Meet Brandon | Episode #2

Episode 2

Meet Brandon

Brandon has been blind since birth and was diagnosed with FEVR. He earned an undergraduate degree in economics and a masters degree in vision rehab therapy. He is now employed by the University of Michigan teaching students about accessible technology and checking the accessibility of websites and apps that that the university uses. In this episode he shares his story along with recommendations for other blind young adults.

Show Notes:

• Brandon references the Bureau of Services for Blind Persons

• Brandon talks about the benefits of Orientation and Mobility

• Episode Transcription

  DR. PATRICK DROSTE: We would like to welcome the world to our Through Our Eyes podcast, brought to you by the Pediatric Retinal Research Foundation. We are a community of visually impaired young adults, talking about what it's like to navigate through high school, through college, through career development, and beyond. We tap into our experiences and cover a wide range of topics, providing you with actionable tips and strategies that may be able to help you negotiate these same obstacles. My name is Dr. Patrick Droste. I am a pediatric ophthalmologist practicing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I've been taking care of visually impaired children, young adults, and now older adults, and it's been a real experience watching them negotiate the different challenges in life. I frequently refer to this as the fish ladder of visual challenges starting out at a low level, and each time jumping up the ladder a little bit, swimming around a little bit, learning some new skills to get up to the next. And we have three outstanding, outstanding, young adults, that have done this, all three come from different backgrounds of visual disability and have different stories, and we've asked them all to talk to us about three things. One, a little bit about themselves in her background. Two, what were the greatest challenges they had in their formative years? Three, what do they consider their greatest accomplishments during his time, and lastly, how are they preparing for the future?

  Now we have a Brandon Warner. Brandon is something special to me. As his eye doctor, I started taking care of him when he was eight years of age. At that time, he had lost all his vision and he had a lot of problems with blind painful eyes that we worked through. And then he and his mother worked very hard with us at a Visually Impaired Sports and Activity Day, which lasted almost 20 years in Grand Rapids, and Brandon, his mother and other members of his family were leaders in that endeavor.

  Now he is on his own, he's graduated from college and has a master’s degree, and works at the University of Michigan. Brandon with that introduction, I'll let you take it from there.

  BRANDON: My name is Brandon Warner. As far as I know, I was born completely blind, I also have FEVR. I don't remember seeing it all when I was young, so I consider myself to be fully blind like the others here. I think one of the big things that led to my successes was having a supportive family. My parents are very supportive and always encouraged me to do things, which I think you'll hear as I introduce myself. I had a brother too who really helped me and made sure I was being cool growing up, saying things like, oh, you shouldn't wear that to school, or don't do that, or don't do this. So, I think that was really helpful to me to have a sighted sibling as I grew up. I guess I want to start with a story that actually leads into my profession today. When I was a kid, one of the things I really liked to do was go and buy old technology and mess around with it, old tape recorders and record players, and things like that. And one time, one of the things that I bought was an Atari 800 XL computer. I got it home and plugged it into the TV and guess what? I couldn't use it because I couldn't see it and it beeped but I couldn't do anything with it. And it really got me thinking and thinking that there's got to be a way that blind people can use computers. And I thought to myself even from a young age, if this is something I could do in the field, I can work in, I think this is a way that I can be very successful. And it's actually what I've ended up doing, but I wanted to start with that story because it is something that I ran into at a young age.

  When I was very young, I participated in a lot of activities, and I think having blind folks participating in activities is really important. One of the activities Dr. Droste mentioned was the VI Sports Day, and I think this is so important for blind folks, and it was really great for me because it taught me how to do things that most kids that even don’t even think of like, how do you throw a ball? What is a track like? What does a baseball diamond look like? Things that I think most people take for granted, but if you can't see... you just don't know what they're like. And going to the sports days to be able to experience that was huge.

  I think another thing that was integral to my success was having a lot of braille instruction when I was young. Statistics show that blind folks that have braille training are more successful, and certainly, that was this thing in my case. When I was very young, my teachers invested very heavily in teaching me braille, making sure that I knew how to use computers, and by the end of middle school and into high school, I was basically doing things all on my own. I was getting accessible materials, and of course, I still had help from braille instructors on occasion, but because of the investment when I was young, I was then able to be more productive on my own when I got older, and I think that's definitely a lesson that passing on to others is very important.

