Christina: [00:00:00] Welcome to the taking the lead podcast, where we empower people to be unstoppable. I'm Christina Hapner with my cohost, Leslie Hoskins in Timothy Cuneo. And today is a shorter episode because we're going to chat a little bit about some of the questions we've been getting, but first you guys guest
Leslie: snacks, tweak.
Christina: My 30th birthday,
Leslie: joining of 30 club. You have to check that new box.
Christina: I know. I thought I would be in my twenties forever. Yeah. So did I
Tmothy: it's like a new decade. Yeah.
Leslie: 30. What will you do to celebrate this accomplishment? I don't know. Nobody plans. I don't know. It's still figuring it out. Yeah. You know, I got a week. That's fair.
That's fair. That'll be fun. I remember when I turned 30, not too long ago, just to be clear. I know Christina likes to say that I'm older. [00:01:00] However, I've only got a few years on her, so I still remember what it was like to turn through. Yeah. What was
it
Christina: like? What did you do for your 30th?
Leslie: Oh, well, I celebrated my 30th.
I had a, had a baby nine days prior, my first baby. Um, so I can't say there was a lot of celebrating happening. It was more like survival, I guess what I'd call that. So you brought. I did. I did. And I will tell you, I was very happy that he came on, uh, May 31st, so that I still get the month of June to myself to celebrate.
Well, I tell you, I will not
Christina: be bringing in a baby for my
Leslie: I
Christina: might be, uh, celebrating in a different way. You know, maybe some wine, something along those lines.
Leslie: Timothy, what did you, do you remember what you did to celebrate those
Tmothy: 25 years? Are you kidding
Leslie: me?
Christina: It was like yesterday. Wasn't it? You're younger than us.
Tmothy: Oh man. I, I, I know I was working. That's all I [00:02:00] know.
That's all I know. I can't remember that. That's too for back too far
Leslie: back, Q4, Raven can't even too far back. So what are you guys going to get me? Oh gosh. Yeah. We'll talk after this, right?
Christina: Yeah. I'm, I'm expecting a big surprise on the podcast or something, right. Well,
Leslie: if it's a surprise, you don't know about it.
Okay. Well just, I'm just putting it out
Christina: there. I know. And you know, Timothy. You don't even live here, so you're going to have to mail something.
Tmothy: Uh, well, uh, I'll send you good wishes. I'm going to, I'm going to be in, uh, new Orleans next week down at the national Federation for the blind convention. Oh, I mean, I'm going to be busy down there.
Okay. I'm going to be at the leader, dog booth and doing all the other stuff I want to do. So, uh, I don't
Christina: know too busy for my
Leslie: birthday. I get it. And B's happening, [00:03:00] which Timothy is going to be at the American council of the blind has their conference happening in Omaha, Nebraska. Uh, we'll have some representatives out there as the well from leader dog to really.
I feel everybody in. So anybody who's at those conferences, please do pop in and say hi to our reps out there. Um, and they can answer any questions or in the right direction for anything that you want to know. Omaha
Christina: is a nice city. I used to live in Nebraska. Okay. Yeah. Omaha is a nice city. So it would be a great one to attend for anyone the zoo.
They have a great zoo. It's full of corn in it. You know, there is a lot of farms when I lived out there. I w I did some agriculture reporting when I was a reporter.
Leslie: Oh, so lots is happening this month. We've got a pristine, his birthday, NFB, ACB, um, AR international, which is a professional conference for those of us in the blindness and low vision field.
That's going to be happening in St. Louis, which I will be attending. Um, and I'm pretty excited to be again in the same room with professionals [00:04:00] and really network and meet people. And. Oh, I'm looking forward to it. So busy month. That's so exciting.
Christina: I love conferences.
Leslie: It's a really great opportunity to meet and
Christina: they're all in cool city is so you guys get to go to some really cool places.
I am jealous.
Leslie: Well, we can't wait to hear about what you do to celebrate your birthday.
Christina: I will probably just take the day off and like do a spotty or something, you know, treat myself
Leslie: that sounds delightful. Well today, we're going to dive in a little bit into some of the questions we've been getting this season.
Um, and one of them is how does somebody find the right cane? So we've talked a lot about canes and guide dogs. Um, but how does somebody, you know, know what size gate to order? What kind of cane to, or.
Christina: Yeah, lots of questions there.
Tmothy: I, when I came to see you, uh, three years ago, Leslie, my cane was too big for me and I did not know that.
So, uh, you're going to have to tell us how to get the right cane.
Christina: Yeah. How do you know that? Is it
Leslie: [00:05:00] like, you know, when you just guess
Christina: when you order something offline, do you have to put in certain measurements,
Leslie: how does that all. It's really, it is calm, not complicated. Um, but certified orientation and mobility specialists that is something we're taught in grad school is how to prescribe a cane if you will.
