Adjusting to a world of darkness

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Lisa Chee

Lisa Chee

HELEN Keller, a sightless person of letters, once said the only thing worse than being blind is having the sight but no vision.

The learned Keller, an 18th century author, political activist and lecturer, from Tuscumbia, Alabama, USA, did not only go blind less than two years after she was born on June 27, 1880, but she also lost her hearing.

Yet, despite her disabilities, she went on to be the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts. She showed that it is possible for a blind person who has vision, to be as successful.

Nowadays, there are various technologies to help the blind function almost as well as the sighted. So, it is not a dead end for people who go blind or are born blind. They can lead an independent and normal life so long as the sighted know how to accommodate them and the blind themselves know how to adjust to the seeing world.

So what is life as a blind person like? Let’s hear what Lisa Chee of Kuching has to say.

The 39-year-old used to have perfect eyesight. In 2010, she went blind, eight months after she was diagnosed with diabetes. A year earlier, she suffered a heart attack while working as a marketing executive in Brunei. As a result, she had to leave everything behind, including her career, to return to Kuching to be with her family and seek treatment.

Chee holds a degree in business and economics but now works as a phone operator – apparently because of her affliction. Before becoming blind, she enjoyed watching movies, painting as a hobby and, of course, travelling to see the world. The initial effect of losing her sight was devastating. She had to struggle through a period of depression, anguish and denial.

But something in her urged her to fight on. Soon, she began to realise that although she had lost her sight, she could still have vision. Vowing not give up, she learned to cope with her situation and with determination, overcame the challenges only the blind know.

Today, Chee is a vocal, independent, outgoing, and confident person. She depends mainly on the sounds of her environment to tell her what is going on, including the time of the day. She has to rely on a time device that acts like an alarm clock to get ready for work.

She said if she insisted on using a clock, she would have to order either a Braille clock or an all-purpose ‘talking clock’ which speaks the time at the touch of a button – perfect for someone who cannot see. But such gadgets are not easy to come by locally. So Chee uses a smartphone instead – installed with a voice assist feature. She is thankful her mother can drive her to and from work.

‘Blindness forced me to train my memory’

The Dialogue in the Dark (DID) programme is a concept whereby daily routines are made exciting and a reversal of roles created, where the sighted become blind and the blind become sighted. Visitors are guided by blind guides in absolute darkness to experience the daily environments of life.

Organising toiletries

To move around her bedroom and get to the bathroom, Chee needs to remember how and where the bed, cupboards and shelves are placed and where toiletries are kept. She also has to identify things by their shapes and textures through touch or feel.

For instance, when she wants to buy a bottle of shampoo and body wash, she will have to touch or feel the shape of each item — and remember them.

“Of course, there are times I misplace things around the house. Then I will have to ask my family to help. But most times, I remember where I keep my things. Blindness has forced me to train my memory to be very good.”

Colour of clothes

As Chee had bought quite a number of clothes before she became blind, she can still remember their colours and designs. So she does not have much problem figuring out which clothes or combination of clothes to wear.

The problem only arises when she wants to buy new clothes. Again her mother comes to the rescue by describing to her the colours and patterns. If her mother could not accompany her, she would ask the sales persons for help.

Once she gets to know these details, she commits them to memory. Even the small labels can be used as clues to differentiate between the various types of clothing. But Chee admitted no matter how well she could remember the details, there would always be some lingering doubts. That is when she would ask her family to help.

Cooking

Chee also cooks for herself, at least simple cooking. She has to memorise where the bottles of ketchup, sauce and seasonings are kept. For this, she usually needs a family member to help her.

She uses her instincts to estimate the amount of ingredients needed for her favourite dishes and the time needed to cook them. The easiest for her to cook would be instant noodles. And to use a microwave oven, she first has to learn the positions of the buttons. She prefers a simple oven because one with many too features could be confusing. This is especially true of the digital versions.

Separating medications

Chee is taking medication for her heart problem. She keeps the tablets or capsules systematically in boxes, using rubber bands or other markers to ensure she does not mix up the pill boxes. She has also learnt to feel the shapes or textures of the tablets or capsules.

Chee can easily differentiate between bank notes of different values from their size. She sorts them in an orderly manner in the compartments of her purse. But coins can pose a bit of a problem because their sizes are almost all the same. So if possible, she avoids using coins when she goes shopping alone.

Chee said she could always ask the supermarket staff to help her move around the premises and tell her the prices of the items on her shopping list.

So far, Chee said she had not come across anyone trying to take advantage of her blindness to cheat her. She finds it safe even using taxis alone.

Most smart phones come with accessibility features for vision and hearing impaired users.

Smartphone, laptop and computer

Chee is thankful smartphones nowadays have built-in software to help the disabled. All she needs is the voice assist feature to use WhatsApp and the Internet, and she listens to online news or messages via her smartphone.

To use a laptop and computer, Chee only has to download the JAWS screen reading software or the NVDA (Non-Visual Desktop Access) screen reader. Both programs read the text on the screen with a computerised voice. She can control what is read to her by moving the cursor to the relevant area of text.

