What would you do if you suddenly lost your sight?

How would you feel? How would other people treat you?

John Gillespie, 35, Syracuse, knows the answers to those questions. He recently went blind and his life is vastly different than it was just a few years ago.

He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 10 years old. In 1998, his sight was pretty much gone, and he had surgery on his right eye in 1999. But there's been no improvement and the right eye got even worse after the surgery, he said.

He tries to be as independent as he can, but he said he's "not so able to take care of myself anymore." He can't get his needs met.

His former employer helped him out as much as possible and he worked with the company until August. But there came a point when his blindness prevented him from doing the job. He now must financially rely on his disability money. The money from disability isn't enough to cover his bills, so he sometimes lets one go for a month to pay his other bills.

"I feel like I'm digging myself into a hole," Gillespie said Thursday.

He pays for his insulin and other medications out-of-pocket. He can't get food stamps because he makes too much from disability payments, though his disability isn't always enough to live on.

Through the Vocational Rehabilitation government program, Gillespie was connected to the Cardinal Center to help him find meaningful employment. Lisa Watkins, Cardinal Center Inc. employment services manager, is working with him to find a job, whether part-time or full- time.

"How does someone with disabilities make connections in the community?" Watkins said Thursday. "John understands it's my job, but what about other people in the community? How can they help fill in the cracks?"

Since there's no public transportation in Syracuse, Gillespie said, he must rely on friends or must walk to get around. When he meets with Watkins, "she's been coming to pick me up or we've been talking up there," he said.

"When I met John, I worked with people before who had visual impairments," Watkins said. But he was the first person she worked with who could tell her what it was like to go from a seeing person to a person who is not able to see.

Watkins also pointed out the many expenses Gillespie must pay for out-of-pocket. He has no medical insurance and no home insurance - he can't afford them.

Soon Gillespie hopes to have a little more help in his daily life. The Syracuse Lions Club helped him link up with the Leader Dog Program so he may get a guide dog soon. In three weeks, he will hear whether or not he will get a dog and then will have to take 26 days of training with the animal.

Of course, with the animal comes the added expenses and he doesn't know how he's going to pay for those until he meets with the Leader Dog people. Gillespie will deal with that when the time comes, he said, and is just waiting, and hoping, to get a dog.

"It will help me get along a little better," he said.

With or without the dog, Gillespie relies heavily on his friends. His schedule - to go somewhere, to pay bills - depends on the schedules of his friends.

He wants to get back to work to keep busy, but, he said, "it would help me out a lot, but I don't see that happening this year."

He also said, "I'd do anything right now just to get out of the house."

Watkins said so many people take it for granted they can see that they don't think about what it feels like "to be blind, to even understand it, to comprehend how it feels. ... People react to you differently."

"People pretty much avoid me," said Gillespie. "I don't know if it's me or me with the cane. They don't know how to deal with it."

He said people with disabilities are just like anyone else. "I don't bite," he said, joking. "I promise I won't leave marks."

Even with his "new" disability, Gillespie has kept his sense of humor - even telling jokes about his blindness, though he knows not every person with a disability likes to hear them.

Watkins said, "John has a lot of courage. He's taken a lot of chances."

Cardinal Center Inc., a supported employment service provider, assists people in finding a job. Once a job has been developed, a trained Cardinal Center employee provides ongoing support to both the employer and the employee until all parties are satisfied, at no cost to the employer. Support includes training co-workers about a person's disability or helping an employer make reasonable accommodations that will allow the person to work.

More than 50 employers in Kosciusko County and surrounding counties partner with Cardinal Center to hire people with a significant disability. Giving a person with a disability a chance to work means more than a paycheck. It decreases the person's need for public assistance, increases his or her sense of worth and educates the community that people with disabilities can be productive contributing members of the community. [[In-content Ad]]