When you had everything; letting go is hard, hard but you
need to let go the old to welcome the new.
That's the exact way I decided to move on with life as a
person with blindness. It wasn't really an easy journey; it put all my skills,
talent and belief to test. To my advantage, I had the support of my friends and
family. Quicker than I could realize the change; I was already suggested to
start my re-habilitation for the blind with well-established institutes in the
field. I was trained in mobility and orientation skills; making me confident
and independent to travel/ walk on my own with the help of my white cane. I was
taught on how to use the computer with the help of a screen reader; an
assistive technology that converts text on the screen to speech. I found new
technology to help me overcome my disability and focus on my ability.
The song
running through my head while writing this blog is Eye of the tiger by the band
Survivor (1982) which was also the theme song for the movie ROCKY III. This
song was also running in my head throughout my training days; yes; I felt like
Balboa; and a survivor looking straight into the eye of the tiger.
Some of the really great moments were when I could get back
to using my social media websites with the help of my screen reader. Then the
eureka moment when I was presented my first candy bar buttoned phone with a talking
software which would read out messages, my contact list and help me navigate its
other functions. I was in the mood of surprising a friend by placing a call
using this phone. So, I called him; boy was he surprised! I lied to him that I
took someone else’s help to call him. Technology changed and so did I from a
Windows XP machine I graduated to a Windows 7 machine and as of today I am
operating on a Windows 10 machine. Very little learning since I had used
computers for more than 10 years; only difference this time I was using it with
my eyes closed. The phones also changed, and I had to now work with touch
screen phones; at first a thought that scared the socs off me. After I
experimented with my friends iPhone which has its own screen reading software
called VoiceOver, I was sold to this technology immediately. In fact, it opened
a whole new world of opportunities for me to collaborate and communicate. I got
myself an iPhone; sold my soul and a kidney to get one.
That’s good now that I had everything in place, how do I get
back to the work force and be able to support myself financially was the big
question? During the days when I was training for computers with screen reading
technology; I trained in being able to use all the Microsoft Office tools like:
Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook. I was also able to use the internet with
my favorite browser at that time FireFox. That gave me a lot of confidence to
start applying for jobs. I must say that I am lucky because within a week of
applying to jobs; nothing happened but from the institution
I trained from on computers, I had a job offer from IBM! It
was something that totally got me by surprise. However, I decided to talk to my
last employer and check with them if they would consider re-hiring me in my new
avatar. This is when all the blessings came through; they decided to take me
back on board and till date I am happily employed with them since 2012.
P.S. I did not learn Braille, a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired
Thank you dear readers for being patient and reading through
all the blogs in this series. As promised this is the last blog on this subject
and series. I tried to keep this one short; so many details have been omitted
so that your interest is kept alive. I am going to start with a new series
called Blind-Bloopers; it’s going to be a comical take on my experiences as a
blind person. If you ever meet a blind person in real life, my humble request
from you all, get to know them. After all, they are people just like you and I.
I am not suggesting that you force yourself on them; come on use some common
sense, you know what I mean right?
The title of this blog was inspired by the Web Series After
Life (2019-2022) on Netflix starring Ricky Gervais
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