Written By: Sara Graves
Edited By: Katlyn Tolly
Blind journalist refuses to be a muse
Sandy never lets being blind get in the way of the things she wants to do. She relishes adventure, loves to travel and doesn’t shy away from exotic foods. “I ate a grasshopper once!” Sandy says, her face lighting up as she tells tales of her frequent trips to visit family in Michoacán, Mexico. She’s travelled around the Midwest, to California and upstate New York. But she especially enjoys being a tourist in her own city. Museums are becoming more accessible, awareness is rising—slowly, but surely—and while exploring presents its own set of trials, Sandy has a unique perspective on challenges.
One particular challenge came in November 2009, as she headed home from college to celebrate Thanksgiving. Her brother, Cristobal, only 11 months older than Sandy, was driving her and their
There is definitely a void left by Cris’ absence, even more palpable as the seventh anniversary of his death approached. Every year, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the family attends a Catholic mass held in memory and celebration of Cris.
“It’s hard,” Sandy says, matter-of-factly. Her voice softens, “Especially right before the holidays.”
But Sandy is not one to dwell on hardships. Instead, she’s focused on her thriving career.
After receiving her degree in December 2012, Sandy went to work for Blue Island’s Progress Center for Independent Living, a stroke of luck because, as she puts it, she just happened to know the CEO, and when she approached him looking for job leads, he offered her an internship. There, her supervisor introduced her to Bill Jurek, the director of The Chicago Lighthouse’s Chicagoland Radio Information Service, or as it’s more commonly known, the CRIS radio station (one of those cosmic coincidences—a nod to her brother, perhaps). He offered her an internship as a researcher and contributor to the group’s radio show, “The Beacon.”
Thanks to her tenacity, her distinctive voice and her life experience, she is now the associate producer for CRIS radio and a financial development assistant at the Lighthouse. She also writes a blog for the Lighthouse called Sandy’s View. The blog offers her personal take on contemporary matters for blind people and answers questions from the inquiring public. She answers questions like “How Do People Who Are Blind Become Attracted and Find Love?” and offers commentary on topics like “Voting Accessibility.”
Because of assistive technology, which has come a long way since the AAC machine Sandy once mistook as a robot, she is able to do her job with a certain level of ease. JAWS is a tool she uses daily at work and at home. She uses VarioUltra braille display to read notes, view spreadsheets and PDF documents. The machine is a keyboard, essentially, with a line of braille cells that shift and change as the software reads the information onscreen, then outputting the information into readable braille.
On her iPhone, Sandy uses Apple’s built-in Voiceover to receive texts and e-mails, and apps like Facebook, YouTube, and Weather. TapTapSee allows her to take a photograph, then hear a description of the picture; LookTel Money Reader tells Sandy the denomination of dollar bills, and she can listen to books with Read2Go.
“We thought everything was OK and then everything changed with a single moment.”
Murillo, center, with her parents and older brother. Courtesy of Sandy Murillo
While Sandy is busy at The Chicago Lighthouse, her mom marvels at the coincidence of her daughter working there as an adult. The Lighthouse, as its name suggests, gave them hope during a dark time. Margarita recalls the uncertainty her family felt prior to Sandy’s diagnoses.
“Her right eye would tear up a lot,” Margarita says in Spanish. “Even if she wasn’t crying, tears would still come out. The light would bother her.”
After several rounds of eye drops and various medications, nothing changed. Things would stabilize for days, yet the pressure, a condition of glaucoma, would build again. At one month old Sandy was put under anesthesia, and diagnosed with congenital glaucoma. The disease is rare, and doesn’t usually result in blindness. However, the pressure building in Sandy’s optic nerve was so powerful, they operated immediately because, as Margarita was told, “Her eyes could pop out.”
The news was overwhelming.
“I was sad. We were sad,” Margarita says. “We thought everything was OK and then everything changed with a single moment.”
Upon Sandy’s diagnosis, Margarita recalled a blind woman she would often see around the University of Illinois Chicago Medical Center, where Sandy had doctor appointments. They noticed she walked with a cane, read braille and moved independently. Margarita looks at her daughter, remembering that moment, “It gave me hope.”