  As I got into middle school, I continued the extra-curricular activities. I participated in track, which I think was good for me, it helped me make a lot of friends in school, and it helped me prove to myself, and I think folks in my school that folks with disabilities can participate in standard sports alongside sighted folks. And I think that was a really good experience for me in particular. Same in high school, when I went on to high school, I participated in the marching band. When I first joined the marching band we weren't sure if I'd be able to march on the field with the other folks that were in the marching band. You have folks on the field playing their instrument and marching in formation and we weren't sure how I was going to do that, but marching elbow to elbow with someone made it possible. And I think that that was great because it showed me and folks at my school and folks at other schools, since we went to competitions, that it is possible for a blind person to participate in these activities.

  After I graduated high school, I participated in a college prep teaching program at the Bureau of Services for Blind Persons as a counselor. I actually participated in the program as a student a couple of years earlier. But in my two years of participating in this program, I really kind of learned a few things.

  Number one, that orientation and mobility is really important, and I think mastering it was integral to my success. I think blind folks take for granted, at least those that have active parents like us three in this podcast, that your parents, when you're in high school or middle school, take you here and there, and it's easy to get around. But once you're on your own, you have to do that travel yourself. And when you have to go to the store to buy groceries or make your way to your classes or buy food, having these mobility skills is really important. And that's one thing I really learned at this college prep program.

  Another thing I learned is that with tools, it's not good to get into camp around tools. And what I mean by that is like, you shouldn't say like, oh, I'm a PC person, or I'm a Mac person, or I'm only using the one GPS or another GPS. Because each tool can be a benefit for different activities and also different tools work better for different users. Along with my accessibility work, one of the things I learned at this college prep program was my love for teaching. As I started to work with folks in teaching during this college prep program, what I realized is that tools that work for me might not work well for others, and everybody has a preferred tool that works well for them.

  When I went on to college, I sort of really learned about advocating for myself and how important this was. For example, most of my textbooks they were mostly accessible, but they might have graphics in them that I couldn't read, or they might have equations that I couldn't read. And one of the things that I did was sort of paired up with partners from my class to have them read me some of these things or sometimes I would do favors for my professors in exchange and that sort of helped me. I went to a small school, so they would help me by reading graphs and helping me read equations, and I think one of the key things that I learned here is that we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, and under the law, professors and institutions are obligated to provide a certain amount of accommodations to ensure that you can get through college. However, if you befriend your professors and the folks and the disability services office and things like this, they're going to be much more inclined to help you and work with you. And I think that's a really important lesson that everybody should keep in mind. And also, just making friends in general with people in the dorms, I made friends with the person who manned the check-in window at my dorm and she would read me my mail and things like that, because obviously when you can't see reading mail is difficult.

  I ended up getting my undergraduate in economics, and I went on to get my master's degree in vision rehab therapy. And after that, I took a job at UM where I do a combination of teaching, and that teaching is working with students around the campus who need to use assistive technology. Essentially, you have to use assistive technology at one level when you're in high school, however, when you go to college, you need to use it at a much more intense level, so I work with blind students to help bridge that gap. I also work to check the accessibility of websites and apps that the university serves to campus to make sure that everybody can use them. And that's my story.

  DR. PATRICK DROSTE: The podcast is called Through Our Eyes. Make sure to like and follow our Discord channel, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and let us know if you have any questions or have a topic you would like us to cover. We have some interesting topics coming up in the very near future, and they're basically broken down into technology, gaining independence, college, and career development. We're going to be talking about learning technical skills, and discussing different high and low technical devices like Versa, Perkins Brailler, Braille Compass Trekker, etc. And then we're going to work on gaining independence, on home repair, taking care of things in the house, mobility, cooking, and the challenges of daily life. For the young people who are trying to pursue careers in college, as we heard from Breyanna, some of the challenges there, navigating inaccessible textbooks, and software, getting help from disability resources, and so forth. Then we want to work on choosing a job that's right for you and your skills, using community services, and choosing how to get involved in the community. We have tremendous things planned, and we hope you tune in again for our next podcast. This is Dr. Droste saying goodnight to all of you and on behalf of our staff at the PRRF, thank you.