Announcer 0:00

Defeating Darkness with Dr. David Rimberg and co-host Paul Miller is brought to you by Sights for Hope. Serving the Lehigh Valley and Monroe County, Sights for Hope empowers people who are blind or have visual impairments to live confidently by teaching skills, delivering supports, and championing assistive device solutions. At Sights for Hope, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to clearly see what's possible. Find out more today at SightsforHope.org.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 0:56

This is David Rimberg. I am hosting the podcast entitled Defeating Darkness today. I'd like to introduce Paul Miller. Paul, why don't you introduce yourself?

Paul Miller 1:09

My name is Paul Miller, and I am uh 70 years old. I started losing my sight when I was 35 with a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. And uh in the past 12 years, I've completely gone blind. I have uh five different companies that I run. One of them is a martial arts business where there are five locations and five child care centers as well, and a part owner in a gymnasium. I am a landlord, so I do all kinds of different things.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 1:47

Now it seems, Paul, you're very diversified, and your handicap, if you want to call it that, did not handicap your business acumen and developing these new businesses. So can you please tell us what inspired you to keep on trucking, as they say?

Paul Miller 2:06

I will say that I grew up as a very uh poor kid. It was one of seven children, and uh grew up in the projects in the uh Reading area. And I would say to you that being able to continue to be successful was a primary goal of mine ever since I've been a young person. I've gone through three different careers in my time, graduated from a culinary school, as a chef, then went from that to being a water treatment expert. And then finally, now martial arts and a child care center. I just had that non-quitting spirit. I wasn't gonna let the disability or the change in my life change my path. I'm very fortunate. I have a wonderful wife, I have four kids and eight grandchildren.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 3:01

The thing that intrigues me the most is your martial arts activities. Why don't you kind of elaborate how you were able to accomplish success in being a I guess you coach people on how to use uh martial arts. Am I correct?

Paul Miller 3:17

That is very true. I've been doing martial arts since I've been 16 years old. So it's now 54 years. I will say to you that I did um a systems I called karate, or I did systems called uh Kung Fu, and uh finally I'm doing uh Tai Chi. I will also say that my martial arts got better when I lost my vision. Instead of becoming more challenging, it actually became easier for me to do. I have right now about 1,200 students in the Lehigh Valley, and uh I've produced well over 4,000 black belts over my time.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 4:01

As an aside, I've done some Tai Chi on my own, but I had all my vision, but uh I found it a very useful activity to ensure that uh kept my mind quiet and kept my body moving. Now tell me also a little bit about your childcare centers. How does that work?

Paul Miller 4:22

Well, I started in uh 1997 doing my own karate school. And after about two and a half years of doing just primarily karate, I thought, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to have a place for kids to go before and after school where they could learn the character values of the martial arts, as well as coming in from school, getting their homework done, taking their class, and then by the time mom and dad picked them up, they were ready to go home and be a family. And that was my whole idea behind it. It evolved and continued to evolve to this day, but it is uh one of the things that we do very well, and we help to teach the children the character values of the martial arts things like respect and confidence and being able to do the things that are gonna make them successful. We also teach them the Stephen Covey system, the seven habits, so that they really get that education. When I found out that I was losing my sight, I decided that I was going to be in a business where people had to come to me. I also have an ownership in a gymnasium, which I find is a wonderful experience as well.

Speaker 2 5:52

I myself have been uh a gym rat, if you want to call it that, for years. For uh places like New York Sports Club, Crunch. I even have a small gym at home. Uh I thoroughly need that for my mental health. Uh it's part of my genetic makeup now, to just to work out a couple of times a week on elliptical, and to hear you say you have a uh uh gym as a business, and I'm sure you participate from time to time in doing the exercise program. It's inspiring to hear you. I can't imagine myself who is a business owner, small business, having all these other businesses going, and the teams of people behind me who support that.

