Blindness with Diogo Melo

Taylor is joined by Diogo Melo—an iOS developer and accessibility specialist from Porto, Portugal—to talk about living with blindness from retinitis pigmentosa, navigating work and daily life with screen readers, and staying active through music and kickboxing. Diogo also shares the real pros and cons of guide-dog independence and why society needs to stop treating disabled people like “inspiring exceptions” and start recognizing them as people living normal lives.

Transcript

Diogo 0:01

And fortunately, my life experiences have been good. So when I had those negative experiences, I had the positive experiences before to think that, okay, the problem here is not me; it's them. Sure, sometimes I feel frustrated, like when I have an interview and I feel that people are discriminating against me, and things like that. I get frustrated, but it's like, well, no, I've worked in places before. I have amazing colleagues; people like me; people respect me. I have friends, I have family, I have girlfriends. So that's not my fault. That's someone's fault, not mine.

Taylor 0:47

Welcome to the Accessible Community Podcast, where we will be exploring disability, aging, and accessibility through lived experiences. Join us to deepen your understanding in these areas, and for show notes, you can find them at accessiblecommunity.org slash podcast. Be accessible and be inclusive. Hey everyone, and welcome into Day in the Life, a podcast series hosted by Accessible Community. In this series, our main goals are to educate, raise awareness, and provide a platform for people to share their story and lived experiences with different disabilities. We focus on a different disability each month, and this month we are talking about blindness. Before I turn it over to my next guest to introduce himself, quickly about myself: my name is Taylor Dorward, and I'm the host for this series. I am a white male with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a short brown beard. Today I'm wearing an orange undershirt with a khaki-colored jacket layered over top. I'm very excited for this interview, and so now I will turn it over to Diogo. Is that correct?

Diogo 2:04

Yeah.

Taylor 2:05

And let him introduce himself.

Diogo 2:08

Okay. I'm Diogo, Diogo Melo. I'm from Porto, Portugal. I'm blind. I think in the US I would be considered almost Black, although in Portugal I'm light-brownish, I'd say. I think I'm wearing a black jacket—an indoor jacket—but I don't know the color of my shirt because I'm living alone, and I don't remember which T-shirt I picked this morning. Besides that, I think my eyes are black. Yeah, I shaved three days ago, so maybe I have a bit of facial hair. I don't know what else to describe, but I know I'm sitting on a blue sofa, the wall behind me is white, and I have AirPods Max on my ears. I don't know anything else that you can be seeing on the screen that I didn't describe.

Taylor 3:16

It's nice. Yeah, I always like doing that kind of stuff because I used to be fully blind, and when someone would do that accessible introduction, it felt nice to picture what I should be seeing.

Diogo 3:30

Yeah, it's always good. Some days I know which T-shirt I picked because I'm going out or something, but today I just picked the first one, and I don't remember because I have my clothes organized by colors a bit—white, black, and lighter and darker colors—and I just pick from one of those piles. But when I want to dress nicely, I have lots of friends who I can call on video chat and say, “Hey, pick me my outfit.”

Taylor 4:05

Yeah, I certainly understand that. So before we start talking a little bit more about blindness and how you navigate life and that kind of stuff, can you tell us more about yourself? Just—who are you? What do you do?

Diogo 4:21

Okay. I think I didn't mention I'm 35 years old. I'm a guitar and bass player. I've been playing for the last 18 years, mostly metal and rock. I also played the drums for eight years, I think. I'm an iOS developer and accessibility specialist. I'm working currently at Access Lab from Sweden. I'm also doing kickboxing for the last year. I did stand-up comedy in Portugal for one and a half years. I stopped almost two years ago. I have a guide dog named Scooby and a retired guide dog named Fiona, who is turning 15 and a half today, living with my parents. Besides that, I have a very good relationship with my parents, and I think probably we will talk about it during the call, but I'm who I am because they never expected less of me because of being low-vision and now blind. And I also have amazing friends who never discriminate against me, and fortunately—against all odds—two of my best friends: one of them, I met him when he was born because he was the son of some friends of my parents, and the other I met when I was four years old. So I have great friends throughout my life, and being blind and growing up was never an issue for them.

Taylor 6:07

That's awesome. Having that close network is really great. And I know it can be challenging for some people with disabilities because sometimes it might be better for some people to stay secluded and not network.

Diogo 6:22

Yeah, and I also have another great friend I didn't mention because I’ve known him since I was 18. But there are things that my friends like to do that I'm usually not part of, like playing padel. And there are things that my friends love to do with me. One of my best friends is a drummer, and he likes to come to my house and we play the whole afternoon, record some things. We also did some shows with a band this year. It's more based on interests than on disabilities or abilities; we just respect each other, and that's great.

Taylor 7:02

That's awesome, and that's really cool that you have all those different interests. That's pretty cool. I love to sing, but I'd love to do more instruments. I have a guitar in the background, but I'm terrible at it. At some point, I also love to sing a lot of songs that have piano, so I'd like to try piano. I've heard it's a little easier to learn compared to guitar, at least from the people I've heard from. I think they say it's a little more one-dimensional.

