Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of Alicia’s story.

Freepik

The week I spent in Houston was one I won’t soon forget – I met new friends, visited new places, and got to experience a different perspective on the blind community. The drive back to William P. Hobby airport one week later didn’t make me nervous at all. I’d been through this before, and I knew what to expect this time. Juan’s dad was the one who took me to the Houston airport, and the walk from the parking lot to the entrance of the airport was long, and that wasn’t all: we had to walk even further inside to get to the ticket counter.

Once again, I requested assistance, but this time I didn’t have to sit there by myself waiting for the skycap to get there. Juan and his dad waited with me at the designated waiting area.

So I’d be flying on my own again, but this time everything felt different. The wait felt different because I was less anxious. I knew they wouldn’t forget me. The prospect of flying alone again felt different because I wasn’t nervous. I felt more confident, this sense of freedom and independence, and happy that Juan and his family made it possible.

When the airline assistant arrived, he was a bit confused to see Juan and me standing together. “Oh, am I helping both of you?” he asked – not in a patronizing way, but just for clarification. “I can get someone else to come and assist too,” he added.

“Oh, no, it’s just her traveling,” Juan clarified. His dad looked my way and added, “We’d like to walk with you just to make sure you make it to security, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine,” I replied, and we all four chatted as we walked – Juan’s dad, Juan, the assistant and me. This assistant wasn’t as energetic and talkative as the one I’d had in Chicago, but he was still nice and I was impressed to have learned that they were prepared to help both of us if need be.

I did not take the wheelchair ride on the way back, deciding to walk instead. The walk was long, and we stopped at the security line to say goodbye. I thanked both Juan and his dad for having me, and they both said they hope I visit soon. “I’m glad you finally got to fly yourself,” Juan said.

Having known me for quite some time, he’d heard me talk about how much I’d wanted to fly all by myself and I finally did. But hearing it – hearing someone say they were happy I finally accomplished this – made me smile. “Text me when you land,” he added.

The security line was not long, and after we were done at TSA I did the same things I’d done at Midway Airport in Chicago – I stopped at the family style restroom, I filled up my water bottle, and I got assisted to the gate.

The only thing that made me nervous this time was when the airline assistant informed me that the gate agent wasn’t currently present. “Okay, but…but someone needs to know that I’m doing pre-boarding and need assistance,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. When I get too nervous and anxious, my tone tends to come off more forceful than I intend, and I wanted to prevent that.

“They will,” he assured me. “And I’m going to put you in this wheelchair, because they’re more likely to notice you, and they’ll know you need help.” He did just that, and five minutes later, he approached me again to tell me that he spoke with the gate agent who would be coming to talk to me shortly.

The agent approached me a few minutes later just to check on me. He asked how I was doing and assured me that he knew I needed assistance. When it was time to pre-board, I held the agent’s arm as he guided me down the jetway and on to the plane. From there the flight attendant took over and led me to my seat.

The flight home felt short. Maybe that’s because I slept through more than half of it! When we landed, I sent a text to my parents to let them know. My mom texted back to let me know she was at baggage claim. I was the last one

off the plane, and the “meet and assist” (what they call the person helping you at the gate) was chatty and full of energy, even for the late hour of 11pm.

We talked about the weather, my trip, and my first solo flight. All the chatter made the walk from the gate seem shorter than it was, and my mom was there at baggage claim waiting for me with a cheery, “Hey! We missed you!”

I am writing this having been home for two weeks, and the feeling of liberation still hasn’t left me. Flying alone has always been a goal of mine, and at the very start of 2020, I checked it off my list. I hope that means things can only go up from here, and I’m in for a good rest of the year.

Have you read the first part of Alicia’s Story? Check it out!

My parents drove me to Chicago Midway airport for my flight. I had been a little nervous that morning, but once I realized weather wasn’t going to stop me, excitement took over. The anxiety about my first time flying alone started to fade, and I could sit in the car and enjoy the ride.

A good 45 minutes later, my dad was driving circles in the parking lot while my mom led me inside to the ticket counter. My dad had told me they could get special passes to take me from the ticket counter to the gate, but I said no. “The point of this is for me to do this by myself,” I explained to him. He understood. I think. No matter how old you are, or how much you’ve prepared for something, parents always worry about their kids. Then, add a disability to the mix.

