This is probably one of the hardest posts that I have had to write so far and one that is written with deep sadness and with both Vicky and my emotions at full stretch.

On Thursday 22 June I/we said goodbye to my loyal and well-loved guide dog, Errol.
 
Having turned just 8 the week before, Errol had developed a cough and was being treated for a respiratory infection at our local vets. Although he had slowed a bit and was turning grey, he appeared to be in great health and was still keen to go in his harness and guide me. Over the weekend he didn’t eat and his breathing became more laboured so we took him back to the vets on Tuesday morning for further advice. This time, despite having a strong heartbeat, pulse and normal temperature, they felt that further investigations were required. An x-ray of his chest was taken later that afternoon that showed some shadowing around his upper lungs and throat and blood tests identified that his plasma levels were low. He was given fluids and had a blood transfusion overnight before being referred to the North Downs Specialist Referrals on the Wednesday morning.
 
Following an admission consultation with an oncologist at the NDSR, Errol was admitted and further tests were carried out during the afternoon including him having a CT scan. I was contacted by the oncologist after his CT scan when I was informed that Errol, not only had cancer of the lungs, but that he also cancer of the heart, right kidney and spleen and likely cancer of the blood.
 
I made the decision to bring Errol home and for him to be put to sleep on Thursday by Beth, one of the brilliant vets at Priory Vets and who had been the vet who admitted him and carried out his blood test and x-rays earlier that week. Errol and I spent the afternoon together at home giving us some time alone and also for my family to see him and say their goodbyes. I said my goodbyes, thanked him for being such a good friend and held his head as he was peacefully put to sleep for the final time.
 
Guide Dogs were kept informed throughout the process and I received amazing support from Morven Thomas-Campbell (Guide Dog care and welfare advisor) at each stage  of the process. At this stage I would also like to say a huge thank you to everyone at the Priory Vets (both Redhill and Reigate) and the staff and oncologists at the NDSR in Bletchingley. In particular, I would like to say a huge thanks to the staff team for providing Errol with a luxury breakfast  of chicken and steak on Thursday morning – a real treat for him due to having a very controlled and boring diet due to having Pancreatitis for the past 4 years.
 
Errol and I were partnered together in May 2011 and, following a residential training programme in Guildford and subsequent  training around my home in Earlswood, we were let loose to work together for what was to be the next 6 years and 7 weeks. Errol was my first guide dog and, although very well trained, was a bit cheeky at times and I had to be strict with him in the early days. I remember when he took a portion of chicken pie from a pudding bowl on our kitchen side without leaving any trace or smashing the bowl – most impressive! We learnt each other’s strengths and weaknesses and established a strong partnership together. He was most loyal and just wanted to be with me or near me all the time; he proved this by working right up to a few days before he died with little complaint.
 
Errol was a big black German Shepherd x Golden Retriever who was regularly mistaken for being a flat coat retriever. He was a lovely dog with a huge personality and presence who touched the hearts of so many people he came in to contact with. With his own Twitter handle and being a regular on the Earlswood infant and junior school runs, we became a well-known partnership within the Earlswood community. I will miss him dearly and I know that he’ll be missed by others who knew and loved him also.
 
Errol became part of our VIDA Training team when Vicky and I delivered vision impairment and disability awareness training. He loved to greet people and became a great talking point as well as demonstrating the level of discipline that he/guide dogs have once they are put in their harness. Many people liked to stroke him or enjoyed him lying on their feet during the training. Testament to Errol’s presence and personality is demonstrated from the following quotes taken from our feedback forms and seen in some of our photos.
 
“Vicky and Dave very friendly, professional and knowledgeable. Thank you! Errol (Ernest) is lovely too”
“Errol being there made the course more fun and therapeutic”
“Attendance of Errol was a definite advantage. Both Vicky and Dave were very approachable and made the day an enjoyable experience”
“Wonderful to meet Errol and enjoyable presentation”
“Better understanding of dealing with clients. Will be more of helping and advising clients at reception and in general. Nice to meet Errol”
“Very interesting. Learned a lot that I didn’t know before. Great stuff! Great dog!”
“Thank you both very much, the course was informative and interactive. Very interesting and lots of detail before and during! Thanks (and Errol!)"
“Course was very interactive and getting involved. Vicky, Dave and Errol made a great team. It was really good to learn about guide dogs etc.”
“Venue – good, refreshments – good, presenters = great. Interaction good, Errol of course was excellent!! Good Q & As at any time rather than all at the end”
“Thank you so much. You guys were so great. Thank you for the practical activities and Errol made my day :-)”
“Lovely people! Excellent training! Errol - the dog was Amazing too! Thank you."
“Fantastic training session – thank you Vicky, Dave and Errol.”
“I love Dave’s dog.”