Diogo 7:32

I think the opposite. I played piano when I was young—not really play; I had organ lessons—and at the time I thought that the black keys would explode the piano because I never learned how to use them. I never knew the theory about them. And now I'm playing guitar, and sometimes I try to pick up a keyboard. For me, the keyboard—at least the one I have—is a long row of keys, so it's harder for me to locate myself on than on the guitar, where I have the whole string and six strings; so if I want to reach a higher note, I can go on the same string or I can go across, and I don't have to be as high in the fretboard. I don't know if it was clear for a non-guitar player, sorry.

Taylor 8:26

No, I mean I wouldn't call myself a guitar player, but I understand the nature of a guitar and how it creates sound, so it makes sense. So obviously you had said you're blind. Could you explain your specific type of blindness? I'm sure my form of blindness is very different from yours, so I'd love to hear more about yours.

Diogo 8:50

Okay. My problem is—I think the translation is retinitis pigmentosa—it's in my retina. It started when I was born. Supposedly I had normal sight, but my parents started to think that I was a distracted kid because my toys would fall and I never picked them up. And by nature I'm not distracted, so maybe my sight wasn't that good. When I was four or five, I started losing vision and going against trees when I was playing around outside. I had surgery when I was eight in Cuba to stop, or slow, the progression of my retina degeneration. I used to sit on the front row when I was in primary school, and then when I was in high school, I had to use a magnifier and I couldn't see the whiteboard. Because when I was young it was the blackboard, and you wrote with that white thing that dissolves in your hands when you try to write on the blackboard—chalk. It was a black background with white chalk written over it; it was good contrast for me. But when it was a whiteboard with a pen writing over it, it was less contrast and I couldn't see. I also had an Octophone that talked back then when I was in high school. And then when I entered university, it was too much for my eyes, and I started to use screen readers. I've been losing vision; I think it's pretty stable now, but it's pretty stable near zero. My left eye can still see some lights and colors; not enough to read or something. Or to read—maybe if I magnify the whole screen and I put brown and white text, I could try to read, but like one word per minute almost. And my right eye is almost completely nothing that I can see.

Taylor 11:13

Whenever you're done with a question—because I learned something new about retinitis pigmentosa, and I'm curious. My last interviewee also has retinitis pigmentosa, but he was saying he lost his vision from the outside in. Was yours?

Diogo 11:32

Yeah, me too. Sorry, I forgot; I was thinking about it. I have a very narrow field of vision. I don't know how to describe it. For me it's normal, but what my doctors say is it's narrow. I think I never lost my field of vision; it has been the same, but it's narrower than it should be.

Taylor 11:55

Yeah, I just found it so interesting that it could go either way. You could lose it outside-in or the other way around. I didn't know that, and it was interesting to learn about that. So do you have decent light perception still?

Diogo 12:10

Yeah, I have. And now when I was talking about my field of vision, I was like, okay, I think I can see more than I thought. But it's kind of hard in my case because I don't know if it's my case of pigmentosa; I have my optical nerve completely fine, and I'm in a stage that I imagine a lot what I can see and I don't notice that I'm not seeing things—I'm just imagining. And I was seeing some light and I would turn my head over, and I remembered that I put the lights on for the interview. But it's confusing for me to understand what I can see and what I am imagining that I see because some things that I saw before, like my parents' faces—for me, when I'm with my parents, I'm seeing them. But maybe if someday my sight gets back, I will be shocked at how old they look now. I don't know.

Taylor 13:16

Yeah, they're kind of like frozen in time.

Diogo 13:18

Yeah, yeah, and everyone is beautiful for me.

Taylor 13:24

Yeah, I get that. Back when I lost my vision, I stopped dreaming for a long time, but then when I started again, I would dream about my family, and they always looked the exact same as they did when I was younger. So it's interesting.

Diogo 13:42

And the other day, when I was with my friends, they were talking to one of them, saying, “Oh, nice beard you have,” or something. And I was like, “Okay, let me feel it.” And I was like, okay, I'm trying to imagine this guy's face that I remember from 20 years ago with a beard on. It was strange for my brain.

Taylor 14:03

Yeah, I bet so. So when talking about your blindness, do you prefer person-first or identity-first language? Saying “Taylor is a person with blindness” is person-first language, but saying “Taylor is a blind person” is identity-first. So do you think you have your blindness as part of your identity, or do you feel like you're a person first?

Diogo 14:33

I'm a person. In terms of English speaking, for me it makes no difference because when I learned English—it's like in Portugal we say… if I want to say I'm a Portuguese person, in Portuguese I would say “person Portuguese.” So for me, in English, adjectives can be before, but “blind person” for me is okay. In terms of language, I don't care, but in terms of myself, I'm a person first—a person that happens to be blind—and to do lots of things, as I said before.

Taylor 15:19

Yeah, and that's been my mindset for myself as well for a long time. It was probably poorly on my part to assume that's how everyone feels. So for a long time as a public speaker, I would use person-first language, but over time people with certain disabilities would say, “Hey, just want to let you know a lot of people in my community prefer identity-first.” And so they're like, “It'd be nice if you could blend identity- and person-first in your sessions.” So I've started to use both, but in cases like this where it's a one-on-one, I like to know what you prefer so I can use it correctly.