At the ticket counter, I showed my ID and requested assistance to my gate. Mom led me to a seat to wait for airport assistance, said goodbye, told me to have fun, and left.

This was the worst part. What is considered a normal wait time? “I’ve been waiting for like 10 minutes,” I texted my friend Juan in Houston. “Is this normal?” He replied in less than a minute: Yes!” Another friend I texted sent a reassuring reply: “They won’t forget about you.”

And they didn’t.

“Ali?” a man said, standing a few feet away. I stood up, smiling. “Hi! Yep, that’s me!”

“Do you need a wheelchair?” he asked me. I thought for a second. I had anticipated this question — when I asked my blind friends about what to expect from airline assistance, they told me that this wheelchair question is very common. Oddly enough, I didn’t have an answer. I wasn’t sure I wanted the ride. “I mean…I don’t need one, but if it’s faster, sure.”

He helped me into the wheelchair, and I laughed and made some light-hearted joke about how I didn’t know what I was doing. “I’ve never been in a wheelchair in my life!”

We zoomed down some hallways, took an elevator down, zoomed down more empty hallways, and wound up at the front of the security line with two people ahead of us. I was instructed to put my phone in my purse, so I did. The skycap took my things, I stood up, and walked through security.

“Okay, you’re through,” the TSA agent said. She sounded friendly and I could tell she was smiling. I smiled back.

“Okay, awesome!” I said – which, okay, probably isn’t your typical response at TSA, but I was feeling so excited and proud of myself that I couldn’t help but call it the way I saw it: it was awesome. The TSA agent laughed. “Is this your first time flying?”

“Sort of,” I said, explaining this was my first solo flight. “I’ve always flown with my parents.” Just then the airline assistant returned with the wheelchair, my purse and my cane. Once I was seated and situated again, the skycap placed my suitcase on my lap. “Before we go to the gate, can we stop at a restroom?” I asked, letting him know I prefer the family style ones. “Those are one-person, right?”

The skycap confirmed that yes, they were, and we started moving again. “Okay, then that would be great if possible, and not too much of an inconvenience. I just hate public restrooms, you know? Wandering around looking for everything,” I laughed. The assistant laughed, agreeing with me. As we rode along, I pulled out my phone and texted my parents that I’d made it through security.

After the restroom I asked for one more request. “Can we go somewhere to fill up my water bottle?” I apologized after I asked. That’s something I’m trying to work on. His job is to assist me; I don’t need to apologize for said assistance. We filled my water bottle and then headed for the gate.

“Can you let the gate agent know I’m here? I’m doing pre-boarding, so I’ll need help,” I told the airline assistant as I got out of the wheelchair and sat at a regular seat. “Absolutely,” he said.

I tipped him when he returned, and he thanked me and went on his way. A lady across from me called out to me then. “Excuse me, mis?” she said. “I can help you as well, if you’d like.”

“Thanks…the airport provides assistance, though, so the gate agent knows I’m here,” I replied. It’s not that I didn’t trust her, but I felt more comfortable having an airport employee help me on the plane than anyone else, just for the sake of assurance that they knew I was there. Or that I’d actually get on. And that’s when I texted my parents (and Juan) to let them know I was waiting at the gate. I’d promised my parents I would text them with updates along the way.

Stay tuned for Part Three, where Alicia talks about how her second solo flight, the trip back to Chicago from Houston, compared to the first time she’d ever flown on her own, and how it feels now to be a seasoned traveler.

I have Type 1 diabetes and have never trusted dog-training companies that claim that dogs can help detect low and high blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. A story called The Hope and Hype of Diabetic Alert Dogs that aired yesterday on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered program tells me I was right to have my doubts.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that can be difficult to manage. We use handheld glucometers or other technologies throughout the day and night to check the amount of sugar in our bloodstream. Low blood sugars can lead to poor judgment, loss of consciousness, even death; over time, high blood sugar levels can cause kidney disease and sight loss. I was diagnosed at age 7, before home blood sugar monitoring was available. Type 1 diabetes is what caused my blindness.

The story mentions a lawsuit where a group of more than a dozen people with diabetes, each of whom had spent $15,000 for a so-called diabetic alert dog sued a trainer for fraud and won a judgment for $800,000. It also reported that Virginia’s attorney general sued a service dog vendor after customer complaints about its dogs, which were marketed as “backed by science” and “100 percent effective.” The piece referred to research on diabetic alert dogs in a 2017 study done by psychologist Linda Gonder-Frederick at University of Virginia. From the story:

Before the study, their owners believed the dogs would prove more accurate than their glucose monitor devices. That didn’t happen.
“Overall, they really were not that reliable or accurate,” she says.

