‘It’s been five years of hard work learning how to navigate’

A woman who moved from the Northwest Territories to Lethbridge after losing her sight hasn’t let her loss of vision affect her positive outlook on life.

Emily Lawson was born with a degenerative eye disease and treated for many years through injections to her eyes. The treatments weren’t offered in her hometown of Yellowknife, so she had to fly to Edmonton for them.

When Covid-19 hit, she had to stop flying. After a few months, the treatment was made available in Yellowknife. But an unfortunate incident caused Lawson to need major surgery in Edmonton.

Lawson’s return home to Yellowknife was out of the question as she needed further surgery and had a long road of recovery ahead of her. Given the choice between moving to Edmonton, Calgary or Lethbridge to continue treatment, she chose Lethbridge as her son lived there while attending university.

After a seven-month recovery period, Lawson found herself in Edmonton again for an ultrasound and pre-operation checkup.

While the surgery was not the most comfortable experience and required another two years of treatment and careful monitoring, Lawson said she is extremely grateful for the care she has received.

“I went from not seeing much other than ghostly lines to now being low-vision,” she said. “I am legally blind, but I’m certainly far more functional.”

Lawson, who is an artist, remembers the day she saw colour again and felt like jumping for joy. But being legally blind and navigating a new city was a whole other challenge.

“It’s been five years of hard work learning how to navigate,” said Lawson.

Challenges ranged from walking on a sidewalk and not getting lost to learning how to ride the bus and use an OrCam – a reading device for the visually impaired – because she can’t read street signs.

While the Lethbridge Blind Association has been a great help to her, Lethbridge does not have a Canadian National Institute for the Blind chapter. To get tools and supports from the organization, she has to travel to Calgary or Edmonton.

On top of the added travel expenses, Lawson said many items are only partially funded, which means the rest has to come out of her already limited funds.

“Some of the specialty items are partially funded. However, partially funded means out of our pension comes the other portion,” she said. “So I am carrying debt and coping, but it hasn’t been an easy journey.”

Another tool she has found is Be My Eyes, an app that helps visually impaired people with basic tasks such as finding her birth certificate on a carpeted floor. Lawson said without tools such as this, things that sighted people take for granted are nearly impossible for the visually impaired.

“We found the birth certificate in, like, two and a half-minutes. And I had been on the floor looking for an hour,” she said.

Search for guide dog

Lawson is currently looking into getting a guide dog. Most breeding programs were suspended during the pandemic so long waitlists have grown even longer.

She said has been actively calling to get on a waitlist for the past five years, but has yet to find one accepting new applicants.

She considers having a guide dog to be a preventative health measure, as she’s already fallen off the sidewalk a couple of times. The last incident left her in the hospital.

She said having a dog would not only prevent injuries but would also help preserve her active lifestyle, with the dream of running a two-kilometre race.

“We did our first Sight Night Walk in the fall,” said Lawson, who is active in a number of sports. “So for me, I would dream of being able to run that 2K. At this point I can’t run, it’s just too dangerous, so a dog and an escort holding my elbow or hand means I’ll be able to run again.”

Lawson has already committed $1,000 of her savings toward a service dog, but she still has $20,000 to go to buy one. Lawson has a GoFundMe to help with the financial barriers to getting a service dog.

While there are things Lawson knows she will never be able to do, she won’t let her lack of sight stop her from trying new things and looking for new ways to do things she used to love doing.

“I will never drive a car again because of the incident and I have moments of not really feeling happy about that,” she said.

“But I’m really happy I can paddle my canoe, I am really happy I can be on a dragon boat team, and super happy that I can walk two kilometres.”

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