Diogo 16:04

If you use person, yeah, I don't care the order in which you put it. In Portugal, blind is “cego,” and people sometimes don't like to use the term because, oh, it's harsh, and they try to go around and say “invisual” or something like that. And also other people are very pity-based in their speech and call me “ceguinho,” which means “little blind,” something like that. And it's like, okay—these people are just assuming that I'm a blind guy, period, and not a person. That one, the “ceguinho” one, is the one that irritates me the most.

Taylor 16:51

Yeah, I agree. It's not like I'm embarrassed or anything about my blindness, but I just don't want people to think that that's what defines me. Similarly to you: you're saying you play guitar and bass and drums, and you do all this other stuff. So when you have that blind label, I don't want that to be the first thing people think about me. There's a lot more.

Diogo 17:17

Sorry—in Portugal, “ceguinho” would be like “the poor blind guy.” Sorry, I forgot; I mistranslated it.

Taylor 17:26

So you had said you work remotely in Portugal for a company in Sweden. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do?

Diogo 17:36

Okay. I'm working as an iOS developer and accessibility specialist. Basically, Access Lab is an accessibility consulting company. My colleagues are all accessibility specialists; they know about how to implement accessibility in apps, in websites, and how to test for accessibility. I have other colleagues that are screen reader users and blind, and they know how to test and give proper feedback to companies that want audits and that stuff. And they needed someone that knew about iOS development and also accessibility, and that's how they found me and how I started to work with them. Basically, I started two months ago, although I did an audit before with them in April. When there are iOS-specific projects, I go and I do audits of iOS apps, or I can join teams to imagine an e-commerce app that has some accessibility issues to fix. I can go there and see the code, fix the code, test, and give them feedback and help fix the problems. And also we do education in some companies—like a company that doesn't know anything about accessibility and wants to focus on that and needs some guidance. We do workshops. Basically that's what Access Lab does. And since IT is a pretty remote world, I'm working from Portugal. I'm looking forward to going to Sweden in February. We'll have two days of team building; they called it a kickoff meeting, team kickoff, and yeah, I'm looking forward to meeting my colleagues. But working remote is better for me because Portugal is warmer and has less snow. We rarely have snow in Porto, at least, and I'm near my family and my friends, and I can work in what I like and work remote to Sweden.

Taylor 19:56

Yeah, it's great having more access to remote positions—especially with the spike after COVID—having more accessible jobs. Because for a long time, so many positions I felt like I was a decent fit for, but they were like, “Oh, you have to come into the office.” I'm like, “Yeah, I can't,” but transportation can be challenging.

Diogo 20:21

Yeah. In Portugal, I had my first job in IT—because my background is not IT; it's economics and management. I changed to IT because when I had an iPhone, the impact of having VoiceOver in my life was so great that I thought, well, I want to know how to code to make accessible apps. I started working as a Java backend, and then I changed to iOS. But my first role as Java backend was in a company where the office was in a great location near the metro station, and it was very easy to go there. But they were like, “Okay, if you want to work remote, do as you wish.” And I was used to work wherever I want. And when some companies afterwards started saying, “Oh, we need to go to the office twice a week,” I was like, okay, I can go to the office, but I won't go when you want. Because when it's rainy with a guide dog, it's kind of harder to go to the office: you have to bring lots of towels to clean the guide dog and lots of extra stuff. So if it's a very rainy day, I would say, “Sorry, today I won't go to the office; I'll stay at home because it's easier to manage.”

Taylor 21:53

Yeah, and it's nice to have someone like yourself to show what the challenges are for having to go into the office with a guide dog, or whatever the case may be, because a lot of people just may not know that. So it's interesting hearing that perspective. So whenever you're working, how does your blindness affect that?

Well, it affects how I do everything digitally because I'm a VoiceOver user. So on my iPhone, I always—or almost always—have a screen curtain on because it saves battery. I listen instead of seeing things, and I navigate in another way. I think you are a VoiceOver user, or do you just use magnification?

Diogo 22:53

Is that what you mean? No—I'm VoiceOver, the screen reader.

Taylor 22:58

Oh yeah, so I use a little bit of both. I mostly use voice control, and so it will tell me what I'm clicking because I can see some. But every now and then I will use VoiceOver. I can just tell it, like, “Open Messages,” “Text Mom,” and then, like, do it. So yeah, I do use both, and they're kind of handy depending on what the situation is. Like if I'm in public, I’m using voice control and, like, playing into my AirPods, and so it's more private to me.

