Blurry vision is awful to live with, Miriam. You may see general shapes, but
you cannot see any real details. And as a totally blind person you know how it
is to have the show you're watching go quiet as everything suddenly focuses on
action rather than dialogue and narration and you have no idea what is going on.
It's even worse for people who have no real experience with not seeing fairly
clearly to begin with.
Former student Juanita had a lot of corneal damage secondary to childhood
measles she contracted when she was three. She had decent light perception and
could even see some colors, if they were pervasive and bright enough. But she
could not perceive edges or divisions, and she didn't have enough vision even to
help her travel with any independence. In her case it was like she saw
everything through a plastic milk carton, where with the guy telling his
experience after eye surgery was perhaps trying to look through a waterfall.
They gave her surgery when she was seventeen, removing her lenses, which had
basically crystallized, and giving her a corneal transplant. For the first time
since she was blinded as a child she had usable travel vision, and could
identify where doorways to buildings were and such. Unfortunately her body
rejected the transplant less than two years later, but she was grateful for the
time she could see somewhat clearly in a portion of her visual field, for she
had a far better appreciation for how buildings might be laid out and how to
traverse strip malls and the like. As she'd had excellent travel training, she
said she now did better now that she was functionally totally blind again.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very
wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!