Um, and there's a lot of things that go into it. So it's not necessarily always something we can do over the phone. We can give a, uh, an estimate of measurements, but really we have to see a client, see how fast they're walking to really make that determination. So. Typically the canes that we are issuing or giving out, we usually suggest about two inches above the sternum, as far as height and or which is about equal to the height of your armpit.
So if you're standing up just underneath your armpit is usually a good height of where you want that. Kane to come to. Um, but sometimes we actually will give Keynes a little bit longer to clients who walk a little faster. Cause what we are really watching [00:06:00] is the distance between a person's cane tip and their cane feet when walking and that reaction time.
So when the cane finds something such as a door or a wall or a drop off the amount of time or steps that they have to react with their body. Oh, that makes sense. So. Yeah. So if somebody is walking really fast, that Cane's going to drop off and then their feet are going to be there right before they know it.
So people who walk faster, we might give them a longer cane. So they have a little bit more reaction time. Wow. I never
Christina: thought of it that way.
Leslie: And that's how we prescribe cancer, a leader dog, but there are different methods and different techniques. Um, we do use folds, foldable, uh, uh, canes. There are different styles of canes.
So we were talking about NFB, the national Federation of the blind. They actually have a different style cane, which is a rigid cane. It's, um, a different texture. So it's really lightweight. It kind of bounces and they actually suggest having canes almost like forehead height. So. [00:07:00] Taller and they use them a little differently.
So it's a really good idea to kind of try out all different types of canes to really understand what's going to work best for you. I'll say at liter dog, we don't care. We do not care. What type of cane you use. If you want to bring an NFB style cane and use it, at least a dog, we are happy to work with you on that.
We just want people to be traveling independently. And I
Christina: know there's, I mean, I've seen the canes that we have. There's all different types of materials. Why
Leslie: is. So lots of canes are either aluminum, fiberglass, carbon, fiber, graphite. Uh, they can be made out of lots of different materials. They weigh different amounts.
They kind of give them feedback differently. Um, typically what we're using currently are AMETEK graphite, folding mobility, canes, um, but. You know, it doesn't mean that that's what somebody has to use. It really is kind of a personal preference. So I suggest if you can, if you have the opportunity to try out a different, you know, a few so that, you know, what you like,
Tmothy: they're using canes that tells the cop.
I mean, they, they [00:08:00] go up inside of each other, but those don't last, as long as the folding gangs, I've found.
Leslie: So there's folding canes, there's rigid canes, meaning it doesn't fold up or condense in any way. And then there's yeah, the telescoping canes that kind of fold into it themselves, um, to be a little bit smaller.
Those, I have heard varying opinions on that. They don't last as long sometimes as you're walking through. It's folded in or whatever on themselves. Um, so it just kinda depends. Folding kids are nice in that they're convenient. You can put them away, you can fold it up and throw it in a backpack. If you need to.
Or a lot of times I'll suggest to clients to get like a carabiner hook for their backpack or purse or even belt loop. And you can hook your cane on to you that way so that it's always with you and you don't have that fear of losing it or leaving it behind somewhere. Um, interesting thing canes, you can now get in different colors and get a blue fun.
Yeah. Um, you know, as an instructor, I'm going to recommend the old fashion, [00:09:00] red and white cane. Uh, but you know what it, especially when we're working with kids and if the only way I can get a six-year-old girl to use her cane as if it's pink, then darn it. I'm going to give her a pink cane. That's cool.
Right.
Christina: That's super cool. And plus, like
Leslie: she would probably get lots of comments. That's what I've heard. You know, I've worked with clients before who have like different canes for different uses. Uh, so they'll have their cane when they know that they're going to be out traveling independently, it's red and white.
So, you know, that is the most known color of a cane for somebody who's blind or visually impaired. But then she said she has her date cane, and it was a green and white cane. And that's the cane that she uses when she's going to be using human guide most of the night and not really going to be traveling independently.
So it's more of a fashion statement, which I think is really cool. Fun
Christina: going out with friends. Oh, I love that. See, that would be
Leslie: me. I would have absolutely dazzle canes. You know, that's another thing I learned from, um, but one of my practicum supervisors, what he did with [00:10:00] kids is, um, the, the top of the cane, they usually there's like a rope or a cord if you will.
And he would have kids pick little charms to put on there, and that was motivating for them because they got to decorate their cane and, and make it their own or put their initials on it. So. Pretty cool stuff. Timothy, is
Christina: your cane bedazzled?
Tmothy: No
dazzle about it.