Diogo 23:31

Yes, I agree with that. I usually just use VoiceOver, and sometimes I use Siri to ask her to do things for me, like when I don't have my hands available and I'm cooking. For instance, I'm always asking her to put timers. I use VoiceOver, and that's how I work also on the Mac. I would say that's the only difference in my way of working, but I think it changes everything, because my colleagues—my friends—everyone that can see looks at the screen all day, and at the end of the day they think that they are a bit tired of looking at the screen. For me, since I'm always listening to the computer when I'm working, or to podcasts or to books when I'm relaxing, or to music when I'm playing, I think my ears will rarely get tired. So yeah, the only difference in how I work is using VoiceOver instead of seeing, but I think it makes all the difference in the way I work. But in the content, if I'm coding, in the end I'll write code as my colleagues do; or if I'm doing an audit, in the end I'll have an audit as my colleagues do. Something I do differently—sorry, I remember just one thing—is when my colleagues say, “Oh, can you do the report, fill in the report,” I usually do my stuff in Numbers on the Mac, or if it's to write a text I write a .txt file and I send it to them and I say, “Okay, here you have the content. Please—it’s not my strongest point, and it's easier and faster for you to do it than for me to do and confirm that the formatting is as I expected. So I'll just focus on the things that I know that I can be really good at doing, and my colleagues help the other aspects of it that, sure, I can do, but it will take much more time, and it wouldn't be that efficient.”

Yeah, that's a great thing to have, and something I've done in the past. Because my vision has gotten better over the years, but I feel you in that area where you're not entirely sure if you're messing up alignment and trying to make it look nice. So what I had done was—I have some experience on Microsoft platform—I'd fill out the form, and then I'd send an automated workflow to create a Word document and input all the fields. I could make sure that it was as good as it could look, and I could have someone double-check the template to make sure it's set up how I want it to be. So then every time I fill out that form, it always appeared in the same format. So having someone there, or automating that process, can be extremely helpful. So how old were you when you started to lose your sight?

Diogo 28:17

Yeah, it probably came when I was born because my parents said that I was a bit distracted and I couldn't find them on the beach when I moved a bit away, or I couldn't find my toys when they fell. And since I'm not distracted at all, I think that my sight was always not as expected. But when I was four or five years old, I started because I have—I don't know if they are related or if they are different conditions—but besides the retina problem I have, night blindness. So when I had normal or almost normal vision, I couldn't see anything when it was dark. And also I have photophobia, so when it was lots of light, it hurt my eyes and I also got a bit lost. So when I was five, I started to go against trees when I was playing, and that's when my parents thought, okay, he's not distracted; something is happening. And then when I was eight, I had surgery in Cuba. Then when I was 10 and I changed to another school, the blackboard was replaced by whiteboards with pens, and the white background didn't have as much contrast for me, and I couldn't see the whiteboard. Then I started to use magnification, then talking phones. And in university I realized that my sight can't handle all these things I have to read, so I have to start to hear—the screen reader speaking—instead of using my eyes. And when I realized, okay, maybe I have to understand and come to terms that one day I will be completely blind, I started to try to navigate myself around my room and then the house with all the lights turned off. I can't do that by navigation; I can't do that, but I think that sometimes I can hear by the air movement or stuff when I have an obstacle—like a big one, like a car in the middle of the sidewalk—not a lamppost in front of me. But fortunately I have Scooby for that. When there is something big and Scooby stops, I can notice, like, okay, he's stopping because I'm feeling something in front of me. So yeah, let's find another route.

Taylor 36:12

Nice. Yeah, and I know here in the US there are a few different organizations that train them and match you. And I think they do Lab retrievers—Labrador retrievers. Is it the same over there?

Diogo 36:26

Yeah. Fiona is a Labrador, and Scooby is a mix of Golden Retriever and Labrador. And also, technically, I think that German Shepherds can be guide dogs, but they are very attached to people. A guide dog has one year of education with a family and then another year of specific dog training, and then they go to the user. They are paired to the user according to the characteristics of the dog and the person. And the German Shepherds are very hard, emotionally, for them to disconnect from their initial family, so I think that's why they are not used in Portugal, at least. And also they do the match of the dogs and the people. For instance, when they started training Scooby, Scooby walked very fast, and his trainer—who is the same person that trained Fiona, one of the five trainers they have in the Portuguese guide dog school—she was like, okay, this is a good one for Diogo because Fiona also walked very fast and I like to walk fast.

Taylor 38:04

They also need to evaluate you before having a guide dog, at least in Portugal. So you have to know how to independently walk with a cane and have proper orientation—know where you are and where you want to get—because the guide dog is not your independence; it's an upgrade on your independence, let's say.

Yeah, I think here in the US most, if not all, of the organizations require orientation and mobility training before you get the guide dog, so I imagine it's a fairly similar process.

Diogo 38:42

Yeah, and in my opinion—and they also told me about it before—they said, “Prepare yourself, because the second guide dog is the hardest.” Because changing from the cane to the dog is like, oh, everything is automatic now. I remember when I was in the training with Fiona: we have two weeks when the dog is delivered. The user goes one week to the guide dog school, which is near Coimbra in Portugal, in the center of the country, and another week the trainer comes to my place of residence and does my daily commute, like to work or to the gym, with the dog. And then they say, okay, you are formed as a guide dog + user team. The dog is not yours, but you can walk with the dog and do your life. In that first week with Fiona, I was on a sidewalk going forward, not worrying about anything, and the trainer was behind me with a cane, knocking all the obstacles that Fiona was navigating without me noticing. And in the end I told the trainer, “Well, your sidewalk has more obstacles than my own.” And she was like, “No—Fiona was putting you away from those.” That part is great. But when you go to the second guide dog, you're used to the first one—almost telepathic, because you know the dog, you know the working dog, you know how she gives instructions to you when she is not sure. And I had six months of walking with a cane and readapting, and it was a nightmare. I was like, okay, I understand why I want a dog. And when I got Scooby I was like, “Oh, why don't you read my thoughts as Fiona did? I don't understand you. Why don't you know that to go home you have to go there?” And I was always thinking, okay, I have to remind myself that this is a new dog; I have to educate him on the route because he's not used to them. And it's a bit painful, but it's been almost two years and we are telepathic now.

