Latest / Follow the Leighder / Living With Blindness, and How AI Helps | Ed Worrell
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- Leigh Larson/@followtheleighder: Howdy folks, we are here at the Montana Association for the Blind. We're at the Roe River chapter with chapter president, Worrell. Howdy. Hello. And are joined by our service dogs, ⁓ Professor and Helen sitting right next to Ed. Folks, I am so excited for this interview. I'm excited to show you the space too. ⁓ And we are going to learn what the Montana Association for the Blind does. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ you and Helen have been so kind to us today. Can you tell folks that have been listening where they can donate or learn more about thank you so much for hosting me today. I really appreciate you bringing me into your space. Folks, for those behind us, this whole office space is his but the logo behind him is Overhear Consulting. So this is all Ed's space, doing two different things. And I'm so excited to get to talk to you Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ So if you wanted to make a donation to the local ⁓ MAB Roe River chapter, can go to mabrrc.org. That's our chapter website. ⁓ And there's a donate link right there on the homepage. You can donate through PayPal or send a donation if you so desire by check to ⁓ 525 Central Avenue, Suite M4, Great Falls, Montana 59401. ⁓ Leigh Larson/@followtheleighder: hardships it's facing as an organization, and also to learn more about the experience of being blind or hard of vision from Ed So let's get into it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ let's learn about you, Talk to us about your story, ⁓ where are from, and are you ⁓ Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: You can learn more about me and my business ⁓ at over here, consulting.net that's O V E R H E R E consulting.net. and we just have a bunch of different things on our website about technology that blind and low vision people use stuff, stuff. My company sells, ⁓ the Montana association for the blind chapter here in great falls, the river. We've got all our events and things listed on a calendar on the website. ⁓ did we get here? I first of all, I really appreciate you having me on your podcast. I'm Ed Worrell. actually am born and raised here in Great Falls. ⁓ In fact, I only live about six blocks away from my office. I'm born and raised, grew up in this the downtown area of Great Falls. So I'm really familiar with this whole area. In fact, I live right across the street from my dad. So it's even even ⁓ Coming up June 15th through July 10th is the Montana Association for the Blind Summer Orientation Program, which is our one month, our month long on campus adult learning program ⁓ for newly blinded adults. So ⁓ we have an open house on June 27th from one to 4 p.m. So if people wanna come find out more about the organization and about that. I keep it real local to where I grew up and just really love the area. I actually also am a, not just blind, but I'm a type 1 diabetic as well. So I was diagnosed at the age of four, so a juvenile diabetes. Ultimately, that's what ended up taking my vision in 2000, let's see, would have been 2007. In May, I ended up in the hospital. program, the public's definitely welcome. with because of my diabetes because I couldn't afford insulin because insulin is just so ridiculously expensive without insurance. I think at the time insulin was about $1,200 a month without insurance, which is a whole nother problem. But the, ended up in the hospital with a blood sugar over 1,280. So I was clinically dead for what they think about 30 to 45 minutes. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank you. Thank you, Ed, for having me and Professor Huckleberry with you today. That has been such a treat. Folks, let me know what you thought of this interview and conversation Montana Association for the Blind Chapter President at the Roe River Chapter, Ed Worrell. ⁓ has been a really lovely ⁓ interview. Make sure to drop your comments or questions in the comment section, of course. Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: But the big thing of that was is I had to, for about a year, maybe even closer to a year and a half, I actually had to do physical therapy and relearn how to walk, had to go through a bunch of different things and to get my life back. But then just shortly after that, ⁓ I started losing my eyesight in September of 2007. And I ultimately ended up having my final surgery a week after my wife. Becky and I got married in ⁓ June of 2008. So I had nine, or in nine months, I had 11 eye surgeries and went from not needing glasses to my big Coke bottle glasses that I had for a while that were just, they were huge. ⁓ And ⁓ I ultimately am completely blind now. I have just a little bit of light perception, ⁓ which. just simply means I can see some light in the top right hand corner of my right eye. And that's about all I see. ⁓ The rest of it is just kind of gray. ⁓ But that's kind of a brief summary of me. ⁓ I ultimately started getting involved with the Montana Association for the Blind in 2010 because I actually reached out to ⁓ voc rehab services, blind and low vision services here in great falls. And they initially wanted to send me to a nine month intensive training program in Colorado, but I kind of wanted to stay a little closer