The post I wrote demonstrating how I see (or don't see) has received a surprising number of comments, and people have been overwhelmingly supportive and positive about how helpful it is to have pictures that show how the world looks different to me. I decided to write a similar post about our daughter, Abi, as I'm aware people have questions about her vision.
Most people think a blind person sees only black. In Abi's case, she sees a wee pocket off the left side, if the object is held just inches from her face. Her eyesight was damaged by congenital glaucoma, which was not caught and treated early enough, so it damaged her optic nerves.
To give you an idea what the world might look like to her, here are a pile of M&Ms on the table at lunch, as a kid might see them, and in fact how the other kids do see them.
Since she has seen this way ever since she can remember, though, she never gives it a second thought. She's learning to use a long, white cane to walk by herself, and she loves it! She loves feeling braille on her books in preparation for learning to read, and she's fantastic at recruiting a friend if she needs help at Homeschool Co-op. She acts just like the other kids, and does age-appropriate chores like clearing her place at the table or picking up toys (by feel).
The ophthalmologist said that it's very likely she'll lose what little sight she has at some point, a fact we were aware of months ago when we received her medical information from the adoption agency. Although losing the rest of her sight may feel traumatic for her for a while, I hope that having a good foundation in blindness skills, braille, and cane travel will help her realize that she isn't going to be held back in life at all by blindness. She can still do anything she wants to do (with the exception, maybe of a stock-car driver or air force pilot) and be anything she wants to be. She is so beautiful, intelligent and outgoing, I have little doubt in her ability to live a full, successful life.
Most people think a blind person sees only black. In Abi's case, she sees a wee pocket off the left side, if the object is held just inches from her face. Her eyesight was damaged by congenital glaucoma, which was not caught and treated early enough, so it damaged her optic nerves.
To give you an idea what the world might look like to her, here are a pile of M&Ms on the table at lunch, as a kid might see them, and in fact how the other kids do see them.
Abi's ophthalmologist said that he is not sure what she sees, but that her optic nerve shows some irregularity. From our observation, we can tell that her visual field is quite small, and that she doesn't appear to be able to distinguish one color from another, although she can tell a lighter thing from a darker one. So when she leans in close, the pile of M&Ms might look about like this:
As you can see, she's able to pick out the yellow one because it's the lightest. But picking out the yellow M's isn't an indicator of seeing the candies like the other kids see them!
Because she's extremely nearsighted, until we can get glasses that she'll agree to wear, anything held farther than about two inches blurs out to about this:
She also has Nystagmus, which is an involuntary side-to-side movement of the eye which she cannot control, and which becomes stronger if she concentrates on looking at something. The ophthalmologist said that this occurs in young children who lack sight. This little video shows what the M&Ms would look like:
Since she has seen this way ever since she can remember, though, she never gives it a second thought. She's learning to use a long, white cane to walk by herself, and she loves it! She loves feeling braille on her books in preparation for learning to read, and she's fantastic at recruiting a friend if she needs help at Homeschool Co-op. She acts just like the other kids, and does age-appropriate chores like clearing her place at the table or picking up toys (by feel).
The ophthalmologist said that it's very likely she'll lose what little sight she has at some point, a fact we were aware of months ago when we received her medical information from the adoption agency. Although losing the rest of her sight may feel traumatic for her for a while, I hope that having a good foundation in blindness skills, braille, and cane travel will help her realize that she isn't going to be held back in life at all by blindness. She can still do anything she wants to do (with the exception, maybe of a stock-car driver or air force pilot) and be anything she wants to be. She is so beautiful, intelligent and outgoing, I have little doubt in her ability to live a full, successful life.
Yes, kids operate based on what they know. Jeremiah has found himself being irritated a bit at school by people telling him what I can't do because of being blind in one eye. I was born that way so I just live with it as if it's normal, because for me it IS normal! When people ask me what it's like being blind in one eye and I tell them, "I don't know. What's it like to be able to see out of two eyes? I've never known anything else, so the way I see the world is normal to me." I've figured out that obviously, fully sighted people have the periferal vision I have on my right side on both sides, where as I obviously have to turn my head and look to the left to see anything on my left side. Driving is a bit challenging, but other than that I do okay. My kids can sneak up on me and scare me from my left side which they take advanatage of often, especially when I have my headphones on so they know I can't hear them. They think it's really fun to scare me! Anyway, Jeremiah's health teacher told him that I can't possibly have any depth perception, therefore cannot catch or throw a ball or anything like that. So one day, he caught my attention and when I was clearly looking directly at me he threw his football at me and I caught it. He said, "Ha! I just proved my health teacher wrong! If you didn't have depth perception you couldn't have caught that." I had to point out to him that part of the eye exam for your driver's license is to test depth perception, so I wouldn't be able to get a driver's license if I didn't have any depth perception. He also commented when I said something about not really being able to tell by the way she moves around and things that Abi's blind, and he rolled his eyes, and again said, "It drives me nuts that people have this preconception of people with vision issues about what they can and can't do! She was born that way so she operates normally, cause that's normal for her!" Hmmmm, I'm wondering if God's preparing this kid to work with blind people? It's interesting that this topic seems to have become a bit passionate to him! I'm already trying to formulate in my mind a great Eagle Scout project he could do out of this newfound passion!
ReplyDeleteThis post and Shellie's comment are both so educational and so what I need to be reading. As my husband and I prepare for the possibility of adopting a completely blind child (born with no eyes), optimism and testimonies from people who've "been there, done that" are what bring our family hope and confidence, that yes, we can do this! I'm especially grateful that I was able to read the part about how that is all Shellie has ever known. That is a good point. I'm beginning to learn that if we have the attitude that our adopted child's blindness is the only normal she has ever known and create a nurturing, supportive environment that doesn't restrict- blindness will never be allowed to define her. It will never be a restriction because in fact, it is simply her normal. THANK YOU!
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