Taylor 41:15

Awesome. That's a really interesting topic because I know even for myself, as a person with blindness, before I started looking into guide dogs, there was so much about that process I had no idea. And so for someone who doesn't have blindness, they probably have no idea what's involved. You need to get a physical done, make sure you're physically able to take the dog, like you're saying do the orientation training—so it's not a thing where anyone can get a guide dog.

Diogo 41:47

Yeah. And you have to have a lifestyle that justifies having a dog because, sure, I'm now working remote, but if my life was just working remote, the people from the guide dog school would say, “No, sorry, but you don't do any routes in your day-to-day, so we won't give you a guide dog because you will just have a dog at home.” Since I go to the gym, I go to kickboxing—I forgot to mention, but you said that you sing—I am learning how to sing properly because I can just sing in the shower. And that's one of the routes I do with Scooby. Also when I go to my parents and when I go to the metro to have dinner somewhere, I have those routes to do with him. But if I didn't have the lifestyle, or if I didn't have the orientation and mobility to walk… and as I said, Scooby is a very fast walker, and if no dog would match my speed, or if I was very fearful of giving the next step and walking very slowly, probably they would say, “Okay, you have to work on your confidence and walk a bit faster because this way you cannot have a guide dog.”

Taylor 43:24

I'm interested because you had said about doing kickboxing, and I do jujitsu. So I'm curious to know what that experience has been like. And I think it's great to talk about that stuff because it's wonderful how involved you are.

Diogo 43:41

Yeah, jujitsu is one of those close-combat things where the objective is to pin your opponent to the ground. It's more of a defensive martial art.

Taylor 43:54

They have a competitive side; they do events. But it really is, in its true nature, a self-defense art. And so being a blind individual, I've taken care of myself over the years—I'm fairly strong—but I always feel I'm at an immediate disadvantage to defend myself. So I started jujitsu, and it's raised my confidence and got me in more social environments. So it's been nice. I'm curious to know what your experience has been like with kickboxing.

Diogo 44:28

Yeah, I started first with boxing two years and a half ago, maybe. It was when I was still living with my parents before I moved to my house. I was in a gym and they had a trainer that also did kickboxing training, and he was a friend of my sister, and she offered me one month of boxing sessions for my birthday. And I started to train, and I was like, okay, this is good, because he's a trainer, but he didn't know anything about adapting the training for blind people. He researched a bit and he found some ways, and I had fun. And when I moved to my house—my parents' house is in one of the surrounding cities of Porto, and now I'm in the center of Porto—I had a friend that told me, “Oh, I do kickboxing; it's near your new home, and it's a 10–15-minute walk.” And I just contacted her trainer, and I was like, “Okay, I'm blind. I'm doing boxing for one year. Our friend told me about kickboxing; I'm interested. Do you think you can train me?” And he was like, “Okay, you can come. I'll adapt. We'll do one-on-one.” Not sparring, but it will be just me and him in the training, as a personal trainer in kickboxing. And I started. Earlier this year we had the first international championships in Portugal; we had a demonstration of para-kickboxing, and he told me, “I want you to come.” It's just a demo in the classroom; it's not one-on-one, not sparring—it's just like how we do the training session. And I went there and it was fun. What we do is: as the gym is usually silent because I go after the group sessions—I go early in the morning at 8:30—after the group sessions no one is training at the same time, so it's just me and him. And I can hear his steps, and he sometimes steps louder on the floor for me to know where he is. Sometimes we do sequences of jab, cross, hook, and other times he's like, “Okay, you will hear when I move, and when I'm near, you do a frontal kick to pull me away,” or you do this sequence when you know that I'm near. And he's insisting that I use the jab—the weakest punch—with the front hand, usually the left hand when you are with your left foot in front. You do the jab to know where your opponent is: a very fast jab with no strength, just to locate. You protect with the other hand, and then when you find me, you do the sequence. It has been fun, and also it's a very good workout. I get very tired afterwards, and it's also good for your emotional maintenance: when you are frustrated with something, you can just punch a bit and the bad feelings go away.

Taylor 47:47

Yeah, I've had a very similar experience. I was really nervous to start and try it because I didn't know how I would do and if it would be an accessible experience for me, but I found—and there's still moments where I'm a little unsure of myself—but like you said, it's a great workout, you meet new people, it's a confidence booster, and you get that dopamine rush. And what's interesting is you're almost always in contact with the opponent. So even though I can't see necessarily what they're doing, I can feel it. In some situations, that's a bit of an advantage because for some of the moves, no one can see what their legs are doing, but I can feel it. So it's a very interesting dynamic.

