Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

I'm sure many Ouch readers took an interest in the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News story , as many disabled people are ahead of the curve having binned their mice years ago for far more futuristic input technology! Ouch reader Martin Wildman wrote into us with his own take:

I am a quadriplegic who is completely paralysed from the neck down and I use my computer with a Smartnav baseball cap which allows me to move the mouse cursor, as well as some voice recognition.
Saying that computer mouse is obsolete is very narrow minded. It seems amazing to me that the computer expert from Gartner has no idea that some people might find a normal computer difficult to use. This means he is not even considering people with disabilities.

Martin's is just one example of the range ingenious ways in which disabled people are already using a computer, often without the traditional mouse, keyboard or monitor anywhere to be seen. A feat which makes the fuss around the Nintendo Wii and gaming headsets seem positively retro by comparison.

But whatever you think of the humble mouse, a new force is silently tapping and sliding its way into our lives and provoking strong views from many disabled people, as Martin continues:

It makes me laugh when people say that everybody prefers a touchscreen interface. I don't! Mainly because I can't use one! Anybody like me could in practice have a problem even getting near to a computer screen, let alone touching one.

and hear lies the rub of it (excuse the pun.)

The touchscreen, however trendy, is not an accessible option for many people, who prefer or depend on the real click, audible clunk and consistency of devices with real buttons. But with the rise of the iphone, Nintendo DS and other touchscreen gizmos, we may find ourselves, rather than grabbing the latest thing, clinging to the last devices using this seemingly out of fashion technology. Going from cutting edge to luddite in one smooth multi-touch gestured stroke! Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to start a 'Save the Buttons' group on Facebook. Who's with me?

A question every child thinks about when they are about 4 most want to be fire-fighters, racing drivers policemen or woman, doctors, nurses or astronauts. What did I want to be? A motorbike driver AKA a courier!

I seem to remember once sitting in the car with my mum dad and my cousin when I was probably 3 or 4 having the what do you want to be when you are older conversation. I remember very vaguely even though I did not say anything at the time having a niggling doubt in my head whether I would be a motorbike driver.

Even then I knew I was different and there where things I could not do. I just hadn't fully worked out what all those things where yet and the impact they would have on my chosen career.

Looking back now it's quite funny to think of me, unbalanced, uncoordinated and partially sighted me wanting to be a motorbike driver.

I have been VI to varying degrees since birth from the very blind to almost getting enough vision (in perfect lighting conditions) to be able to drive, I think at one point I may have been one eye chart line away from that goal. However if someone where to open a curtain or turn the lights off I was completely scuppered!

So ever being a motorbike driver was completely out of the question, along with brain surgeon, microbiologist and tattooist. As I grew up I knew and accepted this.

Skip forward a few years and I was in my final years of secondary school, like everyone else in my year I was put on a computer programme to try and discover my future career path.

I was hopeful it would give me some ideas of possible careers and all the vital info needed. I was told that by going into a menu and ticking a box to say I was VI it would remove some of the blatantly impossible jobs.

So I filled out all 50 of the questions and waited eagerly for my top ten results and was shocked and disappointed to discover that top of the list was game keeper! Closely followed by paramedic, prison officer and various forms of nursing.

I can safely say that I would love to become a paramedic or a nurse, I spent years dreaming of being a P.E teacher but I also know that the risk assessments for those jobs would be horrific! Know one in there right mind would want me to suture up there lacerated head! I am however, because of my Guiding role and Duke of Edinburgh a fully qualified first aider, but that is most defiantly my limit.

Trying to decide on a career is hard enough for most normal's to cope with but when you have a disability just trying to get decent careers advice can be hard enough.

After the whole computer programme fiasco I refused to try it again and instead opted to have an interview with a careers adviser.

The consultation was disastrous, pretty much as soon as I walked in the door I was asked a question along the lines of 'what cant you do?' and the woman seemed to have the view that I should go down a traditional blindy career such as basket weaving or switch board operation, the whole experience was incredibly negative.

