Day 3 of Guide Dog Training

It was all about harness work today. I've done a walk in harness twice today, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Odene again was excellent, I must just point out how lucky I'm being to have such a fantastic partnership so early into training. Improvements must be made by me of course, I'm apparently too nice and need to get a little bit more firmer with my 'No's!'. Again it's all to do with the intonation of my voice, it's apparently really common for women to need to be more harsh and men will need to soften their voice during praising.

Before taking out Odene I've been doing the harness walk with just Kelly. She holds the harness as if she is the dog (no she doesn't get down on all fours!) and will lead me as if she was Odene. I've been doing this from my very first visit from Guide Dogs. Lynn was first who told me all about the process of getting a Guide Dog and part of the decision of whether I was going to be interested in having a dog is taken by how well I can be lead around. There are probably more reasons for the number of 'walks without a dog' but I'm no trainer! Lynn also was great in showing me how to use the long cane with a ball on the end which I was able to use for the couple of months before I met Julie, a Guide Dog trainer who again took me out and it was with her that the decision was made for me to be put on the waiting list!

On the matching visit I then met Odene, Kelly and Mike who took me on another harness walk first of all without Odene and then one with. The biggest surprise after doing so many harness walks without the dog was the jiggle. Dogs jiggle as they walk and this movement carries all the way up the harness and no human could accurately convey this. It made it a little bit harder noticing which way Odene was pulling me but on the whole it went well or at least I believe it did as Kelly and Mike were both really complimentary which I must say made me feel really rather 'oh yeah!'.

There actually is tons more to the story of the process of being put on the waiting list but as I'm already out on training I'll return back to that story once I'm qualified and I'm doing the same things regularly.

Today was the 2nd time in harness with Odene so it was a lot of putting theory into practice and on the whole I think it went really well. Not too many distractions were to be had luckily and the movement felt really natural. Mike joined us for the 2nd harness walk today to watch and again the advice was the same, I've gotta be a bit meaner with my 'No's' but on the whole it appears to be going really well.

One other thing I got to learn today is how to groom her. Now I've groomed dogs before of course but it's not a lot like what I've done before. There are 3 items to use, a 'zoom groom', a comb and a shammy (the leather cloth you would use to buff your car after a wash'. Mike (hubby Mike) asked a joking question when I told him about the shammy, 'Have you got to use wax as well?!' and I must say that there really is a lot too the grooming malarkey but no wax luckily! I've got to check her all over first, starting with the eyes, ears, mouth then body, legs and paws. Then it's running fingers backwards through her fur followed by the zoom groom. I couldn't believe how much dead fur came off onto the floor but I guess it has been quite a few days since she's been with me now without a groom and it's meant to be done once a day. Then it's the comb which takes of the last of the dead hair, with the last thing being the slightly damp shammy. This is great, you get to start with the face as you can't groom that with any of the brushes and then take it down the rest of her body. As she is a black lab this made her super shiny. She loved the whole process and was positively crooning with all the fuss!

Next today is another talk, we get quite a few of these dotted throughout the day but they have all been really useful and both Kelly and Mike explain everything ever so clearly with examples to back instructions up. Tomorrow I get to meet Morven who is the Guide Dog's Care and Welfare Advisor who will go into a lot more detail about veterinary bits.

Having tons of fun but boy it's not a holiday for all those thinking it's a great break for me!

Odene enjoying her 'Nylabone'

Day 2 of Guide Dog Training

A slower day today although my head is still buzzing with information and commands to remember. It's funny as it's not just commands really, it's remembering the intonation of your voice, timings, footwork and even arm work! All this to remember and it's only for heelwork, the harness work with Odene hasn't been introduced to me yet and with that I get even more commands to learn. For which I believe work with the harness starts tomorrow.

I'm now allowed to wonder the corridors by myself with Odene which is pretty cool. The trainers are busier with Nicky and Paul today as they got to meet their dogs for the second time today. I briefly saw Paul with Zeus and he is a gorgeous long haired german shepherd. I at first thought he was a bit skinny but then realised I'm comparing him to Inca my parents long haired german shepherd who is defs more on the larger size bordering on fat at the mo! I have the odd half hour with Kelly and we've done more heelwork outside the hotel along with some obedience. Things like getting Odene to stay put whilst I walk away or around her.