to home. ⁓ you know, I had never traveled outside of the state by myself for one and, ⁓ being completely blind and traveling to Colorado just sounded insane to me at the time. I could probably do it now. But ⁓ so they decided to see if the Montana Association for the Blind Summer Orientation Program would be a good fit for me. And at the time that was in Helena. So that's a one month training program and it teaches newly blinded adults different skill sets like computer, technology, ⁓ orientation and mobility which... means walking with a white cane and being able to walk down the street or in into a store or any of that stuff independently. They just kind of teach independent life skills again because it's different doing these things after you've lost your eyesight. I I can still do a lot of the same things that I did before I lost my eyesight, but ⁓ aside from driving, that's about the one thing I can't do. ⁓ But ⁓ it's just one of those things that that program from the Montana Association for the Blind really gave me a new view on life. I'm able to do what I do with my business and even working with the Montana Association for the Blind, ⁓ River chapter here in Great Falls. It's just ⁓ become a passion of mine helping blind and low vision Montanans. So it's been really, ⁓ really interesting and fun to go down that path. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Well, my ex-husband was type 1 diabetic. I know all too well how up and down that entire lifestyle, mean, between the insulin and then the pods and the wearable devices. It's a whole thing to manage on its own. Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: doing it blind adds a whole nother level of complication to it. So yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So what does that look like, being blind and managing diabetes? you use a lot of tech? Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Everything is technology based. I am currently wearing a Dexcom G7 sensor. ⁓ and I also was the, one of the first completely blind diabetic C is the Omnipod five insulin pump system in the country. So, ⁓ everything is tied to my iPhone. So the, the pump, all the software runs on the iPhone so I can adjust my algorithms and everything on the, on the iPhone. can, ⁓ do everything with the blood sugar, test blood sugar, all independently on the iPhone. And that's one of the first pumps to have that level of accessibility. There's another one on the market. I'm trying to remember. That's the one by Tandem. It's called the Moby. But yeah, there's a couple of different ones on the market now that we can use. I wouldn't call them fully accessible, but it is doable. ⁓ And I've been on that pump now for three years and it's been a life changer. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, it really is. It's like a wearable pancreas. Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: ⁓ absolutely. And that, that pump actually, ⁓ will communicate with the Dexcom by itself so that it actually can make corrections on its own without, without me interacting. ⁓ so it's, it's really been a, a life changer. It's, just, it's a fascinating, ⁓ disease. then, ⁓ I know people are baffled, but the, diabetes to me is harder than the blindness actually. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, let's talk about like that process of growing blind. What was that like for you and your family? Because you talked about growing blind a week into your marriage too. Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: Yeah, yeah. I my transition. Yeah, I had my final eye surgery a week after me and my wife got married in June of 2008. I ⁓ mean, it it went so fast that I really didn't have time to think about it because 11 eye surgeries in nine months is just ridiculous. It's it. And that's three trips to Salt Lake. eye surgeries here in Great Falls. It just, it left me with my head spinning. I mean, really and truly, I just had to adapt. And I know it's easier said than done, but that's just really what had to happen. mean, it wouldn't have been as easy if I didn't have the support of my mom and my dad and even wife, Becky, my sister, her. her family, her brother and mom and dad at the time. ⁓ I really had a good support system that helped me through a lot of the stuff. Yeah, you did. And I know I'm extremely lucky in that part. ⁓ So it's ⁓ the biggest thing I really did that helped me the most is really reaching out to Blind and Low Vision Services here in Great Falls. And they kind of put me down the path of learning the skill set to be ⁓ more independent. I I hate to use the word independent because sometimes that can mean ⁓ that we become kind of, I'm trying to think of the word, ⁓ we depend on ourselves too much and asking for assistance. So ⁓ I always tell people that after losing your eyesight, the first step to being truly independent is knowing when you need to ask for help because we can't do it alone. That's all there is to it. ⁓ I mean, I know a lot of people that try, but I just can't imagine ⁓ doing everything on my own without assistance from Uber or Lyft or family members or, cause travel is the biggest struggle. ⁓ So it's, ⁓ That was the biggest thing at first. I remember after I got back from the first year at the summer orientation program, because I was a student at 2010 and 11 at that program in Carroll College. And the first year I