Gauging how much information is useful is a tough one and communication in general is something we talk about a lot on our training particularly in relation to Sighted Guide – so when you’re guiding someone, continually talking can just become noise and then when you say something important the person is likely to miss or ignore it – so for example, describing all of your surroundings and the colours of the walls and floors and that people are in the distance as a continuous stream may prevent the person from hearing you say ‘the surface is a bit uneven here’. But again it’s about getting to know the person and how much information they like, whether they are likely to return to that place unaccompanied etc.

Another example (and hence the title) is when someone meets Dave and goes to shake his hand. Dave usually doesn’t see this (although will sometimes anticipate it anyway), and so, on the occasions that he doesn’t I (Vicky) will just say (quietly to Dave) ‘Hand’. Out of context this would, obviously, be weird, but as the person has usually spoken first, this quick word is enough for Dave to put his hand forward before the other person takes their hand away in embarrassment! The other option would be for the person putting their hand out to say ‘shall I shake your hand’ but again this is awkward if the person doesn’t know how much sight Dave has. The other important part to this is that you’re giving that information quietly (or so just they can hear) to the person you’re with – it’s not information everyone else in the room needs to hear.
 
More complicated things include describing people – how much information is helpful or is this a visual thing that adds to our making assumptions about people – maybe this is for another post!
 
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An extra VIDA Insight this week in honour of #NationalSunglassesDay!

For anyone that knows me well, you’ll have noticed that I (Dave) wear mainstream sunglasses all year round. I have been asked why I need to wear sunglasses if I can’t see but, for me, I wear them to prevent the glare from the sun. I have a little bit of sight left, with this being very sensitive to light, so it is therefore more comfortable to wear glasses and limit the glare. Obviously the sun is brighter in the summer but, for me, it’s just as glary in the winter too! The other reason I wear them is, as mentioned in the VIDA Insight No.2 post (Sun, warmth, straggly Bushes), I wear them to prevent bushes, trees and any other overgrown shrubs hitting me in the eyes when I’m walking around. My personal choice is the Oakley europe Whisker sunglasses. They are quite expensive but they are lightweight, very comfortable to wear, grip nicely and, most of all, look smart and ‘normal’. They have polarized lenses too which further helps prevent glare. There are other reasons why vision impaired people wear sunglasses and everyone has their own reasons. There are also many different types of sunglasses and filters available, some of them designed for vision impaired people or specific eye conditions. The company MediView make filters for eye sight conditions such as Retinitis Pigmentosa and Macular Degeneration as well as for other conditions such as migraines and diabetes.
 
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As promised from last week, as well as introducing yourself so someone with a vision impairment knows who you are, there are then things to consider once you’re chatting…

• As Dave often says on our training, you need to give audible responses (so just nodding or shaking your head in response to a question is not good enough!)
  
• If you’re in a group, remember that the person with a vision impairment can only be fully included if you describe things audibly rather than relying on gestures or facial expressions (although in relation to the latter it can be quite good fun trying to describe these and makes the point too!)
  
• Make sure you tell the person if you’re leaving them as otherwise they may continue talking to you – obvious when you think about it but you’ll be amazed how many people don’t. This has caused comment in the office, as I will always tell Dave when I’m going somewhere and why (to give an indication of how long I’ll be). We’ve got so used to this we don’t even think about it, but the other day when I got up and said ‘Dave, I’m just going for a wee’ one of our colleagues said ‘Blimey, do you have to ask for permission for that?’ We recognise he meant it as a joke, but we did explain that, no, I’m not asking for permission but am saying I’m leaving and also approximately how long I’m going to be :-0
  
• Top Tip: It’s also quite good to let the person know you’re back - after all you might prefer not to hear what they say about you when they think you’re not there :-)

As we’ve said before (and will no doubt say again), it’s really just common courtesy with a bit of additional awareness thrown in!
 