As everything is going so very well I've been warned that it may well be a case of being a honeymoon period. Odene may start getting cheeky and seeing what she can get away with doing or I may get complacent. As with training for all types of dogs it's repetition and consistency so I can't get too relaxed and start falling into bad habits. Fingers crossed however that it is just a case of us being a match made in heaven!

I've been shown today how to put the actual guiding harness on Odene. She is really body sensitive which is unusual in Guide Dogs as they all have to be used to wearing a harness, in Odene's case she doesn't really like it and I need to make extra time to get her into it. Normally treats wouldn't be used apart from for the 'recall' command but in Odene's case I'm to encourage her to put her head through the harness with treats being the reward. Once it's on she looks a little unhappy bless her so to get her tail wagging again I give her another treat and tons of praise to get her to forget that she is wearing it. Once on for a while she does forget all about it with no more problems.

Gotta say that the food here is delish, I kinda thought I'd get to loose some weight with all the walking but instead it's probably a case of putting it on! I really must compliment the hotel on it's choice of foods and quality especially with the deserts, my biggest weakness... Good choice Guide Dogs choosing this as a location for training!

Day 1 of Guide Dog Training

It's been too long since my last post but I won't dwell on that as I've got far too much to talk about!

Since my last post I was put onto a Guide Dog waiting list and within 2 weeks of being put onto the waiting list (I'm incredibly lucky to wait only this length of time) I received a call about meeting Odene, a beautiful black labrador bitch. Our matching visit went really well and we did a short handled walk with the harness to which went better than even the trainers expected.

Once the decision had been made for me to be matched with Odene I had 3 weeks to make arrangements with work to have 4 weeks off! 2 weeks located at a training hotel and 2 weeks at home doing familiar routes. Had a bit of trouble arranging the time off as working for the NHS meant that policies had to be drawn up and staff had to be made aware of the new doggy member of staff joining us in case anyone had any allergies.

Today though is the first day of training at the hotel. I'm at the Hunton Park De Vere Hotel very close to where I live luckily. Normally I would only get to meet Odene for the second time tomorrow but due to Odene's borders being away this weekend it was offered to me that I have her over the weekend prior to training. I of course was delighted to have her so I met her again once before the weekend to run through the house rules and lead work.

The weekend was a real success, Odene settled in really well and gave us a chance to bond before official training started. The only hiccups were regarding Jammy and Jinx, our cats. Didn't really see much of them this weekend as they spent most of their time on top of one of our cupboards!

So I'm now at the hotel, as I say I've got Odene with me now even though normally I would have to wait till Day 2. We've already done some heel work, which I must just say she performed brilliantly well at, the only problems were with me forgetting what commands to say or saying the wrong ones! Kelly, my truly awesome trainer, has been brilliant along with Mike, another trainer who is also training me and the other 2 recipients of Guide Dogs. The 2 other people training with dogs during my time here are Nikki with Rita, a black labrador cross golden retriever and Paul with Zeus, a german shepherd. They both seem like really nice people although their eyesight is currently a lot worse than mine. Nicky seems fiercely independent and has had Guide Dogs before. Paul has only recently gone blind and like me is getting a Guide Dog for the first time.

There are loads more updates to give but I'll leave them for other posts! For now take a look at the picture of Odene!

Cute or what?!

Appointment at Moorfields

Yesterday I went to Moorfields Eye Hospital for Part 2 of a 5 year study.

I'm going to divide the day into morning and afternoon to make it easier for me to think of what to talk about first.

Morning:

We (my Dad came along too) arrived at Moorfields early to our appointment and as it is a research study that I'm participating in we got our travel expenses paid back. I asked how many people had come back for Part 2 and I was told 10 people. I was quite surprised by this as I thought there were loads more for Part 1, but in fact it was only 14 people. I'm really pleased that I joined up to it as being so few in numbers every result must count.

