The cane and school

I suspected for a while now that this day would come. Pope's orientation and mobility instructor observed Pope at preschool yesterday. While Pope seemed okay peddling around in the classroom, his instructor said "He walks sideways in the hall and ran into the drinking fountain. He had a great deal of difficulty negotiating the ramp and when he came to descend the stairs, he sat down first before descending." Uh, oh... not good.

We started training Pope to use a cane as soon as he came home; when he was still really blind, before he had some vision restored in his left eye. I've talked about how miraculous the vision restoration was for Pope. I've talked about how much it helped him navigate the world. We learn new things everyday about what Pope can and can not see. We're finding that he can see things that are close to his eye fairly well. My mother bought Pope a Leapfrog Text and Learn toy for Christmas. The letters on the buttons are pretty small, but Pope can identify them with amazing accuracy! But his distance vision is questionable, at best. Even with his glasses, it's pretty obvious that Pope doesn't see very much past about 12 to 18 inches.

So the cane will now be traveling to pre-school with Pope, each and every day. It'll be good for him to get the practice... he really needs it anyway. And hopefully, he'll walk straight, not sideways, in the halls at school! :)