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Retirement usually brings rest and relaxation to a person’s life. To Janelle Olson, retirement has, unexpectedly, brought fresh ideas, new connections, and new opportuni
ties to learn. Even though she’s been legally blind since she was a child, retirement brought her to North Dakota Vision Services/School for the Blind to gain new information and skills.
The youngest of four daughters, Janelle and her sisters – twins Karlyn and Kathy and middle sister Loris – grew up on a farm near Williston, ND. When Kathy was 8 years old, she started having vision issues and was diagnosed with Cone Rod Dystrophy, which is a deterioration of the cones in the retina. Then, when Loris was 8, she, too, began experiencing sight loss. Finally, at the same age, Janelle was also given the diagnosis. Three of the four daughters have it, but instead of any of them considering themselves unlucky, they were all grateful to have had good vision until the age of 8 – and each other. “We had our own built-in support group with our sisters,” Janelle says. As they’ve gotten older, “the deterioration continues. I can tell when I go someplace and realize that the last time I was there, I saw it better.”
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by Alexis Read
Alexis Read grew up in Williston, ND, and received services from NDVS/SB as a child. Last summer, she attended an Orientation and Mobility (O&M) program at Leader Dogs for the Blind in Michigan to learn O&M skills that would allow her to independently cross a complex intersection near her home in Florida. As Alexis shares in this article, both the on-campus and in-home instruction from Leader Dogs made a huge difference in her life, giving her more independence and confidence. She hopes this article will encourage others to take steps that will expand their world.
I graduated from high school in 1999. Prior to graduation, I received services from North Dakota Vision Services/School for the Blind. In my adult years, I learned about a resource that I want to share with others.
I was born in Australia in early 1981. My parents did not receive the official diagnosis of my visual impairment until I was four months of age. After my first birthday, my mother decided to move back to her home state of North Dakota with my older brother and me. She realized she would need family support raising a child with a visual impairment. Her parents still lived in the small community where she grew up.
I started to receive vision services in the summer of 1982 from a woman who was my teacher until I graduated from high school. Phyllis taught me skills related to the Expanded Core Curriculum; however, I would meet another teacher in 1991 who would help me learn to navigate my home area. Paul Olson, then the Orientation and Mobility (O&M) Specialist for NDVS/SB, had to travel six hours to work with me so his trips were infrequent but beneficial.
After I moved away from North Dakota in 2006, I received O&M instruction on a more frequent basis. I was exposed to many different teaching styles and methods over the years.
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NDVS/SB APH Coordinator
I grew up in Grand Forks, ND and graduated from Central High School. I went to UND right after high school but didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I spent some time at Northland Community and Technical College and got my associate’s degree. I took some time off and revisited UND years later. I graduated with a master’s in Kinesiology in the spring of 2022.
I’ve held a lot of different jobs. The longest job I’ve held was at a company called Support Systems Inc. in Grand Forks. I worked as Supervisor and Direct Support Professional. I managed a large caseload of clients and staff. I worked with clients in their homes and in the community. I found this work to be extremely rewarding. The most random job I’ve held so far was working at a kiwi factory in California! I worked on a line where I picked the best kiwis to be packaged and shipped across the country!
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“It’s going to be OK tomorrow.”
“You have to know how much is in you.”
These were two of the mantras that Menuka “Jyoti” Rai repeated to herself while pursuing her doctorate in physical therapy through the University of Jamestown over the last 3 years. After graduating in May, Menuka is actively looking for a job while reflecting on how she got here, pursuing her dream career as a physical therapist. Ever since she was a little girl, Menuka has wanted to work in medicine. She spent much of her childhood in a refugee camp in Nepal. “I lost a lot of family members and neighbors there. I myself faced a lot of health problems,” she explains. At the age of 6, Menuka was diagnosed with retinoblastoma and subsequently lost all of her vision. But her blindness never diminished her goal of working in healthcare. “In high school, after I moved here [to Grand Forks, North Dakota], we went on a tour of Northland Community and Technical College. That’s when I learned about physical therapy. What was really appealing was that you can help people without medications or performing surgeries,” she says, both of which would be complicated with no vision. “I can contribute to the healthcare field but do it without equipment. PT is mostly knowledge and skill.” And – she has learned – a lot of hard work.
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Denali Littlewind attended student short-term programs (STPs) at NDVS/SB throughout her elementary, middle school, and high school years. A member of the Spirit Lake
Tribe, she kept coming back because she knew the skills she was learning “were going to be really helpful for the future,” she says. “I learned so much about vision there.” Now, as a 21-year-old working young adult with low vision, she’s putting those lessons learned to good use.