Diogo 48:41

Yeah, sometimes my trainer puts a blindfold on, and he's not fighting properly because he doesn't want to hurt me. But he is trying to check if I have my guard up, to see if he can land any punch. And sometimes he's like—once I landed a punch and I split his lip—and he's like, “Okay, I didn't see that one coming.” I think he's always learning with me because it's a different experience for him. But sometimes he's like, “Okay, you do this thing better than the people who can see,” because he says I have a very good awareness of where my body is, and my balance. And sometimes when people are coming from the locker rooms and I'm still training, he's like, “Hey, check how Diogo is doing this better than you,” and I'm like, okay, no pressure on me.

Taylor 49:44

But that's awesome because, at least for me, it can be hard to get out and try something new. It's great when you do, and you find that the environment you're in is very welcoming. So it's great he's done that too.

Diogo 49:59

Yeah, that's very good. And also when I go to Sweden, we have a colleague in Access Lab that said she's a Nordic and Swedish kickboxing champion, and she was like, “Well, when you come here, I will put a blindfold on and we'll have a sparring match.” And I'm like, I'm afraid of you—you are a champion. I'm just starting. And she was like, “We'll have fun.”

Taylor 50:24

That's awesome. Uh, are there ever any times where your blindness affects like your mental health?

Diogo 50:31

I had an experience—not nowadays, no—but as I said, my background is economics and management. I did a bachelor in economics and a master's degree in management at FEP, Faculty of Economics of Porto University, and almost everything was great. People—the teachers—were very, very helpful; not helpful in putting me at an advantage, but helpful in putting me on level terms with my colleagues when things were very visual. They explained and scheduled sessions to explain the most visual parts. I just had a professor that was… I won't say any swear words in English, but he was a beast. People in the faculty said that what he usually did when people had some disability was like, “Oh, just come to the oral examination and I'll pass you,” and I was like, no. And he didn't give me the book, which was written and edited by him, in digital format—he didn't allow me to pay for it in digital format—and it was frustrating. But it was one in 40 teachers that I had this problem with in economics. When I decided to go to IT, I entered a bachelor when I was 24, and things were very hard. I think the professors thought, “Oh, you just aren't using the right tools; you are probably an ignorant.” One teacher asked me, “Oh, my assistant is investigating what tools you can use.” And then the assistant came and said, “Oh, you should use VoiceOver, NVDA, ZoomText,” and I was like, “I use this; I've been using this for the last five years.” And he was like, “Okay, so, well, I don't know how I can help.” And I was like, okay, I did a bachelor's and a master's degree with great teachers, and here I am not having the same experience, so I quit the course after one semester. Fortunately it was a problem of that bachelor degree, because when I was working and I did a master's degree in that university, in that faculty, things went smoothly and the teachers were very good for me. But that experience—when I quit that second bachelor—I was thinking: if I would come here when I was 18 after high school without doing my first bachelor, I would be completely thinking that the problem is me; I'm blind; I will never do a course; I will always be unemployed and useless. And I think that my parents and my support group always helped me not to feel that. And fortunately, my life experiences have been good. So when I had those negative experiences, I had the positive experiences before to think that, okay, the problem here is not me; it's them. Sure, sometimes I feel frustrated, like when I have an interview and I feel that people are discriminating against me, and things like that. I get frustrated, but it's like, well, no, I've worked in places before. I have amazing colleagues; people like me; people respect me. I have friends, I have family, I have girlfriends. So that's not my fault. That's someone's fault, not mine. It's frustrating sometimes, but yeah, I think that I'm in the right mental place to understand that the problem is not mine, and I'm very fortunate to have the right support and experiences in my life.

Taylor 54:42

And yeah, having that sport's really great. I'm glad you found out earlier and didn't give up on school, because I worry that some kids only experience that earlier part where they're getting no support and they give up on things. So I feel like that's a good piece of advice: just because something doesn't work out once with one person doesn't mean it won't work somewhere else. It's good that you eventually found a place where you were cared for and people paid attention to you there.

Diogo 55:18

Yeah, that's really lucky. And yeah, I think it's lucky because it didn't depend on me; it's an external factor. So I'm not responsible for that—just dealing with the situation. But having people and faculties that are open, it's great.

Taylor 55:42

Absolutely. So what does a typical day look like for you, from waking up to going to sleep?

