When I was a sophomore in high school, I joined the debate team to get close to a guy. I didn’t get the guy and was only a mediocre debater at best, but 3 years in debate did teach me valuable early lessons that I use almost daily. I learned…

Talking to Congressional representatives always makes me feel bad. Today, after I talked to my Congresswoman, Susan Bonamici (D-OR), I was trying to pinpoint what, if anything, could be done about it. Rep. Bonamici was very polite, interested and showed appreciation for what I and my 3 colleagues had to…

“So, you are losing your vision, AND your hearing, AND your kidneys are failing????” My TTY telephone relay operator typed this and then typed (SHOCKED INDIGNATION). Its always interesting what little tidbits TTY relay operators like to share about what they are hearing on the other line. “Yes,” I typed…

Aira, the new high tech visual interpreter service for the blind, has taken the blind community by storm this past year. Everyone is talking about it. Everyone wants to try it. Everyone has LOTS of opinions about it. As a blind person who helps run an adaptive tech company, I…

This post is shared from my professional business site blindmast.com. My husband and partner, Nik, and I teach blindness skills to blind clients. He is blind and I am Deafblind. Nik has a saying that I think gets misunderstood a lot. Its something along the lines of “We are working…

Attending college courses in my special education major as a Deafblind person was a bit of a trip. I was always the only one who was disabled in my classes. I would sit there and listen to third-person descriptions of people like me, Deafblind or otherwise disabled people, as my…

I watched with pride as my brothers and sisters with disabilities from ADAPT put their lives, health and legal status on the line to save all Americans from the destruction of health care. Some were friends or friends of friends. I listened for reports that they had come out of…

I’m sure I could have handled it better, but then again, she could have cut me some slack. Twelve hours previous to being scolded by this woman as I was rolled into the OR for emergency gall bladder surgery, I had been writhing in pain on an ambulance. Then I…