NVDA’s advantage is that it can convert the text into braille with a device called braille display. NVDA provides the key to education and employment, and access to social networking, online shopping, banking and news for many blind people.

Screen readers are expensive but NVDA and JAWS can be downloaded for free. Chee has no problems typing on the keyboard — she memorises the letters of the keys.

Recognising the time

For Chee, the easiest way to tell the time of the day is to use her smartphone to read it out to her —- if she is at her home. When outdoors, she can roughly tell the time by listening to the sounds of the environment. If she hears birds singing, she knows it’s usually dawn. If she hears the stridulations of crickets, then it would be dusk. Cricket sounds could also indicate that rain has just past.

The noise level of road traffic and at construction sites, the sounds of footsteps and such like are all vital clues for Chee to roughly know the different times of the day.

Chee always tunes to her favourite TV or YouTube channels while at home, allowing her to join in when her co-workers discuss the latest shows during lunch or a coffee break the next day at work.

While watching TV with others, what she misses out most is the action. Sometimes, she hears uproarious laughter even though she ‘hears’ nothing funny. She is happy though she can still enjoy movies (she watched before losing her sight) such as Harry Potter by listening to the dialogue.

“I can recall what I heard in the past,” she said.

Actually, there is a type of a movie with an audio description in the background to tell you what is going on in the show. An easy-to-operate DVD player is needed to turn on the audio description (by a touch of a button). However, the gadget cannot be found in the local market yet and has to be obtained by special order. So Chee is not too bothered to get one for the moment.

Senses

Human beings have a number of senses of which sight (vision), hearing (audition), taste (gustation), smell (olfaction) and touch (somatosensation) are the five traditionally recognised ones.

Chee, having lost her sense of sight, will have to depend on the other four.

“But that doesn’t mean I now have the ability to sense things like a spider — which many people wrongly think I do,” Chee said, adding, however, that she could roughly guess where she is at a given time through her senses of hearing, smell and touch. She can also feel the structures around her or the texture of the ground she is standing on.

For example, she knows she is near some food stalls through her sense of smell, and close to a lift if she hears a ‘ting’ sound. When using a lift, she has to depend on the braille buttons.

But she pointed out that not many lifts here had this braille feature and even if they did, most did not have ‘sound notification’ to indicate the floor level it has stopped at to open.

So it is quite a challenge for her to tell when people are coming in and out of a packed lift.

Despite her disability, Chee still goes on holidays but less frequently now. Although she cannot enjoy the scenery, she still makes the best of her time shopping, savouring the cuisine,

appreciating the weather, the air, the sounds — things sighted people take for granted — and even the very fact that she is on holiday somewhere.

Challenges

Chee has an elder and a younger sister. Her mother worked in a bank before she retired while her father passed away 11 years ago.

When she lost her sight, her family and close friends were all very supportive, giving her lots of encouragement. But there was an initial period when she lived in denial and suffered from depression.

What upset her most was the thought that henceforth she would be a burden to other people, especially her family. She was particularly distressed she would be troubling her ageing mother, knowing that, by right, she should be taking care of her mother instead of the other way round. But later, she realised she would be living in the sightless world for the rest of her life and had to adjust accordingly.

One day she told her mother she wanted to go Kuala Lumpur to take part in the Dialogue in the Dark (DID) programme to help her live her new life as a blind person.

According to the programme, the participants would be led by blind guides through specially constructed darkrooms where scent, sound, wind, temperature and texture convey the characteristics of the daily environments. The participants would also learn how to interact by using their other senses.

The DID is a sort of concept whereby daily routines are made exciting and a reversal of roles is created in which ‘the sighted become blind and the blind become sighted’.

Visitors are guided by blind guides in absolute darkness where they will get to experience the daily activities of life such taking a walk in the park or a boat cruise or visiting a café — all in specially designed darkened rooms.

No sympathy

Chee said she does not need sympathy — only understanding and empathy which she believes are what most blind people need. She is sad to note that jobs for the blind are very limited, leading to many sightless people resorting to their own devices to earn an income — notably by busking or begging in the streets.

She shares the following dos and don’ts when interacting with a blind person:

1.            Treat blind people as individuals. People with visual disabilities come in all shapes, sizes, and colours. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else.

2.            Always ask whether the blind person needs assistance (and in what ways) before helping. The blind are quite independent most of the time. Don’t offer to handle them under ordinary circumstances unless they request for help. And if the offer of help is declined by the blind, do not insist on wanting to help.

3.            Talk to a blind person in a normal tone of voice. Many people have the mistaken tendency to talk loudly to a blind person as if being blind also makes them hard of hearing.

4.            Don’t leave a blind person in a strange environment without orientating him or her to it.

5.            If a blind person asks for directions, do not use words like straight ahead, turn left or on your right. Worse still, don’t point and say go that way or it’s over there.

6.            If you find yourself having to guide a blind person, let him or her hold your arm. This will enable you to guide the way rather than making the blind person feel he or she is being ‘propelled’ along. Pushing a blind person on is a no-no.