Leslie: That's fair, but you can imagine, right. As a child, you know, having a cane can be really difficult and, you know, makes you stand out. And so it's one, if you can make it your own and really take pride in your cane and your mobility device. So I think it's pretty cool.
Christina: Well, intimate. The, I know sometimes you go, um, camping and hiking and stuff, and we've talked about the different cane tips.
Do you have different keen tips for different areas?
Tmothy: I've got the mushroom on and I've also got the ceramic one, uh, the mushrooms a little bit easier to go on surfaces and stuff, but if you're going out hiking, I would have that big ball one, cause it can roll over [00:11:00] anything. But, uh, the, the CA the ceramic one, you just do for sound, because the sound reverberates and you can, you can tell distances with it and stuff.
So, yeah, there's all kinds of canes. And, and I tried a bunch of them out while I was up there later dog. And so I picked two out that I really.
Christina: Yeah. Are they easy to interchange? Cause it's a.
Tmothy: Well, all you do is pull it out and there's a little plastic piece that comes out with it and that keeps it open and you just change it out and then you pull it back in and push that little piece back in.
It goes right back and I can have it change in five
Leslie: seconds. Oh, good to know. And that's a hook tip, so there's hook tips, and then there are slip on tips. So depending on what type of cane you're using, uh, The tips might be a little different, which is really nice, but the hook tips are very convenient.
And I don't know if you've ever done this Timothy. I hope not. But sometimes when you're changing a cane tip, if you don't get the stopper out or you don't put a pencil or your finger in there that rope will shoot right back down the cane. And [00:12:00] that is like a three man job to try to get the rope back out through the end of the cane.
Christina was looking at me like I'm absolutely insane. It involves like a coat hanger sometimes. Or you can get these special hooks, like a co Kane repair kit. I'm telling you, you do it once. You'll never do it again. I'm going to try it out.
Christina: they're not going to let me in though. And I'm office. They're going to be like, Christina's here to, uh, ruin a cane, not ruin it, but so what Leslie's explaining.
Leslie: Um, people sometimes will snap their, get their fingers caught in a folding cane when it's for thing it hurts. Yeah. You do at one time and I promise you, you're not going to do it again, but there are techniques to folding and unfolding a cane and, and where to put it and how to change the cane tips.
And there's a lot, a lot that goes into it. Yeah. And there's a whole like cane repair. Uh, like books and people. [00:13:00] So, um, one of my great mentors, Lynn gout, troph he's listening. He was like the cane repair man. And he does all sorts of different things. And, uh, you know, how to restring a cane, how to shorten a cane, lengthen a cane, re grip a cane.
Um, and he always teases me because I never remember all of the things cause there's just so many tips and tricks, but it's really cool. Um, and the things that you can do with. Wow,
Christina: who knew there was so much into one finding the right cane and just into the different types of.
Leslie: I know. And so different places you can find canes and BetaC, um, is a Canadian company that we use where we get our canes, but you can purchase them on maxi aids, L S and S I think sometimes now you can even purchase them on Amazon.
Uh, yeah. I think about the measurements. So it's usually like 56 inches and then you pick the sections. So if it's a folding cane, how many sections you want it to fold into, whether it be four or five or six, of course, the [00:14:00] more sections, the smaller and compact it folds into. Um, so knowing that ahead of time in, before ordering is helpful.
Christina: So much great information. Now, if someone is listening and they're like, okay, this is great information. Um, how do I get more information about how to find the
Leslie: right king? Absolutely. You can always call us. We're happy to answer those questions. Uh, you can call us at eight, eight, eight. 7 7 7 5 3 3, 2, and asked to speak to an O and M specialist.
We can talk you through that. Um, or we can talk you into coming in to orientation mobility at leader dog, because all ONM clients get a free king. So we actually do prescribe Keynes. Uh, we'll measure it out. We'll watch ya figure out throughout the week. What's going to be the best fit for you. Um, and again, you can always bring your own cane.
That's okay, too, but we will provide that free cane for anybody who's interested, which is a huge.
Christina: That's awesome. Such great information.
Leslie: Yeah. Well, gosh, I love talking cadence. And while I could [00:15:00] talk all day, we'll go ahead and wrap it up here, but please do know that you can call us. We're happy to have these conversations with you and figure out what's going to work for you.
The best that we can. So. Thank you, everyone for listening to another short episode of taking the lead. I'm Leslie Hoskins with hosts, Timothy Cuneo and Christina Hapner. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and please join us next time. As we continue to dive into the world of. And if you'd like
Christina: to learn more about applying to leader dog, you can head to leader, dog.org or call us at (888) 777-5332.
And don't forget, you can reach us at taking the lead of leader, dog.org with any questions or ideas. And if you like today's podcast, make sure to hit subscribe and check us out wherever pod history. .