When the Lights Went Out
I was in Aspen waiting for a flight to Denver and then connecting on to San Antonio when suddenly, my vision changed radically, and not for the better. For some time, I had suffered with limited vision in my left eye but now, in an instant, I was having trouble seeing anything out of my right eye.
As soon as I landed in San Antonio, I went to an ophthalmologist, who determined it was a retina problem and referred me to Dr. Jeremiah Brown, the doctor he thought was the leading retina specialist in San Antonio. Fortunately, I was able to get an appointment immediately with Dr. Brown. He examined my eye, said that my retina was badly swollen and gave me a shot in my eyeball. Sounds painful, but it was not at all. I was impressed with Dr. Brown and thought he had a wonderful manner and voice. In fact, I commented to him that I bet he was a killer with the girls in the office. What I did not realize at the time, because I could hardly see, was that Dr. Brown was black and all the girls in the office were white. Probably not too appropriate.
The shot returned some of my vision, however, at that time, I had absolutely no vision in my left eye—I could not even see light—and the vision in my right eye was so poor that I was legally blind. I had a lot of adjustments to make, but fortunately I had Betty to help me. What I quickly realized is that a good memory is essential for a blind person. You have to remember where you left your toothpaste, which drawer has your razor, and where your favorite cheese is in the refrigerator.
Betty and I decided to move into a retirement home to make things easier and chose Franklin Park where we had a nice one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a meal plan, so we did not have to worry about meal preparation. This worked out very well until Betty developed leukemia and passed away in 2014.
At that time, I moved into a one-bedroom unit in an independent apartment.
I decided that life would be much easier if I had a guide dog to lead the way and applied to Guide Dogs of Texas. They said it would be at least a year before I could have a dog but, once the idea had formed, I was impatient. Someone recommended Southeastern Guide Dogs and I applied.
It was an impressive experience from the start. They were friendly and helpful over the phone and soon sent a representative from Florida to evaluate me and my situation. I must've passed the evaluation, because shortly thereafter they invited me to come to their Florida campus to receive a dog.
I arrived in Florida at the same time as eight other students and we were each assigned our own room—basically a nice single room with bath and a small refrigerator. The next day I was introduced to Hercules, and we hit it off from the beginning. For 28 days I was trained on how to work with Hercules.
We students were each assigned a seat in the dining room, and I was fortunate to be seated next to Barbara Reeves and her guide dog, Atlas. Hercules and Atlas were the only two Black Labs in the class while all the others were Yellow Labs. Barbara and I became best of friends.
The apartment Hercules and I were living in was fine, but the other residents were young with families, and we had little in common. When we returned from Aspen in 2016, Kim and George decided I was better off in an independent living facility and they chose Adante, where, as I write this, we are still living quite happily.