So after filling out some agreement forms with one of the leads of the Study, Tony, the tests started. A really nice lady called Eva was doing these for me and we did all the tests that I've done before along with a new one. This new one is the one I'm going to try and go into detail with...

It's a picture of the eye retina, an image of how it attached. Not only can these images pick up a surface view of your retina it can see through the retina. Imagine cutting through an onion and seeing all the rings sideways, this is exactly what they did with my eye but just with images! What is funny about this is that it's a really new machine and it's only recently that eye specialists have seen this part of the eye like this. So all these experts are only just seeing the thing they specialise in for the very first time completely changing what they think about the retina.

I should be getting some of these images emailed to me by Eva so I can upload them up here and really until I can refer to the images it will probably be incomprehensible to try and explain what the results are without them. Basically however I'm told that they can see the cells disappearing towards the peripherally part of my vision (hence in the dim/dark I'm pheriperally blind) and the centre part of my vision is still perfect.

When looking down at the ring (you can look at the existing photos for this) the white ring is actually dead cells that haven't yet dispersed and vanished and are in the doughnut shape that is my blind spot/shape. The photos from yesterday show a much fainter white ring which shows that all the dead cells that are not doing anything anymore are slowly disappearing.

Just before lunch I got to meet Andrew Webster the consultant and he was sounding very positive about the study. For the very first time I have been told "I would be very surprised if we did not have a cure in your lifetime".

This is actually quite a big deal for me. I don't really think of cures, I'd rather be pleasantly surprised to hear there was a cure rather than constantly wish for one and then be disappointed. So to hear that things are promising is kinda weird. I was also told that they have now been given funding for a 3 year study into gene therapy where they hope to be able to halt the degeneration process - not cure it but at least stop it from getting worse. So, basically wow. I'm on the list to be contacted to see if I want to participate in this trial, we'll see about that I guess.

Afternoon:

So this was the last test that takes 4 hours. I was so tired after this test that I didn't even bother to ask what the results were. The test however was me pressing a button whenever I saw dots of light - 8 times with each one lasting approx 5-8 mins. Then I had to sit in the dark for 40 minutes whilst my eyes adjusted and then had to do the whole thing again in the dark. Boring and tiring.

After the last test however I got to meet Tony again along with a man called Zubin who did all the tests 5 years ago that Eva did for me this time. He was great and really explains everything very well. Zubin however started asking if I could perhaps help with writing the letters when the results of the entire study are finally completed. I of course said yes and was majorly honoured to be asked. It may of course not happen, but it's still pretty cool!

I also have had it confirmed that I defs do have Ushers Syndrome Type 2a (it's the 'a' that's new). The most common type of Usher and my sister has also been given the same diagnosis. Isn't it strange, they couldn't confirm this last time so it just goes to show that research does work!

All in all however it was an interesting day, I'm glad I don't have to do as many tests each year but I do feel incredibly proud of myself for taking part. Every little helps after all!

Look into my eyes

So for this entry I've done a bit of work to the blog and added a few features.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you can now see pictures, and before you start thinking they are pics of me, well in some ways I suppose they are.. but pictures instead of my eyes!

Test results from previous years. I try to keep all letters and results together and whenever I go to an appointment at Moorfields Eye Hospital I always ask for copies of all the reports/results. I do have more somewhere but what with the move I think they may still be in a box somewhere. Uploading them turned out to be easier than I thought it would be but hopefully they will be interesting for anyone wanting to compare results or just see interesting pics and diagrams..

If there is anyone else who suffers of Ushers Type 2 who also has results like these I'd certainly be interested doing a comparison.

I'm going back to Moorfields on Wednesday next week which is for the 5 years on with the Ushers Study that they are running. Hopefully I'll get more results then and upload them too.

Getting all the documents out again made me read through all the letters I've received over time and one thing I had forgotten is the exact details of the chances of having a child with Ushers. Apparently the chance of being a carrier of the gene is 1/100. Being a sufferer myself I will defs pass on the carrier gene which would mean that if Mike just happened to be the 1 in 100 it would then mean a 50/50 chance of having a chance of a child with the syndrome. All in all that's a 1/200 chance of having a child with Ushers so not bad at all!