Paul Miller 6:42

Well, it is what I do, and it it's how I live my life every single day. I think that right now I have 170 employees working for the company, and I'm grateful for every single one of them. And I think that I am inspiration for them because I still go to work every day, I still go in and I know the people, I can talk to them, I get to learn their their voices and and uh be able to help to support them through you know my challenges in vision loss helps me to have a a better understanding of other challenges that are out there. Obviously, I go to work uh five days a week. I leave at uh 7 a.m. And I'm generally finished by at about 9 p.m. in the evening. Uh some days are are better than other days as far as timing goes. You know, my one uh son drives me into work coming home at night. Sometimes I use Uber, sometimes I have students who help me to get home, who live close by, so they'll give me a lift home, which is helpful and obviously cheaper. So I I think that all of my children, my wife are very, very cognizant of my vision loss, but they often say to me they don't actually believe that I'm blind. They think that I'm faking it because of the things that I do. Give you, for instance, just recently I built a pergola in the backyard. My wife and I did it without any help. So that was uh a very interesting process. But if I don't let things stand in my way, I can pretty much do anything that anybody else can do. So, Dave, how did you lose your vision and how old were you?

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 8:45

I lost my vision about 15 years ago. I inherited glaucoma from my father's side. Since that time, it's been deteriorating. In the last three years, I went totally blind. And I am 83 years old. Paul, why do you think it's important for you to discuss your loss of vision?

Paul Miller 9:06

I will say that my primary goal and the reason why I would do this is because I want other people to know a little bit about the blind community and what kind of things that we go through, some of the ways that they may be able to help us, or how we can become more efficient so that we can be people in the community that are going to be successful and also be able to have value. David, why do you think it's important for you to host a podcast like this?

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 9:44

One of the things that is really important to me is how I be in the world, especially now that I've lost my vision. I would like people to understand how I can be empowered by what they can do in relationship to me. For instance, how do they perceive me? How can they support me? How do they listen to me? I wake up every morning looking for the mountain to climb every day. And every day there's a mountain to climb, having lost my vision and counting on having sight until I would pass away. I am in the process in the last several years of adjusting to loss of my vision. Paul, what was the biggest misconception you had about blindness before you lost your vision?

Paul Miller 10:37

I will say that the biggest thing that really hit home for me was that I realized blindness is not the end of the world. And I could not have imagined what it would be like to be completely blind or even visually impaired. My vision was 20/30 when I was a kid and growing up through high school. But I will tell you that the really important thing for me is I realized that being blind isn't the end of the world. It's just another one of the challenges in life that we just need to be able to pull up our bootstraps and just do it. So, Dave, I will tell you that, you know, for me, it was like an eye-opening experience. But what about you? I mean, you went through a great deal of your life without having lost your vision, and then all of a sudden it's gone. Can you kind of give me an idea of how you feel about that now and what effect that it had on you and how you might have had misconceptions about what blindness was?

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 11:47

Part of me is still grieving, not having full vision or any vision. I've lost all my vision in the past three years. Prior to that, I felt I was able to live with a certain amount of vision loss. I was able to drive for a while, and then I had to stop driving and was able to take a bus into New York where I worked. In my dreams now, I dream of colors and also wake up in the morning thinking I can see again. So there's still grieving going on. Uh I want to see my wife. I want to see my kids. I miss that. I miss my dog. So it's uh it's painful very often that I can't do it. I can't go near a a stove without having my wife around to turn the burners on so she can cook something for me. There were certain hobbies I wanted to engage in which required me to drive. I have a heavy-duty academic background where I was a professor for a while, I have a doctorate degree, and wanted to use that to teach online. But I can't do that now because I can't see. And I also am almost making fun of it for myself. I'm blind. It makes me feel more comfortable that it used to be almost like a curse word, derogatory word being blind, but I've accepted it and making the best of it. And every day there's adjustments going on. I use my hands, my hands are my eyes, and I can't see television anymore, but I hear television.

Paul Miller 13:35

You know, one of the things, Dave, kind of have the same idea, same feelings that you do when it comes to not being able to see certain things. For instance, I haven't seen any of my grandchildren, and I have eight of them, right? So I kind of have to make up a vision in my mind of what they look like, right? So it's a little bit challenging at times to be able to be around them yet not know what they look like. That to me is is a bit of a challenge. There are times when I would wake up in the morning and open my eyes and I see the ceiling fan in the bedroom. Of course, I can't really see it, but the vision there is as real to me as if I could. Never thought those kinds of things would actually happen. But apparently the mind is this really amazing thing that helps us to deal with it.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 14:29

One of the things that uh having met you recently, just have this admiration for how you were able to overcome the situation of losing your vision, managing several businesses, getting around with your guide dog. I'm just impressed by your courage. Paul, how does your family support your loss of vision?