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So following on from last week’s VIDA Insight ‘Sorry, who are you?...Part 1’, I (Vicky) thought I would add a few (hopefully) helpful hints. Firstly, I know I can find it quite hard sometimes when I bump into someone out of context and although I know them, I can’t place where from (and that’s with vision) so I can only imagine how additionally frustrating this must be without the face recognition as well. As an aside, we used to work with someone who had a condition called Prosopagnosia (faceblindness), a neurological disorder that affects an individual’s ability to recognise familiar faces. She used similar strategies to Dave and other VI people in order to place people. There is now a Faceblind UK website for anyone interested http://www.faceblind.org.uk/ as well as a Twitter page.
 
The point Dave makes about social settings was similar to one made in John M. Hull’s book ‘Touching the Rock’ book we wrote about in our VIDA Insight no.3 (http://www.notesonblindness.co.uk/about-john/). Obviously there isn’t an easy solution to this but being aware and changing the way we do things as sighted people could at least help a bit…

• Obviously thinking about what Dave said last week is a start and considering the vision impaired person’s point of view.  
• Being prepared to introduce yourself first and where the person knows you from.
  
• Making it clear that you’re addressing the VI person and not someone else – this might be by using their name as a precursor or gently touching their arm as you begin to speak. This is particularly relevant in a crowded or noisy setting.  
• If I’m with Dave (or another person with a vision impairment), I often try to greet people we know by name. This obviously saves the effort of Dave trolling through the memory banks, but also means I’m not announcing to Dave that ‘Steve’s just walked in’ but just by saying ‘Hi Steve’ automatically makes Dave aware of the fact without drawing attention to it. I would also use this tactic when we go into a meeting room (and saves Dave being rude about someone without realising they’re in the meeting already :-)). There are obviously times when my memory fails me and this isn’t possible and we both spend some time afterwards piecing our memories together to try and work out who they are, not always with success.

 
But it isn’t just about introductions…once you are chatting to someone with a vision impairment there are still things you can be aware of. More about this next week!...
 
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As my sight has deteriorated, so has my ability to recognise people just by looking at them. I (Dave) now have to use a range of other ways to determine who I’m speaking to such as how they talk, how they smell and sometimes even how they walk. Often it is a combination of these which I process pretty quickly to drag from the depths of my vast memory (mainly empty space) to conclude with a name.
 
So, you may think this is easy and, for close family, friends and even work colleagues, it usually is. However, this is all to do with location and anticipating who I’m likely to come in to contact with. For example, if I am heading to the school on the school run, then I am expecting to speak to other parents that I know. So, if a mum says “Hi Dave”, then I would quickly pluck out their name often based on their voice alone. Simple huh? However, if I am in my local town and the same person says “Hi Dave” then my brain goes in to overdrive trying to place where I know the voice from and then… damn it’s too late and the moment has past – how embarrassing.
 
Some people might introduce themselves such as “Hi Dave, it’s Helen” which helps narrow down the possibilities but might still take me a while to link them to a location. “Hi Dave, it’s Sarah from work” is a real help, giving me a name and a location where I know them from – it might not be an instant recognition giving me a name and a location but it’s usually enough to be able to place them and respond.
 
Obviously there are going to be people that I have never met or have only met once or twice and therefore remembering their name just from a few clues would be pretty clever. In these instances, I would either introduce myself or, more often than not, wait for them to introduce themselves to me or for someone else to introduce us both to each other.
 
I used to be a social person and enjoyed getting out and meeting people, using my sight to pick out a person or make eye contact with someone in a crowd before going over and chatting. Losing the sighted ability to do this has changed who I am. I still enjoy talking to people but now have to rely on someone to help me find who I would like to speak to or wait for someone to make the effort to come to me. I know that there are many people that I pass on a regular basis that I have no idea who they are, not to mention all of those people who I’m unaware of but who can see me… I find this a bit frustrating and it reminds me that living in a blind world can be quite lonely.
 
So, if you do know a vision impaired person or come in to contact with a person who has a vision impairment (remember it might not be obvious), remember to introduce yourself and give an indication of where they know you from… it’ll make their day that little bit easier.
 
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