came back, I was still living with my parents. And I told my mom one afternoon that I'm going to walk to the grocery store that was only seven blocks away. Normally that would take, you know, 15, 20 minutes, but with the white cane and the first time doing it, it took me almost an hour to get there and back, but I did it. And that was one of the biggest accomplishments early on to me was being able to expand my boundaries and be able to get out and realize that I can be a functional part of society again. it's, that was one of the biggest. things I learned from the summer program is that I can do it. that's the toughest barrier to get over is they gave me all the skill sets, but the mental aspect of it was probably the toughest of just convincing myself that I can get out and walk those seven blocks or I can get out and if I wanted to meet somebody out for lunch or at the mall or you know, whatever it might be. I could do it. And that was the biggest hurdle. And now I can do that, you know, with no problem. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And I think that's what it really does. You have to come to that point and all humans do with whatever struggle they are like that you cannot do this alone. And honestly, like, and I've seen this and all sort of it just, if we could recover on our own, we would have already. Right. We would have like, we would just be able to do that. We would be able to treat like, you know, regenerate anything that has been lost or healed from traumatic memory. There's just like, Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: That nice. That would be cool. Yeah. I'd love to be able to regenerate my pancreas. mean, that'd be great. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: But because that we really do have to be in community with one another and it even it's I'm curious too you talk about it was so fast you didn't have a chance to really even process and now you're thrown into this. ⁓ What you talk about your community support what did it look like either spiritually or mental health wise? Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: ⁓ mental health, there was a lot of days, ⁓ of frustration. most of the frustration stemmed from I used to be able to do it this way, but just figuring out modified or alternate ways to accomplish the same task. ⁓ that was a huge, huge hurdle. mean, one of the biggest words you'll ever hear in the disability community is what workarounds do I have to do? to accomplish this task? Or what extra steps do I have to take to make sure it's safe for me and to do these different things? I people don't think about it, but even just walking down the street using a white mobility cane or even a guide dog is technically a workaround to be able to walk from point A to point B. ⁓ So that's the biggest thing is learning and ⁓ developing that skillset. takes a lot of mental power and ability to be able to accomplish those ⁓ because ⁓ it's ⁓ easy to walk, to go grab a white cane, walk down the stairs and walk six blocks ⁓ work or six or seven blocks to the grocery store. It ⁓ a lot of dedication ⁓ ⁓ mental power to be able to get past those barriers because ⁓ I remember the second year at the summer program when I was there, my wife was brave enough to put on a blindfold and go on a lesson with a certified orientation mobility specialist just to briefly experience what I do with the white cane or traveling outside. Cause you don't, your vision takes over a lot of your other senses when you're out in the world. and I don't want to say my hearing or other senses are better, I've just learned how to use them. And you don't realize until you lose one of those senses, how much you relied on it, especially for independent travel, like out in the world. And she even said that we were walking around the Carroll College campus. She was about a half a block away from ⁓ one of the road, I think it was Lindale, I think over there in Helena. And she said it was overwhelming because the traffic sounded like it was right on top of her. And that's somewhere where your vision would tell your brain, you you're fine. You're like a half a block away, but your hearing is like, whoa, you might, know, let's not go that way because, you know, it sounds like there's a lot going on. So it's that mental aspect of trusting the skillset that you've learned over time and being able to put that into real world practice. was the absolute toughest part. And it still is some days. mean, there are days I just don't want to grab the cane or the guide dog and walk outside because I know it's tough. Don't get me wrong. It's not easy. Even with the skill set that I have, it can still be hard from day to day. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and it's very isolating. Even if you do have a lot of community support, no one is going through what you're going through until you go to a community group. And that can be hard because even going to a community group is a level of acceptance too. So there's that. ⁓ I had a friend ⁓ injury, ATV injury, ⁓ and he lost his hearing in one ear. and then a good chunk in the other. And he had that same, said, it's not that my vision is better, but it's that I'm having to lean into it since I don't have my hearing anymore. And it just changed the different smell. And that is really beautiful, the way the body adapts. Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: it does take some time to learn how to use those other senses. my wife, there's lots of times I'll be, my wife and I will go out walking just to get some work with the guide dog and that. And my wife says it's fascinating to watch us work together because just the connection between me and the dog, the bond is just insane between a service animal and the handler. we'll be walking down the street and both the guide, both Helen's and my head will pivot to a sound that's literally like a block and a half, sometimes two blocks away. we're both processing at the same time, what the sound is, where it's coming from and what, what might happen or what we need to do next. Granted she can see if there's something coming at us, but I also have to be aware of what's going on. So it's, it's definitely a learned skillset, but I really think most people, you put in the time and effort, you can learn to be ⁓ as independent as you want to be, especially with the different disabilities. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So talk about, you mentioned how the iPhone has basically, mean, that is your tool for handling type 1 diabetes. We're sitting here in your office right now and I'm looking at a human where, I don't know what this is, I don't know. ⁓ Can you talk to us about other ways that technology is. Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: So that device in front of you is actually a new device by Humanware. ⁓ I'm the Humanware rep in Montana. So that's the Humanware Braille Note Evolve. And what that is, it's a Windows powered Braille tablet. So everything is done with Braille and there's ⁓ refreshable Braille on it. So it's not powered on right now, but the right down here is actually where Braille would refresh. it speaks everything out loud, but I can turn the speech off and then I can do everything just by Braille. And the keyboard up here, you've got your Braille keyboard here, and then you've just got other key commands that you can do, like Windows key and all that stuff built into it too. But it is a full blown Windows computer, but it's made specifically for the blind. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay, and then what, so I guess my question is now with screen readers, ⁓ folks who don't know screen readers are the microphone voices that read to you what the screen is. What, why would you want Braille? Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: Yeah. ⁓ So Braille is really good for if like you're editing a text document. Because if you talk to any buddy that uses a screen reader, screen readers don't exactly pronounce everything properly. ⁓ one of the big things Braille is used for is proofreading documents. Or if you're in a public place and it's too loud to hear your screen reader, you can... One, turn the screen reader off and use just simply braille and navigate the entire Windows operating system with just braille with no sound. ⁓ You can also browse the internet with just using braille or speech, you know, any of the different settings. So it's actually really, really technical. It's a neat device. ⁓ So there's lots of different devices like that for the blind. ⁓ There's a number of different types of braille displays. I've got one on the other side of the room over there that's a multi-line braille display. It's 10 lines of braille, 32 cells wide, which one cell is usually one character ⁓ in grade one. But if you're in grade two or uncontracted braille, there's little one letter in a certain pattern can actually mean an entire section. It's interesting. ⁓ I'm still learning contracted braille. ⁓ The technology is really interesting. ⁓ Like you said, the iPhone was a game changer for me. ⁓ In fact, I'm a certified Apple teacher. yeah, the computer to my left is actually an ⁓ Apple Mac Studio computer. So I do most of my actual work on Mac OS, but ⁓ I also teach Mac OS, Android, Windows, ⁓ iOS, iPad OS. Basically, if it can talk to me, I can teach it. So there's lots of different ⁓ technologies that are available to us now, which is amazing. Because even when I first lost my eyesight, the iPhone wasn't accessible yet. Because the iPhone became accessible in roughly, it was introduced in 2007. And I believe VoiceOver, the screen reader was, you About 2008 or 2009 it came out. I don't remember the exact year, but it was a year or two later after the iPhone actually launched that voiceover came out. could have even maybe even been 2000, 2009 now that I'm thinking out loud. But yeah, there's lots of different things available to us now. And it's just kind of remarkable that we can pick up a mainstream device like an iPhone or any. ⁓ Android, well I shouldn't say any, most Android phones this day and age also have something called TalkBack, which is ⁓ a screen reader as well. So it's, ⁓ there's a lot of technology available to us. One of the big ones right now in the blind and low vision community is actually Metaglasses. So, ⁓ cause they've got a camera built in the frame and it kind of gives you what basically what you're pointing your nose at. You can actually have it identify. can just ask Meta, Hey, what's in front of me? and it will identify it with pretty good accuracy. It's not perfect, but it is using artificial intelligence. So it does a pretty, pretty good job with it. So ⁓ it's a really, it's gonna sound odd how I say this, but it's