Blindness: My Experience

Sixteen Years of Lost Sight

Image: The author standing beside a light colored wall.

My journey into the world of the blind began a quarter of a century ago. That is when the first blood clot destroyed most of my vision in my right eye. It was called a central retinal vein occlusion. CRVO. I had a second CRVO in my left eye in May 2007. That started the ticker to losing all light perception in my left eye about thirty month later and my losing my ability to drive in January 2010, My personal record date for accepting the status of legal blindness.

The journey at first was frightening. As limitations seemed to grow fast than I could learn more new skills to cope.

You really do have to learn to live as a blind person. It’s not just something you pick up natuurally.

For instance, getting around using a long white cane is not just tap and listen, there is a lot of skill interpreting what each swipe of the cane tells you. Working with guide dog takes training too, and behind that training are many hours of handling and navigating the world with a long white cane. Yes guide dog schools like good cane use skills before they let you into the classroom with a dog.

Beyond the world of the blind there is another world which I inhabit. That is the sighted world.