I hope that she is happy enough to guide me tomorrow after what happened today.

    I am hoping that this story is informative to others and if by any mircale that it reaches the particular driver of the white station wagon or others that loose their situational awareness while driving that it shows the impact that their actions can have on other road users giving them insight to change their habbits before more serious harm than a somewhat traumatised guide dog and handler on their first solo walk home is caused.

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  • How I see it …. a taste of the hidden cost of disability during a pandemic

    Person in a hoddie with his face covered by darness
    Photo by Kaique Rocha on Pexels.com

    With Auckland back in Level 4 lockdown, I thought I would share some of the hidden costs of disability in a pandemic.  Please note – this is based on my own experiences and I can navigate these, but others may have their own unique challenges.

    The costs I will discuss are related to a basic need (access to food) and a legislated requirement (getting a Covid-19 test).

    You may be aware that I am legally blind and have low visual acuity and a reduced visual field which makes transport and reading grocery labels challenging in everyday circumstances.  Lockdown raises hidden challenges for many people and I thought I would take some time to address some of those that I have experienced in the hope that readers can learn from these.

    Screenshot of Twitter PostOn the weekend, I posted to Twitter about my experience getting groceries when I had spent three days trying to place an online shopping order (I still haven’t found somewhere that has a delivery slot within a week).  Usually, it would be a 20-minute walk to my local supermarket, however, choosing this option comes with pros and cons. I am limited by what I can carry and many trips to the supermarket would put me and others at risk of spreading Covid-19.  Similarly, if you add walking and queuing to get into the supermarket along with the extra time reading labels and prices as well this can mean being out for an extended period of time. Alongside this, moving objects such as people, cars, trolleys and other things add nausea making the experience unpleasant.  For these reasons I always generally shop online, about four days ahead.

    During the last lockdown, I was added to the Priority Access list for groceries at Countdown and ordered groceries a week in advance easily.  What is different this time is that there are absolutely no delivery slots, even for those who need them.  I have tried most available supermarkets and food stores that deliver without a subscription and have found no slots available at any.

    One of the messages from the government is “shop normally”, however, the new settings related to the Covid-19 Delta variant, we now have all people who have been in the same location as a positive Covid-19 case isolating at home are now considered close contacts.  This means they can not leave home and also need to order their groceries online.  This raises an interesting dilemma when we already start with an uneven playing field.  There are a lot of questions:

    • how is the need for groceries need to be measured?
    • who gets priority access to groceries?
    • how is this regulated and policed?
    • how do we locate those who need food? E.g. have no one to assist
    • what contingencies are in place for those who can no get access?

    Recently I have noticed the media has picked up access issues but for the most part, the focus is on those who are self-isolating.  My immediate thought was what about those following instructions who already are challenged by access on an everyday basis.  We also need to eat.

    Top three news posts related to supermarket online shopping:

    I am privileged to have friends who are willing to grocery shop for me if I ask.  Although, it is worth mentioning that if someone does shop for me this decreases my risk of spreading or contracting Covid-19 it does put them at risk of potentially causing them and others harm.

    Yesterday I found out I was at a location of interest with an infected person for about 25 minutes and needed to get a Covid-19 test today. While on the phone with the Healthline representative I took the time to ask about any processes for getting groceries for those who found accessing supermarkets difficult with the intent of spreading the answers to those in need.  The two suggestions I was were “ask friends”, “call the student volunteer army“.  To be honest I had expected more information from Healthline considering we are told to phone for Covid-19 related information.

    As an experienced nurse, there were a couple of things that concerned me about that phone call but for now, the important point in this post is access and the hidden costs related to Covid-19 Lockdown.

    The Covid-19 briefings have mentioned that testing and vaccination-related to Covid-19 are free.  I beg to differ there are many hidden costs for both of these.

    On discussing where I could get a Covid-19 test the Healthline representative and I went through all locations within an approximate 8 km radius and discussed the wait time of up to 5 – 8 hours at some for a test.

    The closest testing point that the Healthline representative offered (1.3 km away) was not completing the tests at the current time.  The next suggestion was the local Urgent Care (2 km) who informed me they were not doing Covid-19 swabs at present and to go to the local drive-through testing station.  The next closest (2.5 km) was a drive-through only and because I am blind and am in a bubble on my own this caused a dilemma.  I could go to this testing station in a Taxi but 5 – 8 hour waits for a test were being reported at that time so getting a Taxi became too expensive. This ruled out everything within walking distance.

    The next suggestion was getting a bus.  Bus timetables are limited, but that was not the main issue.   Where I live the buses either go to the CBD (12 km) or local bus station (3 km) and change busses to get elsewhere.  The Healthline worker had suggested minimising bus travel particularly if I needed to change busses at a station leaving only the CBD as the only option by bus.  At the time of this call, there was no public testing centre available in the CBD so these options were both ruled out.

