Isaac Made a Friend

That's not so surprising, when you consider the fact that Isaac loves everyone.

Yesterday, Isaac and I went to Hobby Lobby to buy some fabric.  I am making curtains for the living room window in my new apartment and Hobby Lobby had a bunch of calico prints on sale for 30% off.  I got some really neat fabric, by the way, with kitties on it.  See?

The woman that was cutting the fabric for me told me another customer with a service dog comes in there frequently and that she keeps doggie biscuits in her drawer for that dog.  She asked if she could give Isaac one.  Of course, I said yes. 

Isaac was very well behaved.  I told him to sit, and he did, and she asked him if he could shake hands, and he did.  I was very proud of him.  His tail was wagging like mad the whole time and I could just tell he wanted to jump on her and give her a big kiss, but he resisted the urge.  Good boy!

Picture Time

Check out Larry, checking out Isaac while he's sleeping.  It's the only time he thinks it's safe to look closely at and sniff the big scary doggie.

And look at this sleepy doggie.

And again... have you noticed how many pictures I have of Isaac sleeping?  He is a well-rested dog!

Dealing with Housing - and Other Benefits for People with Disabilities

Let me start by saying I am grateful there are benefits available to people with disabilities, like subsidized housing, Social Security, food stamps, Medicaid, etc.  Without such benefits, I would be living in my car.  If I even had a car.  I purchased my car way back before I went on disability; I have no clue how I will manage to afford a new car when this one dies, which it will eventually, because cars don't live forever.  But anyway, without benefits, I'd probably be living in my car, eating at soup kitchens, unable to afford the many vitamins and supplements I need, unable to access any health care, without a service dog.  My life would suck big time.

But accessing these benefits is not easy.  Consider yourselves lucky that I was not blogging back when I first had to stop working and apply for disability.  All you would have read about every day was how stupid the whole system was, how it made no sense, how stressful and confusing and exhausting it was, and so on.  I think that's all my therapist at the time heard, every week for about three months.  But I'm going to share a little of it with you now.

• There was the time I got a seven-page form in the mail from Social Security, with a letter instructing me that the information had to be received by the Social Security Administration in ten days from the date on the letter.  Well, I received the letter on a Thursday afternoon.  According to the date on the letter, the information had to be received by Sunday.  Of course, mail doesn't run on Sunday.  I tried to call the claims specialist that sent the letter to ask if I could have more time, but didn't get an answer.  In order to make sure the information was received on time, I needed to put it in the mail on Friday.  I had to stay up all night long completing that form.  The form consisted of seven pages of essay questions, seriously, like "What do you do all day on an average day?" and "What things do you need help doing in your daily life?"
• There was the time I hand-delivered some paperwork to the local Social Security office, to make sure it got there safely.  A full month later, someone called me from Social Security to tell me they'd never received that paperwork.  I insisted I'd taken it there myself, the person looked again, and found it had been misfiled.  That meant it would take a full month longer to process my claim.  Some idiot at the Social Security Administration did not know their alphabet and could not file papers correctly, so my benefits ended up being delayed by a full month.
• There was the Department of Job and Family Services office, otherwise known as the welfare office, in Cincinnati, where I used to live.  I would arrive on time for an appointment with a caseworker, which I had to do in order to get food stamps and  Medicaid, and sit in a crowded, noisy waiting room for a couple of hours waiting for the caseworker to get to me.  The room would be crowded with noisy kids, crying babies, exhausted and frustrated parents screaming at them to shut up.  Just the place someone with severe anxiety and PTSD wants to hang out for a couple of hours.
• There was the ridiculous amount of information Social Security wanted in order to consider my application for disability.  They wanted a list of every job I'd had for the past 15 years (since I was 31 at the time I applied for disability, that meant they wanted to know about every job I'd every had, except for a few babysitting gigs I had as a young teen), including the name of the company, when I started working there and when I stopped working there, how many hours a week I worked, how much I earned per hour, my job title and job duties.  They wanted the name, address, and telephone number of every health care provider that had ever treated me for my disability (and you realize doctors sometimes move, right?  It can be quite a challenge to track down current information about them).  They wanted medical records (and do you know how hard it is to track down medical records from a doctor that moved ten years ago?).