Another Oregon researcher did a study of diabetic alert dogs in 2016 and found only 12% of the dogs’ alerts happened during actual low blood sugar events, and the dogs also had false positives.

The NPR Story comes right out and says it: diabetic alert dogs can’t reliably detect blood sugar changes from diabetes. More than a million Americans have Type 1 diabetes, and many of us with Type 1 wish desperately that dogs could help. I am grateful to NPR for setting this straight, and leave you with this very important warning for parents from the story:

Her research also contradicted what some believe — or hope — is true: That the dogs can be a good safety net for those who worry about blood sugar dropping as they sleep. Some parents have turned to the dogs to safeguard their children during the night.
“The accuracy just plummeted during the night. Dogs have to sleep too. Obviously, a dog cannot work 24/7,” Gonder-Frederick says.

I love traveling. I don’t need a big, extravagant trip to feel pleased about my travel abilities, either. Just taking the train to downtown Chicago is enough to make me feel proud of myself, simply because I did it by myself – or at the very least, without my parents.

I’ve taken cabs, buses, Ubers, Amtrak and Metra trains all by myself. I’ve flown many times before, but always with my parents.

I have friends who are also blind and have flown countless times, and thinking about them always left me feeling a mixture of pride and envy. I was proud of them for their independence, but also envious, wishing I had that kind of courage. I really wanted to challenge myself, so I set a goal: this year, 2020, I would fly alone at least once.

A friend of mine who is blind flew out to Chicago from Houston in November to celebrate my birthday with a group of friends, and while Juan was here we discussed my “first solo flight” idea further. I asked him question after question about everything. What airline do you recommend? Any specific airport? Do you do curbside check-in or go to the counter? How did your parents react? Juan’s parents seem similar to mine, especially in how they raised us as children with disabilities. So hearing how his parents reacted to him flying alone gave me the last boost of confidence I needed. Juan invited me to come to visit him and his family in Houston, and I started looking up flights. Imagine how hard it was to get through finals week – my last finals week, no less, as I graduated in December! – spending every minute of my free time looking up airfares. The affordable prices were taunting me.

I was so tempted to act first and think later – buy the tickets, then tell my parents about it. Realistically, I’d never do that, but checking fares and checking my bank account, knowing I could actually afford this…it all amped up the excitement. I can do this!

My parents were very encouraging, and my dad helped me book my flight on the Southwest website. I was pleased that the Southwest website provided me the option to check a checkbox indicating I am blind and needed gate assistance. A few days before the trip I had been waiting so long for, an anticipated snow storm threatened to ruin the entire thing. I spent the day before and the day of the trip asking our Google home device how much snow was expected, already jumping ahead and asking Juan for alternative dates for me to fly from Chicago just in case. He wasn’t worried at all. “This is how Chicago always is!” he laughed. “You’re always supposed to get a storm – it won’t happen.”

And it didn’t!

Stay tuned for Part Two, where Alicia talks about waiting for airport assistance, getting through airport security with a white cane, and, eventually, sitting in the plane ready for take-off.

Late last month the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) concerning traveling by air with service animals. What that means is that the DOT has once again released a document proposing new regulations governing air travel with service animals.

So here’s where you come in: DOT is giving the public 60 days to comment on the proposed regulations, and the NPRM can be accessed here along with a summary created by DOT with the main points. Some tips for locating the section if you wish to comment:

1. Find a link at the end of the summary with the docket number associated with the NPRM
2. Hit enter on the docket number and you’ll get to a page with a “comment now” button
3. Hit that button to get to the form where you can submit your comments

Remember, the proposed regulations are not yet law. So far they are just proposals to change the law. I just flew home to Chicago from Newark a couple weeks ago, so I can vouch for that: laws regarding service animals on planes have not yet changed. The DOT says they will not issue final new regulations until they have reviewed public comments.

All that said, given DOT’s current enforcement priorities, you might want to check on your specific airline’s policies before you fly. Think about keeping your animal’s health record with you when you’re taking a plane anywhere: it is sometimes difficult to determine if a specific airline will ask you to show it, so may as well be prepared.