Happiness is the one thing Margarita has always wished for Sandy. Unlike the unwitting college advisor, Margarita is inspired by her daughter’s positive attitude, grateful that Sandy enjoys her job and proud of the love she puts into it. Margarita tells her, “That happiness when you leave in the morning is contagious. It gives us a reason to keep going.”
Sandy hopes to give motivational speeches and write a memoir. For now, Sandy is grateful to be making an impact at The Lighthouse.
“It’s a pretty neat thing to come full circle,” Sandy reflects.
eople think she is an inspiration, and she disagrees.
As Sandy Murillo views it, living life as a blind person isn’t reason enough
to be called inspirational. The 29-year-old has been completely without vision since age 2 when she was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma. Growing up in Harvey, IL, people often told Sandy she was an inspiration for doing everyday things. While she wanted to retort with a witty remark, she was usually too nice to say anything. When a college advisor told Sandy that she was his hero for simply showing up to class, she wanted to say, “Well, you’re inspirational for driving.”
But Sandy has manners.
Even as a raven-haired, rosy-cheeked giggly 3-year-old, she was polite, according to Lee Burklund, who has known Sandy for 26 years through her work at The Chicago Lighthouse, a social service organization providing vision care and support services for the blind, visually impaired, disabled and veteran communities. Lee remembers Sandy well—or Sandra, as she was called then.
In 1990, Lee was a speech language pathologist and worked with a young girl who used an alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) machine, which spoke for her. Lee and the student would exchange weekly hello’s with Sandy as they passed each other in the long hallway of the school. Once, Lee happened upon them without the student, and Sandy innocently wondered, “Where’s your robot?” Momentarily confused, Lee realized Sandy was unaware that the mechanical voice greeting her every week was actually another little girl. Lee notes, “We both still laugh about that!”
Sandy laughs a lot. Her eyes sparkle when she does, and her head tilts back, throwing the sound toward the sky; long, black curls tumble over her shoulders. She is thoughtful when she talks and lists public speaking as one of her strengths. Sandy has had plenty of practice, like giving a presentation to fellow schoolmates in the fourth grade because they were curious about her white cane and braille books. She is inquisitive by nature, and appreciates that quality in others. This, coupled with her interest in public speaking and love of writing, led her to pursue a degree in journalism.
She began attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the fall of 2009, living in the dorms and on her own for the first time. By then Sandy had plenty of practice self-advocating. She made sure to tell her professors exactly what she knew would work and what wouldn’t, like when she suggested they email her the handouts from class so she could open them on her computer and use a special screen-reading software, like Jobs Access With Speech (JAWS), which uses audio to relay the information from the computer screen to Sandy via headphones or speakers. She is grateful for the technological advances that grant her an efficiency that she might not have had before, and which ultimately result in being more included.
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Sandy Murillo at The Chicago Lighthouse's radio station. Photo credit: Sara Graves.
father, Armando, when a semi-truck hit them, causing an eight-vehicle pile-up. Sandy was taken by ambulance to an area hospital with a fractured collarbone. Armando was airlifted to a different hospital because of the extent of his injuries. He underwent a major surgery to repair four broken ribs, a collapsed lung and severe damage to his bladder, kidney and liver. Cris, as Sandy calls the brother who was practically her twin, died that day.
“Obstacles either make you stronger, or they mess you up,” Sandy says. “But hopefully, they make you better.” She admits it was a devastating time in her life, but she doesn’t let it define her or her family.
At age 56, Margarita Murillo, Sandy’s mom, looks like an only slightly older version of her daughter. Armando, 61, is grateful to be alive and is more comfortable outside the limelight. According to Sandy, he’s thoughtful and gives good advice. Pay close enough attention and he might grace you with a taste of his sardonic wit. While their kids were young, the Murillos were the ultimate tag team, working opposite shifts so that someone could always be there while the kids were at home. Margarita still works second shift packing lunch meat at the Carl Buddig factory in nearby South Holland, while Armando works days as a welder at L.B. Steel in Harvey, where they have lived for 32 years. Work, school and commuting schedules made it difficult for the family to enjoy nightly dinners together, but weekends were spent at home relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.
Murillo demonstrating how she uses a VarioUltra to take notes in braille. Photo credit: Sara Graves