I've now settled on journalism having given up on the P.E teaching, physiotherapy, osteopathy and biology ideas for various reasons.

I can't wait to start my journalism degree course in September and I'm really excited that one day I will be a journalist!

• Visit

Sometimes having a disability means pretending. At least for me it does. I pretend pretty well - I've been in a relationship for almost 40 years, pretending comes naturally after awhile - no, no, of COURSE I don't mind. But this weekend was full of two days of pretending. And after awhile, my pretend muscles got sore.

Here's what happened:

We moved this weekend. From a three bedroom house, with a full basement, to a two bedroom apartment. The ordeal was exactly like you imagined it to be. I knew from the get go that I would not be able to help very much at all. I don't move well or easily. Lifting was out of the question. Carrying was not even considered. So what did I do?

I watched.

I stayed out of the way.

I broke tension with humour, when necessary.

And I pretended.

I pretended that I didn't mind that everyone else was working, sweating, accomplishing and I was not. I don't often feel like my disability is much of a disability. After all, I just get around in a wheelchair. But, this weekend I felt well and truely disabled. Compromised. I made jokes about the two best things about having a disability - parking and not being expected to help with a move.

I didn't say anything. My friends were busy enough carrying my stuff, I didn't want them to stop to care for me. I didn't want to be the pathetic cripple watching others and wishing to participate. OK, that's what I was, but sure as hell no one was going to know it! So I did what I needed to do. I pretended.

Yep, I lied. Told a huge fib. Engaged in a big. taradiddle. It really, really, really bothered me. I felt useless. I felt inadequate to the task of living my own life. I felt needy. I felt insignificant. I felt, at moments, unworthy. I knew these feelings were momentary, based on a sense of guilt that they were working and I was not, I knew that I'd feel better in the morning. But that didn't erase the feelings as I was having them.

When we went to bed after everything had been moved into the apartment. I felt sore muscles, just like I had lifted a couch. But not, my sore muscles came from carrying guilt and lifting self-pity.

Who knew they weighed so much?

It has been really difficult of late to find the time and energy to write, then when I attempt to I get stuck really quickly or annoyed because the one word that would fit that sentence perfectly I cant spell, and Word doesn't have a clue what I am going on about. In short I have been getting frustrated by my lack of creativity and complete absence of spelling ability, combined with a slightly hectic schedule.

Of course there are further reasons for my absence from the blogsphere I am currently busily training with my first guide dog . All has been going exceedingly well and we qualified a week ago today meaning we have been somewhat let loose on the world. He has also met the Guide unit I help out at and been on the Gosport ferry as well as many other places of course.

Whilst on the subject of my baby Gus I have to say the difference he has made to my life/mobility is HUGE! Last Saturday I went to town and navigated the high street and shops without maiming any small children or walking into something embarrassing. I am already, after just 4 weeks feeling so much more confident when out and about. I have even gone outside my front door without a hat on which is something I have not done for years! The bond between us has developed really strongly and I love and trust my baby boy!

On Monday I had my assessment for disabled students allowance (DSA). despite the paperwork telling me that it was informal and not to worry, anything involving the word "assessment" makes me rather jittery. I have to say though it went really well and I shall be in possession of all the essential blindy kit on my arrival at uni on the 18th of September. (That's if everything runs smoothly which I very much doubt).

So anyway that's what I have been up to and that was me trying to get back into the swing of writing again, this is my third attempt!

• Visit

Yesterday I went to . As the name definitely does not suggest, this is an exhibition of products and services aimed at blind and visually impaired people.

