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By Tiffany Gray
tgray@uga.edu
 As the kickoff speaker at UGA’s Campaign for Charities opening breakfast, Linda Medleau, a faculty member in the College of Veterinary Medicine, left hungry listeners with more on their plate than just biscuits and gravy. Linda Medleau’s life story was not just inspiring--it inspired action.
As a child, Medleau was diagnosed with Ushers Syndrome, a disorder that causes progressive hearing and vision loss. She was challenged by her hearing loss as a child, but it was not until she became a teenager that her eyesight began to fail, changing her life forever.
Determined to lead a normal life, Medleau never let her hearing and vision limits get in the way of her dream to become a veterinarian. “I developed a profound love for animals because I felt like I could be myself around them without any judgment,” she recalls.
At age 18, Medleau remembers, her doctors told her that her vision loss probably wouldn’t be severe until she was in her sixties, so she should go ahead and do whatever her heart desired. “Sixty is ancient when you’re 18, so I went to college not expecting to have any trouble from my vision,” says Medleau. Unfortunately, the doctors were wrong and her vision began to fail shortly after she began school at Ohio State University.
Medleau kept her disabilities a secret while she was a student and made it through vet school by asking professors to repeat questions and seeking out other students’ notes to copy so that she did not miss important lectures. “I was concerned that if I told anyone I had two disabilities, they might not let me become a veterinarian,” says Medleau.
After completing her education, Medleau joined the teaching staff at the University of Georgia as an assistant professor in 1984, fighting to keep her vision and hearing loss from getting in the way of doing her job. When her vision loss became more intense, she decided it was time to start finding a better way to function in her surroundings. She found help from several non-profit organizations for the hearing and visually disabled. A woman from the Helen Keller Center helped Medleau make peace with her differences.
“She told me that it didn’t matter how I do things, just as long as you can get it done, and I learned then that it was okay to be a little different,” recalls Medleau. She found that not only did these organizations provide a powerful support system for her, but they also helped her learn about new devices that would allow her to regain access to the sights and sounds in the world around her.
Through these organizations, Medleau has been able to obtain an assisted listening device that allows her to hear clearly and several devices that allow her computer access, including a keyboard that translates text into Braille. These organizations also helped her to get Lotus, a spirited black lab who serves as her guide dog and companion. She is now able to go anywhere and do nearly anything she can imagine. In her spare time, she enjoys lifting weights at the Ramsey Student Center, and she has learned how to downhill ski, kayak, raft and play the trumpet.
There are no longer obstacles in Linda Medleau’s life thanks to her fierce determination, lots of love from her friends and family, and the support organizations that gave her access to the tools she needs to give something back to the world.
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