Paul Miller 14:55

In more ways than I can count, Dave. The most important thing is that when I put something at a certain place, what they do is they say they leave it there so that I can find it again. And it doesn't really matter what it is, they recognize that my ability to be independent around the house is really important. And it takes a lot of the stress off of them. The other things, a couple of things that happen, my son will drive me into work every day. As you know, I teach martial arts and he'll drive me in in the morning and I'll go into the center. When I come home at night, my wife will make dinner for me, you know, and she'll do those things. But she also recognizes that I want to be able to do things myself. So we'll walk through different ways of being able to do something like grilling uh things on the grill out outdoors and a method of making sure that I can keep the stakes in the right place. And a lot of things, just not moving the furniture around, is a really big deal. Rearranging the furniture is not a great thing for people who are blind. I've fallen over a number of things already. And lastly, my dog Felton is amazing. He's by my side all the time, and he keeps me from dying, like walking out in the traffic or hurting myself. So these are a lot of things that my family does. So, Dave, how about you? What are the things that you find that are the most helpful that your family does for you?

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 16:36

Most of my interactions is with Andrea and my wife. We're home 24-7. And one of the things that she does once in a while is misplace something, for instance, like my toothpaste. If it's moved in the bathroom, it's very frustrating. Similarly, in the in the refrigerator, if it's in the wrong place, I get annoyed. 95% of the time, things are where we agree to keep them. It's a little frustrating not being able to identify where things are. She does all the cooking. I do dishes. I have my way of arranging dishes in a dishwasher. And sometimes when she tries to rearrange it, I get annoyed. On the other hand, I have three adult children. When I'm with them, they're very considerate. They help guide me around. They ask me how I'm doing. I'll keep them updated as far as any doctors' visits are concerned, especially regarding my vision. We're pretty much in communication most of the time. A couple of times a week we speak. But the thing that's really empowering is having my wife, Andrea, who I am always in contact with. I rarely go out without her being by my side. I also have an assistant who helps me do bookkeeping. He's great on the computer. He's sensitive. I use him also to guide me around. He takes care of some minor issues in the house, and he'll make some phone calls where there are a lot of prompts necessary. He takes care of that. Paul, how did you get involved with Sites for Hope and what activities there made a difference to you?

Paul Miller 18:19

I started losing my vision. I found out about it when I was 35. Obviously, I was also told that it was happening all through my young life. But once I found out, I figured I better do something to kind of ease myself into this possibility of going blind. So I connected with Sites for Hope and said, what kind of asked them about what kind of things I could do to be helpful as my vision would be gone. So I started doing something with the mobility training. And I think that that was one of the major things that I did because getting around safely was obviously one of the biggest things for me. I was a very active person, you know, running my businesses, teaching martial arts and things. So I had to have a way to get around safely because driving wasn't necessarily the best thing for me anymore. You know, after I had a couple of small accidents, I recognized that I needed to stop. And so they helped me that way. They also were really good with being able to help me, you know, with things around the house, how to identify things in my cabinets, which was very helped me with independence more than anything else. And that was one of the things that was important to me to be as independent as possible, to not have to rely on everyone else around me. I never wanted to be a pain in the butt. So Sights for Hope helped with that. Other things, some of the technology things that were very far into me. I was never a big technology guy. So there were just a bunch of different things for them that that really was helpful for me. How about you, Dave?

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 20:21

When I had some vision, I looked online for an organization locally that supported people who are visually impaired, and I found Sights for Hope. Contacted them. I went over there, my wife drove me, and then it became what they call a client. As a client, they have different departments that would send me off in the right directions. For instance, they have activities, they have car service, they have uh low-vision doctor. And I started using all them all. One of the first ones that I came in contact was the state, and the state sent me the mobility trainer so I can navigate around the house and in the street. They have uh like a therapist, use them. They have a support group, which is really something that I needed to be with people who have similar problems. Sites for Hope has made an enormous difference in my life as being part of this community. One of the activities I always refer to is I did bowling, bowling for the blind. They just have some great activities they have traveling and camps. There's so much thanks that I have to that organization. Really empowered me to move forward.

Paul Miller 21:35

Dave, I'm really interested in knowing how how does that feel to do blind bowling?

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 21:42

Well, I was not totally blind at the time. So I could see the pins, but I had a couple of gutter balls.

