News

Linda’s Story

Linda wanted the confidence she was lacking to be able to travel with her husband.

Linda always managed to cope with her low vision, until she realised she wanted the confidence she was lacking to be able to travel with her husband.

Diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa when she was just seven years old, Linda constantly has to adjust to a different level of vision as her sight will randomly decline, steady and then decline again.

Linda reached out to Guide Dogs to gain the independence

“Today I can see something and it’s great and then tomorrow I might not be able to see it at all,” Linda said.

“It often makes you want to fall in a heap or sit in a hole and cry but then I just think this is my life and I need to do something with it.”

Being a keen traveller, Linda reached out to Guide Dogs to gain the independence she needed to travel around Australia the way she wanted.

That was when she reached out to Guide Dogs Queensland and met Orientation and Mobility Specialist Sam who introduced her to the long cane.

“I initially had very low expectations of using the cane but it has given me a lot of confidence and has really helped me more than I can say.”

“You wouldn’t think that such a simple thing – a stick with a ball on the end – could make such a huge difference, but it’s given me a lot of the freedom I thought I’d lost. I allowed my world to shrink and the cane’s opened it up again.”

Linda is now enjoying the freedom of travelling independently with her husband – with her trusty new cane in hand.