Diogo 55:49

It depends on the day, but usually I wake up during the week at seven or before. I feed Scooby. The first thing I've been smelling for the last 13 years is dog food, so I never tried it because smelling it every morning doesn't make me curious about tasting it. Then I go with Scooby to the garden. If it's raining, it's a bit worse. Sometimes I go to the garden and then to the gym or to kickboxing, and I get back home. Other times I just come home and I do my training at home. I also have a kickboxing… it's not a punching bag; it's like an air bag to punch and kick, to train at home when I don't have training. Then I do my breakfast and I start working remotely for Access Lab. Scooby sometimes comes to me to play a bit when I do a break—after 55 minutes, five minutes break—and he sometimes wants attention. I usually cook beforehand, so during the workweek I just have to put things in the microwave and eat them. And I prepare them the previous day because I want to be as fast as I can in my mealtimes. I can talk more about cooking later. And then I work in the afternoon. When my workday ends—usually maximum at 6 p.m.—sometimes I have a singing lesson, sometimes I just pick my guitar and play a bit at home. Sometimes I have rehearsals with my drummer friend, or with the band we played some shows with. I have dinner. Sorry, I don't know if I'm giving you the right details, but usually when I'm having lunch, since I live alone, I'm listening to some podcasts, or I put VoiceOver reading some book in the Books app—a PDF book or some e-book file I purchased. Also, when I'm working, I'm listening to music, usually, except in meetings. I have to go with Scooby to the garden during my lunch break also, and I go play with him in the garage of the building because it's a very long corridor, so he can run a lot and play a lot, which is good. I play five minutes with him and he gets tired for the rest of the afternoon and relaxes a bit, and it's relaxing to play with the dog, also. And then at the end of the day, I just pick the guitar, or sometimes I do some audio editing in Logic Pro. I started to learn Logic Pro a bit this summer. Usually on Fridays, I have dinner with my friends somewhere else—their house, or a restaurant—or they come here. And after dinner, I prepare things for the next day. Sometimes I cook for dinner and for the next day. Sometimes I go to visit my parents, but usually on Mondays, to get a bit of time with Fiona, my retired guide dog, because she is outside of her expected life. She's still very healthy and very happy, but she's a very old dog, so I'm enjoying my time with her as long as it lasts. I don't know if I summarized my day a lot or if you want me to get into more detail.

Taylor 59:37

No, I think that was good. It's kind of twofold: one, it gives the other people on our team good content to help them write their article based on the interviews we do. But also I think it's great to show people who watch or listen to this—especially people who don't have blindness, or any disability really—that a day in the life for Diogo may not be that much different than someone who doesn't have blindness. So it's interesting to hear what your days are like, and hear your perspective.

Diogo 1:00:12

Yeah, I think the main difference would be when I'm walking the street, or when I go to a restaurant or to a bar or something—people always look at me because I'm with a dog, or before because I had a cane. Sometimes people comment things very softly, thinking that I can't hear them, saying, “Oh, the guy is blind,” or something. Other times there are people that try to pet Scooby, which is not allowed—to pet a guide dog while he's working—and I have to educate them. Or sometimes I have to be really mad because they are completely trying to distract the dog and being very dangerous for my well-being if I'm crossing the road and they go, “Oh, good dog,” and I’m like, no, you cannot do that. It's very frustrating. And sometimes, at good moments, people are with their dogs and they cross the road so their dog won't interfere with Scooby, or they say to kids, “Oh, this is a guide dog; the dog is guiding that person; you should never pet a guide dog.” And I'm like, thank you for doing that.

Taylor 1:01:34

Yeah, it is nice to see moments like that because I'm sure, like you were saying, hearing people whisper or wanting to pet the dog can get old. So it's nice to have the supportive moments too.

Diogo 1:01:50

Once a man talked with me in the metro a bit, and he was like, “Oh, how does the dog guide you?” and that stuff. I was talking with him for five minutes, and in the end he said, “Oh, thank you for talking to me. It was like talking with a normal person but with sunglasses,” and I was like, okay—what should I answer to this person?

Taylor 1:02:11

Yeah, I wouldn't know how to take that either. Like, “Oh, that was great; it was like talking to a person.”

Diogo 1:02:18

Yeah, and I have one. Where I worked before, in my first job, it was near a garden where younger people usually went to smoke weed and that stuff. And one guy that was completely stoned came to me and said, “Oh, here is the garden in front of you.” And I was like, “Yeah, I know.” And he goes, “Oh, I'll get you there,” and he gave two steps in front: “You are in the garden.” And I was like, okay. And in the end, he said, “Oh, have a nice recovery,” and I was like, “Oh, you too,” because the guy was clearly blinder than I was because he was completely smoked.

Taylor 1:03:00

Yeah, I mean having a disability of any kind certainly has its moments where it can bring you joy, in moments like that. And fortunately, like I said, I have great friends and a great family.

Diogo 1:03:21

When those things happen, afterwards I just send a message to my friends, and my friends are always like, “I want to be a fly. I want to see these things happening to you and laugh with you.” And yeah, maybe that's why I started to do stand-up comedy because I have so many stories, and my friends are like, “You should share this.” It's important. My first set was almost things that happened to me—not because I'm blind, but because people don't know how to deal with the fact that I'm blind.

Taylor 1:03:58

Yeah, it's great when anyone can find moments of joy like that and use their disability to have a little bit of fun in life. It's cool to see you understand that. I haven't thought of that, but it's an interesting idea. So you talked about having your family and friends and how great it is having them. Are you part of any communities with other blind individuals, whether in-person or virtual?

