I thought my new podcast might be of interest to some of you. In episode six, Dorlyn Catron speaks about her desire to become an advocate for type 1 diabetics after losing her vision four years ago because of the disease. Dorlyn also talks about learning to navigate life without sight; how she takes care of her type 1 diabetes today; and her numerous other physical activities, including dragon boating.
Thank you for sharing! It’s so important for people to know that blindness does not mean a limited life. People who are blind can still pursue athletic activities or anything else they desire, they just need to learn alternative techniques to complete tasks for which they used to rely on their vision. I also have long-term T1D and am legally blind, though diabetes is not the cause of my vision loss. I have dabbled in dragon boating (Vancouver, BC) and although I’m not a member of a team, it’s something I plan to take up more regularly in the new year.
I enjoyed this podcast. I share a few experiences with Dorlyn Catron, the subject of this podcast. While I am sighted, we are both T1Ds, and like water sports. When I lived aboard a sailboat on San Francisco Bay, I remember seeing the dragon boats out practicing.
Doryln reveals in the podcast that she is getting set up to receive a guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind. My hypo-alert dog was bred and trained at Guide Dogs in San Rafael, CA. He career-changed to help people with diabetes.
This is an interesting story to listen to, well worth the time.
Yes, I had a guide dog for two and a half years. I went to Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael for my training. In the end, a guide dog was not right for me at that time in my life in combination with some positive changes in my vision. I discovered that highly fluctuating blood sugar causes blurred vision, which significantly decreased my already very limited level of usable vision. A switch from NPH to Lantus improved my control and my vision significantly. These days I use a white cane for mobility, but I’m glad to have had the experience of working with a guide dog. If my vision ever decreased again (it does still fluctuate sometimes with blood sugar, but my control is much tighter now), and if the severe allergy to dogs I’ve since developed ever resolved, I’d consider another guide dog. I should mention that there are many people with my current level of vision who do work successfully with guide dogs, so having some usable vision is by no means a disqualification to get a guide dog. Because I’m a very proficient white cane user, in the end I felt that I was more efficient travelling with a cane than with a dog at my current level of vision.