It takes place in the Clarendon Suites in Birmingham and is always extremely well attended. Blind people, their canes, dogs, sighted guides or all of the above make their way slowly and deliberately around 90 different stands, picking up leaflets, testing out products, asking advice on anything from employment to independent living, from how to receive at a football match to how to work their new high-tech PDA. I was one of them. My facilitator told me that there was dog hair absolutely everywhere

What really struck me was the price of everything. I came across a talking tape measure for 40 pounds, a simple GPS device for over 400 pounds, and a little plastic brailler for taking short notes which was 125 pounds. Needless to say I bought something. A .

There were a few gadgets that caught my attention though. Cobalt launched something called the ITel, which claims to make any Ipod talk. You jus plug it in to the player, plug your earphones in to the gadget and there you have it, a talking MP3 player. I don't have an Ipod, but would nearly buy an ITel so that I can have a look through the music collections of my friends.

The other thing which grabbed me straight away was called an IPower. This consists of a little camera on a very skinny and portable tripod. You position it over a page, hit one key on the attached laptop, and a picture is taken of the text. The accompanying software processes and reads the printed material aloud almost instantly. You can scan in a whole book with this baby in a matter of minutes. And sure it only costs 16 hundred quid.

So although Sight Village is exhausting, and often a huge drain on your finances, it's more than just an exhibition. The blind world is tiny. There are literally 2 degrees of separation between one VI person and another, which makes it the top event in a blind person's social calendar. As much as it pains me to say it, I'll probably make my way there again next year, leaving the credit card at home.

Summer is here which means either many are out and about, or for some of us in disability land, we are still indoors wondering why the walls seem to be melting (so...the usual!). The internet and the disability world (whether you are a disabled person or a person with a disability) have taught me that not only are the presentations of the "same" disability different, but so are the ways people deal with them.

For me, the constant problem is MEANING. No, I don't mean I need my disability to mean anything; anytime I get that angst riddled I drink something with sugar in it so my attention span wanders. What I do need however, in a city where the terms "accommodation in the workplace" and "part time employment" are both viewed as a precursor to the dread soviet brain washing, is something to DO. And I find this is common with people who spend time at home (whether they want to or not).

Since my condition makes me so heat intolerant that I go into heat stroke at room temperature, summer is stay inside time. Add some fatigue, a bit of brain fog, and I have a craving need for some way to know that I exist. Plus, while I can do endnotes in the Harvard OR Cambridge style, I can't knit; I can't sew, and I can't play the bagpipes.

So I write and I send postcards. People like takes photos, writes, many people like do parenting (I have heard once babies come OUT, it is harder to put them away again). Some people take degrees or courses like , and yes, some knit (what does it say about Canada that won overall Canadian blog of the year?). One person I know plays the organ, but no bagpipes as yet.

So what do you do; what gives that juice of meaning to your life? I am honestly curious because I am pleasantly surprised at the diversity from wheelchair dancing to , from blogging to scrapbooking. And I am always up for a new idea.

For me, my thing right now is to send out 997 postcards (address' collected for postcard use only!), which I have given the grand title of . It basically means you email me, and I send you a postcard. You can click the link above or the link to my blog Screw Bronze and then click the link down on the right to find out more. I am up past 200 postcards now, and it seems to be keeping me out of police stations (an actual problem I was having before with too much....mental time on my hands). Postcards are an attainable goal, I use a special pen and my shoulder to write and I get to wheel to the post box. Remember that feeling as kids looking into the dark of the postbox and wondering where it goes? I get that now. And the neighbors like it a WHOLE lot more than the bagpipes.

So that is what I do. What is it that you do? Believe me, after post cards, anything sounds pretty grand. So what is it that gives the little joy to get through those periods when everyone else seems busy or away?

• Visit

Haddon Street is a soap produced by and actors with learning disabilities. You can catch the trailer, which is great on their and also download the whole show from their . They're also looking for people to get involved, so if you live around Milton Keynes and want-in drop them an email!

I liked this headline courtesy of Independent Catholic News who exculsively reveal that . Whod'a thunk it? I am delighted that this group can join the ranks of potential Ouch readers.
To be fair, the story makes a serious point, but not really in the most subtle way!