Paul Miller 21:50

Okay.

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 21:50

And there are guides there who allow me to get focused and centered on the uh bowling lanes. So I didn't get any strikes, but I got a couple of spares. They still have that activity from time to time. The picnic activities. One of the interesting ones was the uh alpaca farm. I was guided and petted these various alpacas. You fed them carrots. Paul, how do you address traveling?

Paul Miller 22:18

Well, I will say one of the biggest challenges that you have is travel because it's an unfamiliar territory for me. Last year I went on 12 different trips. So navigating the uh airport is always a challenge. Trying to I I have a guide dog, his name is Felton, and he helps me through the airport. But having a dog and having a suitcase and and all those things, uh going through the uh rope guides and things like that is always a bit of a challenge. But you know, I I figured out different ways of doing that so that I don't one run into people, two, I don't um my dog doesn't uh go underneath the ropes because he thinks he he has a better way. So so those are things that'll do it. I think the most challenging thing and the most annoying thing with traveling being blind is going through security because you have to take out everything out of your pockets, you have to take your shoes off, you take your belt off. And now I also have a metal hip, so I have to go in one of those scanners. And of course, they won't let my dog go through. And so, of course, he every time he goes through, the the the alarm goes off, and it's all kinds of an interesting things happen. Then I get a full pat down on the other side. This becomes a bit of a uh more of an annoyance than it is a challenge. Um, and of course, then they have to frisk my dog. I mean, I I think that's a little bit of a silly thing, but that's what they do. As a matter of fact, the last time I was there, the guy who was in charge of that said, Can I frisk your dog? I said, if you don't mind if he bites you. He he did not really like my my humor, you know. So, but anyway, we've got through that, and uh now you get down into the gate, and then of course the it's crowded, and you know, trying to get something to eat at the airport. It just has a lot of different challenges. And when you have a someone to guide you, it's a lot easier if I go by myself, and then it becomes a different, a different thing. But getting to a different country, I will say that uh that's another challenge. You know, they come and they don't necessarily understand things that people need that are visually impaired, but I get through it by being careful, asking questions, and also not being afraid to ask for help when I need it. How about you? If do you do any traveling? And if so, do you use any type of assistive device to help you?

David Rimberg, Ph.D. 25:13

I don't travel, like especially at airports. I haven't done that in 10 years or so. My main situation is when I do travel, I have Sights for Hope as a uh service where they'll take me to, say, a doctor's office, and drivers are very well trained to guide me around, and I just acknowledge them for doing that. They're excellent guides. The other way I navigate is with a white cane, which I've learned to use. I use it in the house. I use it uh when we're in the streets sometimes, and my main guide is my wife. Paul, has there ever been a time that you've gotten lost?

Paul Miller 25:58

Oh boy. Which time? I I will tell you that there have been a number of times. The one that's most memorable was where I live, is a rural area. So Felton and I are going out and we're walking and trying to do a pattern so that we can walk without having someone with us all the time. So I started walking down the road and I did something. I turned slightly to the right, and Felton said, Oh, you want to turn here? So he turned there. I ended up in the woods, trudging up through the woods. And I'm thinking, I could be in the woods forever here. And it was really disconcerting to be in the woods, and my dog is there, and he says, Okay, well, let's just keep walking. And so finally we end up hitting another road. And of course, because I'm blind, I did have no idea what road I was on, and ended up picking up my phone and calling my wife to come and find me. That was the one of the most memorable times, and it was pretty frightening when you think about having no concept of where you are. Paul, how did uh your wife find you? Well, she got into the car and she started driving around. And what I was able to help her with is I asked my phone, I said, Where am I? And it said I was on a certain road and gave her a basic idea of where I was. Other than that, I had no other way of knowing where I was, nor did she have any idea of where I would be.

Speaker 2 27:49

Now I understand that there is uh an app for a locator that you could load on your phone.

Speaker 3 27:55

Yeah, I will say that that uh has come up in the past. Now, unfortunately, uh my wife and I are not the most amazing at technology. And so I keep forgetting to ask my son or one of the younger people in my family to help me to be able to turn that on. So, Dave, can you tell me about a time that you got lost?

Speaker 2 28:24

You've been listening to the two part series premiere of Defeating Darkness with me, David Rimberg, and Paul Miller. Stay tuned for part two after a short break.