Back In The Game

The whole process of acquiring a disability is reactive in nature. Reactive, in the sense that your newly acquired disability forces you to react to the different situations that life throws at you.

When you become disabled, suddenly, you find that you can’t do things you had been able to do before. And in this moment of darkness, in the absence of any viable solution for potentially or permanently reversing your condition, your natural instinct is to gravitate toward those short-term fixes that can provide solace, offering some glimmer of hope. Often it's these creative work arounds, these impromptu life hacks, that can begin the slow process of healing, of building one’s damaged self back up, while simultaneously serving as some of the best chances to quickly and easily regain some of your lost independence.

But it’s a constant struggle. In a world that is not always hospitable to someone with a disability, oftentimes it feels like the odds are stacked against you, so you have to look for those little wins, you must relish those small victories, in whatever form they take.

In my case, having suffered from late onset blindness in my early 20s, reacting to, and eventually adapting to my new reality, started with some basics – completing mobility training to figure out how to use a cane to safely navigate unfamiliar environments, learning grade I braille, and of course, becoming proficient at using assistive technology such as my JAWS screen reader, and then later on, the built-in accessibility features on the iPhone.

All of these skills became standard tools that I have continued to carry around in my so-called disability tool-kit, but beyond that, they have also served as these sort of building blocks that have helped me to find new and better ways to live with my disability.

Some of this, such as how I have continued to leverage assistive technology, has been well documented on the blog. No doubt, my personal commitment to continuous learning coupled with this desire to keep up on the latest technologies, along with all of the technological advancements that have happened in the nearly 30 years since I first became blind have cracked opened many doors that had been previously shut to someone like me, and has in fact allowed me to carve out a rewarding career as an accessibility consultant and tester.

But for all of the high-tech gadgets out there, I’m always surprised by how much I still rely on their low-tech counterparts. I’m constantly amazed by everything that my Lenovo model T480 Thinkpad business lap-top allows me to do, but it was an inexpensive hack, the addition of small tactile braille dots to some of the most commonly used keys on the keyboard, that has really helped me to unlock the full potential of the device. 

Pictured above is Chris’ Lenovo Model T480 Thinkpad Business Laptop with the tactile braille dots affixed to the keyboard.

I have recently started to use the screenshare feature in Zoom to conduct interactive test sessions with some of my clients, and have even started to play around with using the record function to create short tutorial videos. But as of just a couple of weeks ago, you could find me using a circa 1995 Sony cassette tape player to capture a recording of my screen reader during testing, so that I could easily slow down and pause things during playback when typing out my notes. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for me), my antique Sony player and its old-school analog cassette tapes at long last took an unceremonious, yet unmistakable final shit the other week, prompting me to invest in a new Sony digital recorder to officially usher in a new era of 21st century note-taking. At the same time, I have been becoming more comfortable with, and steadily more reliant on using tools like Otter AI Auto-Captioning for things like creating full written transcripts of videos that I post to the blog.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, braille is one of those very basic, and somewhat underutilized tools/skills that I often take for granted. I should start by saying that I only ever learned grade I braille, mostly because, as a somewhat overwhelmed college student, still reeling from the rapid onset of my disability, I just felt that it would be more practical for me to rely on computers and other technologies to process large amounts of information. It was partly an efficiency thing, but mostly a personal preference that reflected, and took into consideration the way I was most comfortable learning. I know people who have been completely blind since birth who speed-read entire books printed in braille, while I would much rather listen to an ebook on my phone or through my computer, or like I had to do back in my college days, listen to a textbook on tape. I should probably pause here to explain that learning braille consists of two distinct parts, learning the braille system itself, and then there is the tactile part: training yourself how to use your fingertip to actually recognize the different clusters of raised braille dots that make up the respective letters, symbols and words. And if that wasn’t enough, there are also multiple different levels and types of braille. For example, the grade I braille I learned is used for basic literacy and consists of a series of simple characters that represent the standard 26-letter alphabet, numbers, punctuation marks, etc. Grade II braille starts with this same basic structure, but introduces special abbreviations or contractions that serve as substitutes for many common words, or for certain naturally reoccurring combinations of letters like “ing” or “er,” a kind of Braille short-hand, if you will. There’s special braille for musical notation, and there’s even something called Computer Braille which allows for precise representation of highly technical computer-related material like the syntax of a particular programming language, command line and file names.

