White Cane Awareness Day

I didn't even know that this was a thing, but apparently White Cane Awareness Day (also called White Cane Safety Day) is today, October 15th.  This wouldn't be relevant to a doll blog, except that one of my dolls utilizes a white cane.

Instead of performing a possibly risky eye swap, I've chosen to identify Xenia as legally blind.  She suffers from retinitis mytwinnosis, better known as cruddy My Twinn eyes.  She can see well enough to tell light from dark and to tell what color she's wearing, but that's about it.  Thus the red tip on her cane is accurate for her type of blindness.

Yeah, I was ignorant enough to think that all blind canes were the same as the plain white folding cane that Dinah Bellman carried in The Langoliers.  Nope!  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, go directly to jail.  According to VisionAware and this lovely post by Veroniiiica, different colors mean different things.  The red segment on Xenia's cane means that she is not totally blind, for example, while a cane that is red and white all over means that the user is both visually and hearing impaired (thus meaning the all-white cane that Tommy Walker used in the rock opera was inaccurate).  Dinah Bellman's all-white cane meant that she was totally blind, though as with all Stephen King books and movies there's some sort of caveat.  Veroniiiica even mentions having both a reflective cane and a glow-in-the-dark cane for nighttime use.  I wish she'd included a picture of those; her glowing cane has multiple colors and I'd love to see it.  VisionAware also notes that white canes come with many types of tip, and that each tip shape has its pros and cons.  Xenia appears to have a rolling tip, which glides smoothly but can be heavy and doesn't provide as much sensory info as a smaller tip.  The proprietor of the Etsy shop where I got this cane notes that Xenia's cane can also be used for training.

Oh yes, the Etsy shop.  The shop is CuteAsADaisy, and her canes are available here.  The cane itself is made out of plastic tubing, while the tip and the handle are made of Sculpey.

I don't know if y'all can see, but there's a bit of elastic holding the cane to Xenia's wrist.  Anyway, these canes are sized for American Girls and dolls of similar size, as well as standard-sized Build-a-Bears.  I also have reason to believe that the larger My Twinns could use these canes given their long arms, but I haven't tried it yet.  In addition to doll canes the shop offers Christmas ornaments (in the shape of miniature blind canes), plus cloaks for dolls and children.  Some of the sales descriptions explain the touching reason why the shop sells white canes for dolls.

And that's my post for this week!  I hope I taught y'all something, and even more importantly, I hope the information I posted is right!  Sometimes I post the wrong thing and look like an utter doofus, so...hopefully I avoided that this time!

Much love,

RagingMoon1987