Hanni's Harness

You might remember my blog about seeing a physical therapist — I’d asked her if she thought my rotator cuff injury had anything to do with the way I hold Hanni’s harness. “Well, it’d be better if the harness handle were vertical, not horizontal,” she said. “You know, so your thumb would be sticking up.”

I phoned the Seeing Eye then to ask whether rotator cuff injuries are common among people who use guide dogs. “This week they are. “ The trainer on the phone answered, sounding slightly bewildered. “Strange — you’re the third person to call in the past couple of days with this same problem.”

It’s not just the blind folks using guide dogs who suffer shoulder and arm injuries — Turns out a lot of the trainers end up with problems, too. Think about it. They are training young (STRONG) puppies to pull.

One of the trainers, a terrific guy named LucasLukas Frank, recognized this problem and has patented a new “swivel” harness handle that might alleviate shoulder and arm pain. After a few calls from my physical therapist, LucasLukas has had one of these new harnesses custom-built for me. He’s coming to Chicago this week to speak at the 2008 International Conference of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER), so while he’s here, he’ll show me how to use the new harness with Hanni. My physical therapist Patrice hopes to be at this training session, too –she wants to see how the harness works. She also wants to know (from LucasLukas) what she can tell me to do in re: posture and holding the harness without jeopardizing my safety. iow, I have to be able to “feel” Hanni through the harness, so even if it would help my shoulder some, I can’t hold the handle too lightly.
I’m doing a session at that same conference LucasLukas came to town for – my session is called Blogging by ear and meets at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock in the morning on Thursday. I’ll be talking about my job as moderator for the Easter Seals Autism blog and how that job led me to starting this personal Safe & Sound blog. And now, thanks to LucasLukas Frank, it looks like I might be debuting Hanni’s new harness at that session, too!