Here’s the super cool thing about braille: It’s a truly transformative invention with practically zero entry for a new user. In fact, I could literally teach you the basic structure of grade I braille in a matter of just a few minutes.

Braille 101

Let’s begin the lesson by explaining that a typical braille character is made up of a grid divided into six cells. Start by imagining this grid as one that is two blocks wide and three blocks tall. Starting at the top left and moving downwards, these are numbered 1, 2 and 3, and this sequential numbering carries over and continues on the right side of the grid, with the top right cell getting numbered 4, the middle right cell getting numbered 5, and finally, the bottom right cell getting numbered 6. Okay, everybody still with me? Are you picturing it?

Now, let’s move on to learning the first 10 characters in the alphabet…

Using the numbered cell system described above, I can report each letter in terms of the number(s) that correspond to the cells containing the braille dots, providing a verbal/numeric representation of the physical, raised braille characters.

So, here we go…

The braille letter “a” is represented by a single dot in cell 1; “b” by dots in cells 1,2; “c” by dots 1, 4; “d” by dots 1, 4, 5; “e” by dots 1, 5; “f” by dots 1, 2, 4; “g” by dots 1, 2, 4, 5; “h” by dots 1, 2, 5; “i” by dots 2, 4; and “j” by dots 2, 4, 5.

The beauty and simplicity of the braille system is that it repeats this same basic sequence/code for the next ten characters of the alphabet, adding a dot down in cell 3 to make letters “k” through “t”.

Are you still following me? By adding the dot in cell 3, “k” is dots 1, 3, “l” is dots 1, 2, 3; “m” is dots 1, 3, 4; “n” is dots 1, 3, 4, 5; “o” is dots 1, 3, 5; “p” is dots 1, 2, 3, 4; “q” is dots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; “r” is dots 1, 2, 3, 5; “s” is dots 2, 3, 4; and “t” is dots 2, 3, 4, 5.

In other words, if you lined up letters “k” through “t” directly under letters “a” through “j”, they would be the same, the only difference being the extra dot down in cell 3 for the aforementioned set.

So, for the last part of the alphabet this same numbering system continues, but with dots getting added in cells 3 and 6 this time, and with one notable exception.

The early 19th century version of the French alphabet, on which the original braille system was based, does not include the letter “w”, so this is the one outlier that does not follow the previously described numbering convention.

So, just to close this out: ”u” is made up of dots 1,3, 6; “v” is dots 1, 2, 3, 6; “w” (our non-conforming outlier) is made up of dots 2, 4, 5, 6; “x” is dots 1, 3, 4, 6; “y” is dots 1, 3, 4, 5, 6; and finally, “z” is dots 1, 3, 5, 6.

Note that I did not capitalize any of the letters in the above example. This was done on purpose, since representing the upper-case version of these letters would require that the braille character be preceded by a single braille dot in cell 6 to signify that the letter or word that follows is to be capitalized.

The same goes for numbers. Well, for the most part (which I will clarify a little later on in my playing card example).

The numbers 1 through 10 correspond with the braille letters a through j, when preceded by the special symbol made up of braille dots 3, 4, 5, 6.

So, there you have it. For the most part you know just about everything you need to know to begin deciphering grade I braille. Notice that I said “decipher” and not “read” since seeing and decoding braille dots is one thing, but becoming proficient at tactilely recognizing and processing braille through your fingertips is a completely different skill, requiring much more practice and patience.

Like I said, I never bothered to learn more than grade I braille, and even then, it’s one of those skills that you have to constantly keep up with, less you risk losing it.

Deal Me In

I used to rely on braille much more than I do now. Back in the late ’90s, I would use my braille slate and stylus to manually emboss some of that adhesive Dymo brand label tape you can buy at Office Max to create braille labels for my VHS tape collection – which I realize is a very dated statement.

Except for the rare occasion when I have to quickly decode some public signage that is labeled in braille (the next time you stay in a hotel, take note of the braille on the control panel of the elevator, or on the various room signs), the only other time I tend to use braille is when I’m playing cards – specifically euchre.