    The next option is my GP (4 km), the GP were able to do Covid-19 testing, but not at my usual practice.  I needed to go to their satellite clinic which was further away (about 8 km).  By this time I was rather over trying to contact testing locations and figuring out how I could access these and decided to pay for a Taxi to the GP satellite clinic for a test.

    While the processes used by my GP practice was impeccable (shout out to one of my ex nursing students who took the test) it was getting there was costly.

    Costly in more than one way.  Firstly there was the stress of explaining the context, disability and reasons that drive-through clinics could not be used. Emotionally the process of locating an accessible option is tiring and illustrates sub-optimal access but it highlights a negative component of living with a liability reinforcing some of the views discussed in my last blog post. The next cost is the price of getting a taxi ($23 each way) a total of $46 for one test.

    While I can afford to pay for this there are many of my friends and acquaintances with circumstances that can not afford the monetary cost of this without careful planning.

    The part that eventually prompted me to write this blog post is that the taxi driver who took me to get tested for Covid-19 told me that he had just come from a District Health Board Covid-19 testing centre that was not advertised to the public about 600 m from my house with no queue.

    This got me thinking.  I immediately entered problem-solving mode, thinking about solutions to manage flow access testing centres.  However, I quickly realised this needs a coordinated response and opted to publicise the need for streamlined processes for those who can not access services in a Covid-19 Lockdown.

    As my tweet pictured above suggests – if you can shop for groceries in-store please do.

    Online Grocery Shopping

    Here are some online grocery stores that I found while trying to get some groceries delivered:

    No Delivery Slots Available

    Reported Delay in Delivery

    Subscription / Membership

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  • How I see it … Thoughts on Equity

    Ensuring equity for all in a society of many with individual needs has been on my mind lately.

    Usually, I pride myself in delivering on this for others that I care for, work with and encounter and can reasonably do this but more. More lately, the volume of differing needs has increased, and because of this, I cannot keep to the standard I usually do due to sheer volume. This is a bitter pill to swallow and is something I am not happy about, but it is something that I alone can not change.

    Lately, I have become bogged down in not providing this for all and reverted to setting a solid line but on the other hand, why should I not provide equity for some? Then comes who do you choose … but this is a story for another time.

    My thoughts wandered to inequity when filling in a fatigue risk assessment form, and one of the checkboxes for high risk for fatigue is a disability. I knew this fatigue was real as my fatigue had increased proportionally to the decrease in my vision over the last year. However, I had never really applied this to myself before adding the equity lens. Instead of an equity lens, I have always have held myself more accountable and set myself higher standards and been harder on myself than I was for others because I had a disability and was afraid that others, as I did, did not view disability with an equity lens.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    When I think of equity, I immediately think of race first and then look to other contexts. As a legally blind person, I face inequity every day that makes things more challenging, for example, construction and moving barriers, walls and moving people may be nothing to someone who can see, but in my world, these equal cognitive ability to navigate or in the case of people, nausea and dizziness. I had never thought of this with an equity lens until I filled in the fatigue management form. My latest frustration along these lines is that readers will probably think this is rather strange; it is a building. Said building is in the line of sight of a bus stop I use every day. Before the building finished construction, I could make out the shape of the approaching bus. Granted, because I can’t read the bus number, I stopped every bus to ask – not the point, though. The front of the building is constructed so that it looks like the front of an approaching bus. This has made figuring out when a bus is approaching very difficult, meaning that I use energy and brainpower to process things constantly rather than just glancing to recognise an oncoming bus. This concentration on something others take for granted contributes to the exhaustion I feel after that bus ride.

    This is only one small example; I can think of much more overt, such as inaccessible software, hardware, houses, communities, schools and professions, etc.

    As someone who lives with a disability every day (that I wish I could turn it on and off like a light switch), all I want is to fit into the world and be good at what I do, be like those around me and make the world a better place to live in for everyone. Today, with this in mind and very high fatigue levels, I started to dream about an environment that was easier to access and didn’t cause fatigue and challenges. Right now, my first thought is to put this in the too-hard basket, but what I am really thinking is … when I get the energy … how can I change this?

    Back to what this narrative started with, why can’t I provide equitable opportunities for the volume of people I encounter? I have a friend who would say it is the same old story of the many versus the few. Why should these be black and white or exclusive?

    With this in mind, my lesson for today, the only thing I can really change is myself. In this case, I am going to change my standards. Apply an equity lens and give me a bit of a break from holding myself to higher standards than those around me because I live with a disability. Once this is achieved, on to fixing the rest of my world.

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