a good time to be blind because technology is starting to evolve for us. So it's really cool. Leigh/@followtheleighder: about that. What does the AI rise of AI in the last year or two that we we've seen it? How has that impacted you both as a employee, a laborer, business owner and as a blind Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: So one of the biggest things that AI has done for us is the ability to identify objects in almost real time, because it still has to go from the phone to the server or to cellular server, Wi-Fi, know, whatever. There's still a bit of a delay, one to two seconds or so. But we can now use AI to go to a grocery store, for example, and independently shop. We can ask it to read a sign for us while we're out. in like traveling. ⁓ We can identify products at our home. Like if we have a shelf that's got, you know, three or four different types of soup on it, we can ask it, hey, which one of these is the clam chowder? You know, and it can tell us. So it's, there's lots of things that AI actually is really good, good and helping the world at. Granted, it does some kind of crazy things too, not such good things as well, but ⁓ AI really has opened the world for identifying things in real world and real life for blind people. The other thing it has done pretty well ⁓ is it's a lot easier and cheaper to develop software for the blind like ⁓ OCR or ⁓ optical character recognition. So you take a picture of a document or your mail and it'll read it out loud to us now. So it's made stuff that hasn't really been easily accessible to us in the past, it's made it more accessible now too. So it does have its uses. Other than making pictures on Facebook or whatever it might be. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And that is part of my background is AI tech for a little bit and I've worked with women's medical tech and what it's able to do with hysterectomies, breast cancer, and just... ⁓ Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: There are some really good uses for it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: life-changing. Like what you're talking about. You can go to the grocery store wearing glasses. No one in history has been ever able to do what you're doing. That is a wild, I'm saying like it's so, and then at the same time, like you said, there's all these Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: And sadly, the way I always word it to people is AI isn't the part of it that's evil or inherently bad. It's when people get involved is the sad truth of it because AI doesn't know any better. It has no feelings, has no really no ability to think ⁓ as of right now. It just knows what it knows. But it is one of those things that you got to be careful with what you're doing with it. If you're using it like in in this case of identifying products or reading text out loud or you know, whatever it might be like that. It's actually helping somebody the night. AI can be a really useful tool. Or in the medical industry, like you're saying too, because I mean, we've even got AI in Apple watches and smartwatches and that that can help us detect like regular irregular heartbeats and things like that and patterns and AI is really good at when you give it data, it's good at parsing the information and telling you where there's an anomaly or something like that. It's really good at that type of stuff. there are good uses for AI. Leigh/@followtheleighder: There are, yeah, there's a lot of really powerful, great uses. But whatever that may be, what I'm interested in is how are you building community now? What does it look like working with the Montana Association for the Blind? And then also over here consulting, what does your community like? Ed Worrell, MT Association for the Blind: So the community is in Great Falls is started to become more involved. I mean, we're a young chapter. We've art the Roe River chapter here of the Montana Association for the Blind really has only been going since roughly September of 2024. So we we've done a couple different events like give great falls. We did really good with that. ⁓ It was fascinating to learn, learn that aspect of fundraising, but ⁓ We're starting to get out into the community. We help with the summer orientation program now, which is actually here in Great Falls at the Ursuline Center. ⁓ June, what is it? June 15th through July 10th this year. ⁓ Our chapter helps with community events to get the newly blinded adults and students out in the community and do different things. Like we do a lot of outreach that way. We're getting ready to start different programs and also are starting to work with the Montana School for the Deaf and the Blind. So we've kind of bridged that gap a little bit there, which is amazing. ⁓ MSDB is such a good group of people and instructors and students and that. it's definitely gonna be a good thing for us to work together and bring awareness to blindness and low vision into the Great Falls and Cascade County. like areas. So a lot of it is right now is just kind of awareness of, you know, blind and low vision people in the community and how we're doing that is more just really getting out and doing things. ⁓ because people, and one of the, like one of the biggest, ⁓ advocates I have is literally going out to a restaurant or a store with my guide dog because she takes, she grabs everybody's attention.