Braille playing cards, and what they meant in terms of helping to reintroduce me to the game of euchre, was one of those first awakening-type moments I had experienced after losing my eyesight that gave me hope I would be able to once again live a somewhat normal life. I went to a high school where all us guys, and all the girls we liked, played euchre at our parties on the weekends. I grew up in a family that played euchre, and married into another family that plays euchre just as much, if not more. Before COVID, a typical early autumn Friday night for Teresa and I might involve going over to our friends Matt and Nikki’s house for a fire on their deck, before eventually moving the party inside for a few late-night games of euchre, leading up to the inevitable, and predictable moment when Matt will accuse Nikki of having somehow stacked the deck. Besides drinking and farting, euchre is the next most-popular activity that we partake in during our annual deer camp each November. 

Actually, the way I play euchre now, without the use of my eyesight, is really not that much different than how I used to play it when I first learned the game. Of course, the biggest difference is that I now have to rely on a special deck of playing cards with raised embossed dots, but other than that, they're just like any other standard deck of playing cards, so the other players don’t seem to mind. Similarly, As a courtesy to me, I ask that the other players announce what cards they are laying down so that I can mentally keep track of what’s been played each trick, or during the course of a particular hand, and again, most players are happy to do this, although certain people like my father-in-law Dave require some constant nudging and reminding.

I’m not exactly sure of all of the different places where you can buy braille playing cards, other than I know you used to be able to get them from the Sparrow Gift Shop. In fact, most of the current decks of braille playing cards circulating around our extended family (of which there are many) were purchased there by my grandma when she would come to visit me in the hospital, and then years later by Teresa’s Aunt Pat, back when she used to work as a volunteer at the Sparrow Gift Shop.

The braille playing cards are like any other deck of Hoyle® playing cards, except for a series of two braille characters located in the upper left corner of the card.

The first of these two braille characters represents the number, or a particular face card, while the second character represents one of the four standard suits, “c” for clubs, “d” for diamonds, “h” for hearts, and “s” for spades.

Numbers 2 through 9 are represented by their corresponding braille character, while Ace is represented by the braille letter “a”, the number ten is represented by the braille letter “x” (for the roman numeral 10), and the Jack, Queen and King are represented by the letters “j”, “q” and “k”, respectively.

Pictured above is a close-up of one of Chris’ hands during a recent game of euchre. In his hand he is holding (from left to right) the Ace of spades, 9 of diamonds, 10 of diamonds, King of hearts, and the Jack of diamonds. in the background, you can see on the table that  the jack of hearts has been turned up. If you look closely, you can make out the series of two braille characters in the upper left-hand corner of each card. The first character represents the card’s rank (numeral or face card), followed by a second character denoting 1 of the 4 standard suits. For example, the ace of spades has the braille symbol for the letter “a” (braille dot 1) and the braille symbol for the letter “s” (braille dots 2, 3, 4) for spades; the 9 of diamonds has the braille symbol for the letter “i” (which in a deck of playing cards, doubles as the braille number 9 – braille dots 2, 4) and the braille symbol for the letter “d” (braille dots 1, 4, 5) for diamonds; the 10 of diamonds has the braille symbol for the letter “x” (which in a deck of playing cards, is used to represent the roman numeral 10 – braille dots 1, 3, 4, 6) and the braille dots for the letter “d” (braille dots 1, 4, 5) for diamonds; the king of hearts has the braille symbol for the letter “k” (braille dots 1, 3) and the braille symbol for the letter “h” (braille dots 1, 2, 5) for hearts; and the jack of diamonds has the braille symbol for the letter “j” (braille dots 2, 4, 5) and the braille symbol for the letter “d” (braille dots 1, 4, 5) for diamonds.

Pictured above is a close-up of the Jack of hearts. In the upper left-hand corner of the card you can more clearly make out the series of two braille characters, first the braille symbol for the letter “j” (braille dots 2, 4, 5) followed by the braille dots for the letter “h” (braille dots 1, 2, 5) for hearts.

Game Changer

Over this 25+ year journey of constantly having to deal with my disability, something interesting happened along the way.

