My Handicaps & Hardships

I am legally blind and I wear glasses. My vision is corrected with glasses, but there are things I am not able to do such as drive a car or handle tiny parts. I wear a pretty high prescription. I think it's +400 or something like that.

I also have difficulty with typing on my computer keyboard. I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to say what I need to type.  It converts what I say into text that can be shown on the screen.

My hands have a problem gripping things, but I manage to do things on my own. It does not stop me from doing the things I love to do.

In school, it takes me longer to learn new things. I take the time to try and do not give up. I learn a little slower than the average person, but in time, I understand.

There was a day that I could not open the house door with the house key, but as time went on, I learned how to eventually open my own house door with the key.

Getting back to my visual impairment, I am not able to see font size 8 or 10. It is too small for me. What do I do you ask? I make it work by increasing the font size within my document or I put my ZoomText on to read the screen for me. For those who are asking, ZoomText is a screen reader/magnifier program that I use to get around on this computer. There are times I do not need it, because I have ways around things

At the present time it is hard in this economy to have a job. I work at a company in Morristown.  They gave me salaries starting as low as $3.33 to as high as $29.00 every two weeks.  This is very hard on me because I have little to no income for myself and for my family. I presently work there five days a week and get that check. Money is hard to get these days. So that is why I am involved in a few programs.

There was a day when I was at work and I had no lunch. On that day, I decided to improvise and eat turkey burger without bread for lunch.  The next day, I still had NO bread in the house.  As a result, I bought lunch.  One of my co-workers offered to pack me lunch.  When I got to work the next day, I got in trouble for having no lunch.  The staff asked me,”where was my lunch?” I chose not to say anything because I was too embarrassed to say anything.  The staff at work would make such a big deal out of nothing. I talked with my co-worker days before and she said it was ok to do this.  Why should I or anyone be in trouble for doing something nice for another person?

Is it illegal for a person to clock in and out at their job?  I am only asking because I got in trouble for doing that at the workplace. I thought that it was allowed at work. 

It is hard for me to go places because I have no transportation to go places.  I ask a friend of mine to drive me to work every day which I work.  I requested this in an effort to earn more money.  This has helped a little, but not much.

There was an evening when my mom and I went for a walk.  As we were walking I saw something in a distance.  I asked mom, “is that a wallet?”  She said, “Yes” I decided to pick it up and we went back home.  When mom and I got home, we looked through the wallet.  We found the person’s ID and read it.  I told mom that we should return the wallet to the person who lost it.  She said it was a good idea.  Mom and I set out in search of the house according to the address printed on the ID card.  It turns out that the address was not too far away from where I live.  Mom and I went as far as the person’s lawn.   A few minutes later, the wife if the owner of the wallet came out to see why we were there.  Mom asked “Did someone loose a wallet? “ A few more minutes pass and the guy who lost his wallet came out of the house. He did not know that he had lost his wallet.  What a pain that would have been for him if I had not returned it!  He was so grateful that his wallet was returned to him that he gave me a reward.  I was so surprised.   I accepted the $10.00 reward that he gave me.  I thanked him and we went back home.  This just goes to show how I LOVE to help others.  

Despite my disability and hardships, I love to help people. This is another reason why I have joined a few programs which I am currently involved in. .