I'm finally here!

It was a delightful, arduous, exciting and overwhelming day but I am here. The goal was to get to the CCI campus by 5:00 p.m., when the front gates close. It was 4:46 when I drove through, whew.

The delightful part was the lovely Lunch Connection in Fairfield, CT before I boarded the Ferry. Elizabeth and her husband and adorable son, Cheryl and Mark and his wife met with me. The arduous part was the three hour drive to get there, mostly in the rain. The exciting part was taking my van on the Ferry to Long Island (took 1 1/2 hours).

Finally getting here and having it all begin to sink it is a bit overwhelming, on many counts.

The "Miller Family Campus" of Canine Companions for Independence, completed and opened just last summer, is quite a campus indeed. I feel like I'm back at the U and need to find the Union.

My dorm room (one of 11) is clean, sparse, and huge. It has all the basics plus one notable difference: there's a huge, and I mean HUGE, crate in the corner. OMG, I thought. This dog is going to be the Lock Monster. Honestly, I had a sudden, serious doubt about this.

I saw most of the other participants at the Orientation Dinner, held in a large, communal kitchen that opened up into a huge, open living room with a big TV, sofas, chairs and game tables. We didn't have an opportunity to chat, though. A trainer just had us each say our names and where we were from. Then she spoke about program and campus rules and responsibilities and gave us a tour of the meeting and training exercise rooms. She emphasized how intensive and tiring the days were and suggested we be sure to rest and eat well. Ok, another doubt welled up...

She also informed us that we don't have cell phone service here. It's a bad location plus the building is brick. Maybe not having cell phone service was part of the plan so that people would pay attention better? Let's add another descriptive word for this day: challenging!

There were four baby-boomers about my age - a man using a manual wheelchair, another man using a walker and a woman using an electric wheelchair plus myself with my forearm crutch and travel scooter. There were two elementary school age boys with significant challenges in power wheelchairs who with their moms. The program is also for disabled kids, offering assistance to the team as well as companionship and socialization for the kids. Finally, there were two young, bright women, each in manual wheelchairs, one by herself and one with her mom. Quite a diversity of situations! I wondered what each of their stories were.

So it all really begins tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m. Turns out they have coffee available in the kitchen. Whew. I had brought some coffee and paper filters just in case. What would I do without java and guess what: it's DD coffee. They also provide towels, which I had brought just in case, and bar soap so hadn't needed to bring that, either. But there were no cups at my bathroom sink! My hand will need to be my cup after brushing my teeth tonight.

My first evening tomorrow after my first long day will entail grocery shopping. And not just for bathroom cups. People are on their own for dinner as well as breakfast so I'll need to stock up on easy to make dinners. Think I'll take my cell phone with me so I can call someone from the outside world.