Like I previously described, I would expect, at a bare minimum, that the cumulative effect of these experiences, the growing collection of tools and skills should continue to make it easier for me to better react to adversity, and they certainly have. But in a best-case scenario, I wouldn’t just settle for the status quo, I would actually find myself being more proactive, seeking out opportunities to take all of this stuff that I have learned over the years and apply it in ways I would have never imagined before.

Such is the case with the Envision mobile app, a technology that I have blogged about before, and how I have recently started figuring out how to use its “start reading instantly” feature  to participate in aspects of family game night that I wouldn’t have thought possible even a year ago.

I guess it all started around Christmas, and the ensuing holiday break. Like other families, we found ourselves stuck inside with nowhere to go and plenty of time for good, old-fashioned family bonding around the dining room table.

For Christmas, Teresa’s mom had gifted us a subscription to the “Deadbolt Mystery Society” which is a box of puzzles and other materials that comes in the mail, that you have to unpack and systematically start to work through to try and solve whatever the mystery is for that month (think of it as a sort of escape room that you can do from the comfort of your home).

Deadbolt Mystery Society game materials.

Typically, for me to be able to be part of something like this would require my wife or someone else having to go through and read and explain all of the materials to me. Don’t get me wrong, there is still quite a bit of back-and-forth that goes on, me asking questions, or requesting that certain information be repeated or clarified, but I quickly learned (can’t believe it took me this long!) that I can use my Envision app to read some of the clues such as the one that I demo in the video linked below.

Check out the Envision Demo Video on our Facebook: https://fb.watch/3WmYQwhH3T/.

I used the built-in screen share feature in Zoom to create this demo of the Envision app. Note: While you are not able to hear the “voiceover” on my iPhone, what you hear is the Envision app’s synthesized voice start talking when I select the “start reading instantly” feature and its  built-in OCR (optical character recognition) technology as it begins to process and read aloud the clue.

The Envision app is also super helpful for playing multiplayer card games like “Cards Against Humanity” or the “Cards Against the Office” version that we bought for our kids last year. Again, before I had access to an app like Envision, I would have to team up with my wife or another partner, and we would need to whisper stuff back-and-forth to one another, which honestly, kind of sucked for both of us. But now, I can be my own player. I can be sitting there with my iPhone scanning the cards, listening to the Envision app read their contents to me through my wireless earbud and nobody but me can hear it.

Check out the Envision Demo Video on our Facebook: https://fb.watch/3WmW1XKPfz/.

Sure, there will always be certain exceptions, tweaks that you will need to make based on the format or rules of a particular game.

For example, for New Year’s we made plans to play another one of our new favorite games, “Poetry for Neanderthals” with the Souzas over Zoom.

Like the other games mentioned above, I would highly recommend “Poetry for Neanderthals” – especially if there is drinking involved.

If you are not familiar with the premise of the game, basically you try to get the other members of your team to guess a series of clues by only using one-syllable words, preferably delivered in your best Neanderthal impression. The game comes complete with an inflatable club which the members of the opposing team can swat you with if you inadvertently use a two-syllable word when giving your clues.

Chris holding the inflatable “Poetry for Neanderthals” club.

Imagine you are hunting a woolly mammoth, you round a bend in the trail and come face-to-face with this guy! Pictured above is a selfie of Chris holding the inflatable “Poetry for Neanderthals” club.

The one nuanced thing about this, and for that matter, any other game which requires players to correctly guess as many clues as possible in a given amount of time, is that you might want to request that the designated time keeper temporarily pause the clock between clues, to allow you some extra time to use your assistive technology to read the information on the next card.

For instance, “Poetry for Neanderthals” comes with a 60-second hourglass, and during any given play, a team may guess as many as four, or five or six correct clues in that time. Whereas, it might take someone like me a good 5 seconds to scan and read the next clue with my Envision app, so that’s potentially 30 less seconds that I would have to spend giving clues.

I guess my point is to not let some technicality, or a non-braille deck of playing cards, or even an inflatable Neanderthal club stand in the way of you enjoying game night. And with a little resourcefulness, maybe a MacGyver worthy hack or two, and technologies like the Envision app, there’s really no reason your visual impairment should ever keep you from getting in the game.