Sorry.  I kind of got off on a tangent there.  See how frustrated I am about it still, ten years later?

Dealing with all the red tape of getting subsidized housing is bringing that all back.  They want a ridiculous amount of paperwork and won't accept what I think would be reasonable documentation.  For instance:

• They want proof that I am disabled, but the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will not accept the Social Security Administration's finding that I am disabled.  Oh, no.  They need a form filled out by my doctor saying I am disabled.
• They also want proof that my dog is a service dog.  They want to know that I have a disability and need a service dog, and they also want to know that my dog has been individually trained to perform tasks that mitigate my disability.  However, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will not accept a copy of the paperwork my doctor filled out just six months ago when I was applying for a service dog.  They need their own form that says I'm disabled and need a service dog.  They also will not accept any of the paperwork from the program that trained my service dog.  They need my doctor, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the training of my service dog and probably doesn't even remember the things I told him my service dog was going to be trained to do, to fill out a form saying the dog has been individually trained to perform tasks to mitigate my disability.
• They need proof of how much money I have in the bank.  However, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will not accept a copy of a current bank statement showing how much I have in the bank.  Oh, no.  They need a form filled out by someone that works at the bank which will show the same thing a current bank statement would show.  

And there is a whole bunch of stuff like that.  And who knows how long it takes all those people to fill out all those forms and fax them back?  And I can't move into my new apartment until that happens.  In fact, they can't even calculate exactly how much my rent will be until that happens.

See why I have a headache?

Smart Dog

One recent Saturday, Isaac's dog walker (otherwise  known as his running buddy) was scheduled to arrive soon and I was preparing for her arrival.  I got out a couple plastic bags for picking up poop and put a few doggie treats in a baggie and put those things on the table near the front door so they'd be ready when she arrived.  Isaac, tail wagging with anticipation, began running from window to window, looking out to see if she was here yet, whining and wiggling and just generally demonstrating how excited he was at the prospect of a run.

"Does he know she's coming?" Mike asked.  "Is that why he's acting like that?"

"Yep," I said.

"Really?" Mike asked.  "How does he know?"

The dog walker usually comes at the same time of the day, but she doesn't come every day.  She doesn't even come on the same days of the week.  Her schedule varies.  But Isaac is a smart dog.  He knows that when I get out plastic poop bags and put treats in a baggie, it's because his running buddy will soon be here.  And he loves to go running.

No, I'm Not Blind

Today as I walked to my car with Isaac, after leaving the grocery store, an elderly man called out loudly to me, "That's a fine Seeing Eye dog you got there, ma'am!"

I called back, "Thank you!" and kept walking, got in my car, and drove away.

Did the old man mean "service dog" when he said "Seeing Eye" dog?  Or did he assume I was blind?  Believe it or not, while to my knowledge no one else has assume I am blind because I have a service dog, many people with service dogs are assumed to be blind by members of the public.  People make comments about their visual impairment even as they do things like work crossword puzzles, browse in bookstores, and get behind the wheels of their cars.  To many people, a service dog is still a symbol of visual impairment.

One person told me how she was taking a city bus with her service dog and happened to be sitting next to a mother and a little girl.  The mother was doing a book of crossword puzzles and the person with the service dog was watching because she likes crossword puzzles.  The mother was stuck on one answer and the woman with the dog told her what the answer was.  Then the little girl asked why the woman had a dog with her and her mother said, "She's blind and the dog helps her."  I don't know how the mother thought the blind woman was able to look at her crossword puzzle and figure out the answer!

Another person told me how she was in the grocery store one day with her service dog, reading the labels on some packages, when a little girl asked her mother why that woman had a dog in the grocery store.  The mother replied, "She's blind and the dog helps her."  The little girl reasonably pointed out, "But Mommy, she's reading those boxes!"  The mother explained, "That's because she has her dog to help her."  Um.... a guide dog that can read labels?

Service dogs that guide blind people are referred to as guide dogs, by the way.  "Seeing Eye" dogs are guide dogs from a specific program; it's like a brand name.  Some people refer to any guide dog as a Seeing Eye dog, but that's like the way some people refer to any disposable tissue as a Kleenex or any adhesive bandage as a Band-aid.