Diogo 1:04:29

Not really. I have some friends who are blind that I met because they are blind and we met in some context, like accessibility or an event. I'm not part of any association because I help a bit a friend in an association, but it is from Lisbon. I don't usually go to Lisbon because it's three hours away, and I had more problems—or the same number of problems—with guide dogs in Lisbon as I had in Porto, and I only went to Lisbon two times with a guide dog, and I lived in Porto for 13 years with Fiona. In Lisbon they have lots of “Oh, the guide dog can't enter this building,” “the guide dog can't enter Uber.” I don't usually go there, but I help my friend sometimes remotely. A friend of a friend invited me to be an ambassador, they call it ambassador, in an organization that is trying to help young people with disability that are starting university to navigate and to not get discouraged if things like what happened in my second bachelor happen to them. I had a talk with that French friend yesterday, and I was like, okay, here is what happened to me. I would be glad to help and to ensure that no one has to go through it without having someone telling you, “Hey, this is not your problem; it's the other guy's problem. You are not abnormal; you are a person with a disability that can do things, and the others have to change their mentality. It's not your fault that they are stupid.” When I can help someone, I try. I'm always available on LinkedIn and that stuff. I came out on LinkedIn as a blind person. When I faced some discrimination in job interviews, I decided, “Oh, to hell with it, I'll come out,” and I say, “Oh, I'm blind, by the way,” because before I didn't have that specifically written in my profile. I don't have it specifically written, but now people can understand that I'm blind. During my life, I was more worried about being happy and following what interested me, and maybe I forgot a bit about trying to help others. But now I'm trying to be open to that and to be findable.

Taylor 1:07:09

Nice, yeah. And it can be a tricky decision, figuring out when is the best time and if you have to disclose your disability. But I've found, at least in my experience—and it might vary for you and others—that it's almost always better to disclose it, just because it seems to make the interactions better on both sides.

Diogo 1:07:36

Yeah, it depends. In the beginning of my career, I never put it on LinkedIn, but in interviews I would say it after telling my journey to people and people being impressed with me, let's say. I would say, “Oh, by the way, I'm blind, so for the next code challenge, I need some adaptation.” And in that phase, they would be like, “Okay, this guy is great, but he's blind,” but we are impressed, so let's continue. And now I'm in a more advanced stage of my career, I just put I'm blind and accessibility and that stuff, because now that I'm working in accessibility, I think it's important for people to know all the context. But I can completely understand: in the beginning of a career, let's hide it, let's try to navigate my life and tell it when it's strictly needed after people are interested in me and not before, so they won't use it against me.

Taylor 1:08:44

Yeah, I certainly agree with that. And I think it's helpful to give them a chance to know you and know what you're capable of, and kind of take that unconscious or conscious bias out of it before the interview or whatever it is. Because if you don't tell them right away, then all they're seeing is the good stuff. They're not thinking, “Well, I'm going into this already not thinking this is a good candidate because he already said he was blind.” So it is an interesting situation deciding when is and when isn't a good time.

Diogo 1:09:26

Yeah, it's very tricky. But I respect people that could say it in advance, and I respect people that hide it because they are afraid, because unfortunately they have reason to be afraid.

Taylor 1:09:38

Yeah. And it can depend on where you live and what cultures you're part of, because it can just depend on your environment.

Diogo 1:09:48

And the industry. Because in IT, when I started in IT, it was almost like: you know how to read and speak and write, so you can work in IT; we'll teach you, because there is scarcity of people for the roles. And, okay, you are blind—no worries—let's go. And in other fields, like economics, where people come out of the bachelor and most can't find jobs, if you say you are blind, you are like, okay, I'm really setting myself up to not find anything. So I can completely understand, depending on the area and the career stage and that stuff.

Taylor 1:10:33

Yeah. So I think we're about time to wrap up here, but before we do, do you have any last advice or anything you want people to take away from this?

Diogo 1:10:45

I don't know. I think yesterday I had that talk with the friend that is in the association to try to support people in high school environments, people with disability. And after the talk, I reflected on that because I used the analogy of the monkey that does tricks. Sometimes I feel that society treats disabled people like, “Oh, look.” You know, I don't know if it's a Portuguese thing, but in the circles that I have, there is a monkey that can play cymbals, something like that: “Look at my monkey.” Oh, the monkey played his number, so let's go back to the cage. And I sometimes think that people see disabled people in this way. Like, I did a webinar showing how I code: “Okay, look at this guy, he's blind and he can code. Okay, now you can get back to your cage.” And I feel that when I did stand-up, I do lots of things. I play in a band, I go to metal shows, and people in those environments usually treat me like, “Oh, this is the blind guy that plays metal,” “the blind guy that likes Machine Head,” that stuff. And I think that I'm usually in my cage, let's say, being blind and not doing anything, and then I come out to go to the show, and then my life is being blind and being at home. And I think that maybe that is the most challenging thing in society: to make people understand that, like, the day in my life—as you asked me to tell—maybe it's good because people can understand, okay, this guy has to cook, has to prepare his meals, has to take baths. I forgot to mention, but I take a bath every day. He has a normal life besides being blind and doing whatever tricks he can despite being blind; he also has a life to live and normal things that all people do. So he is blind, but he has a normal life. I think that's the thing that most people miss: “Oh, the blind guy can do this and that,” but they forget that, in the end, the blind guy has to eat, to go to the toilet, and to do stuff.

Taylor 1:13:00

Yeah, and that's exactly why we're doing this. So thank you, Diogo, so much for joining us, and thank you all so much for watching or listening. Hope to have you again next time. Thank you.

Diogo 1:13:13

Yeah, thank you for the invitation.