Intro

Lucas is 6 years old. He has Septo-Optic-Dysplasia, Bi-Lateral Optic-Nerve-Hypoplasia, Unilateral Retinal Aplasia, Tetralogy of Fallots (repaired Nov 2002) and a few other things we are not sure of!

I'm his Dad and I'm very proud of him. I feel he is and can be an inspiration and want to share some of the details of his life, from how he deals with the medical aspects of his life, and how he (and we - his parents) deal with blindness. We feel that blindness can be reduced to a physical inconvenience (see National Federation OF the Blind) and have adopted the "No Limits" approach to mobility (see World Access for the Blind) as we feel it is our job as parents to give our son the best chances in life.

He uses a proper long cane (i.e. not a symbol cane - or "Chocolate Teapot" cane I prefer to regard it as) at the age of six and has done since the age of three. We wish we had introduced it earlier. He used passive and advanced Echolocation to assist him get about, but most importantly, he learns through "Self Directed Discovery" - so definitely no sighted guide as this serves no real purpose in most cases other than to help the guide. He is learning true independence, mostly in part to the help from Daniel Kish and his colleague Brian Bushway.