L is For Life Changing July 9th, 2015, two days before my thirteenth birthday. An ordinary Thursday in the middle of summer. However, on this ordinary day, my life changed forever. I had an eye doctor appointment that day, as I had been having trouble seeing for quite a long time. My dad took me, I was reading The Clockwork Prince the whole drive there. We got into the waiting area, we were about a half hour early. I admired the picture of two little girls running in an open glade, while listening to a children’s movie play in the background, in a toy room next door, before returning to my book. I don’t know how long it was, but it was over an hour before we were admitted into an exam room. The exam went normally enough… until I failed the …show more content…
“It is a genetic disorder,” my doctor said, “You will gradually lose your central vision.” Those words were like an echo, repeating over and over in my mind. “Lose your central vision. Lose your central vision. Lose your central vision.” The unceasing chorus was rattling around in my mind, yet no matter how long it resounded, I couldn’t believe it. That meant that one day, I would be blind. Not completely blind albeit, but blind none the less. Everything around me seemed to slow down. My heartbeat sped up to a racing speed. My vision went slightly blurry as my eyes filled with tears from the sudden shock my brain had just experienced. Nothing made sense, my inner turmoil was so overpowering that I couldn’t make left or right of what was being said around me. I couldn’t escape it. It chased me back to the farthest recesses of my brain, searing the dreaded thoughts into my mind. It was horrible, inescapable, and mind numbing, all functional thought processes seemed to cease. The doctor told me that it was an extraordinarily lite case, and probably wouldn’t affect me for many years. He suggested to wear a hat and UV protection sunglasses whenever I went outside, as the UV light would make my vision loss accelerate. I was overjoyed that this disease would have little or no affect on me for years to come, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel miserable and sorry for myself, because I was going …show more content…
My mom was already at the place where we were holding the rehearsal, as she was in the play as well, but she didn’t know yet about the malady that I now suffer from. Once I got in the house for play practice, my mom asked me how the appointment went, and if I was getting glasses. I told her, “It could have gone better. No glasses, because glasses won’t help.” My voice broke at that point, for I knew that what I was about to say would cause my mother great distress. “I was diagnosed with Stargardt’s, the same as Jimmy,” I managed to gasp through the great lump in my throat and the burning sensation at the back of my eyes. Jimmy is my older brother, who was diagnosed with the same disease 15 years ago. The look of sorrow and distress that then crossed my mother’s face will be engrained in my memory forever more. My mom hugged me and hugged me, as we both cried. Her warm embrace was the most comforting thing I had felt for a very long time, and most welcome, as my ordeal was still fresh in my mind. I bet we stood there for ten minutes, hugging and crying, because we both knew, that there was nothing we could do. This disease I was told, will eventually reach a maximum point of vision loss, can’t be fixed by glasses, and has no
The moment I’ve been waiting for turned out more hectic than I was expecting. From waking up super early to forgetting what to do, the day had its up’s and down’s. So, what day am I talking about? Well about June 22, 2013, the day of my quinceanera, the day I went from a little girl to a woman.
The high percentages of individuals who endure this impairment justifies and practically demands future research because the causes are not fully understood. The need for future research can be better emphasized if those with normal vision try to empathize with victims of macular degeneration. One can only imagine how frustrating it must be to receive sensatrions only in the periphery of the retina. Because the macula encompassed the cone rich fovea, which is used to focus on objects, the fovea degenerates as well. This occurence inables individuals to interpret the sensations they experience. Reading, ...
At 4, I came to the breakfast table and saw that my father had a horribly swollen eye and adhesive tape forming a shell on his nose. I didn't know that he got those injuries in a barroom fight; I only know that I was deeply frightened and sorry that my father was hurt. This was the first of many bad memories.
Robert, a 65 year-old male, has trouble reading fine detail, especially out of his central vision. He complains that his vision is blurred and that it is harder to see while operating a motor vehicle. In addition, sometimes objects appear wavy or crooked, which impairs his vision. His worst symptoms were that he occasionally lost the ability to distinguish between the features of familiar faces and he had a localized blind spot. Robert is not alone; many people suffer from symptoms related to loss and distortion of the visual field. He suffers from macular degeneration, the leading cause of decreased vision loss in the United States, especially for people over the age of 50 (Philippi, 2000).
Before I read Oliver Sacks' article dealing with Virgil's sight recovery, I tried to guess what would happen if an adult who has been blind for a lifetime had recovered his vision. On this paper, I will confront my hunches about what really happened in the article. When I started thinking about what could happen to someone facing a real change like recovering his sight, in the first place I tried to imagine what it could be like to be blind, and what are the consequences of blindness on the person. I understood that blindness wasn't a bad thing or a disease. In fact, blind people are not living in a poorer condition than blind people.
If I am currently 18 years of age and will have lost my vision by the time I am 40 then it will mean, assuming I live to be 80, I will live half of my life with sight and the other half blind. I am fully aware that this change will bring hardships and challenges to my life but it will also make me appreciate what I have that many take for granted including myself. Self-reflection over the past few days have helped me not fear this illness but welcome it instead. Welcome it knowing that I know nothing about life and blindness will delve me into another realm of personal growth that I cannot fathom at the moment. As Socrates lived his life to the last second with careful examination I wish to live my life to the last minute with significant
When Helen was nineteen months old she came down with a serious fever. The doctors called it congestion of the brain and stomach. Suddenly, the fever went away and she became blind. Helen was having a bath when her mother moved her hand in front of her face and she did not blink or move her eyes at all. She did it several times to see if she would blink but she never did. Helen’s mother realized that her daughter had become blind.
Adapting to a life with limited or no sight can be terrifying to a person that previously had sight as a main sensory ability. From infancy we begin using sight to recognize good and bad choices, identify and classify objects, and to gain understanding of our environment. Sight is a direct link to what we understand in our mind. When vision is lost, our ability to function and decipher information is hauled. Individual new to low vision have no idea what they will need and often the members in their support system are clueless to the demands of low vision as well.
Two days after my 11th birthday, two days after my first season of cheerleading, Sunday, November 21, 2010 was the day everything changed. My life took a sharp turn as I jumped on our new tire swing. Almost all of my family and my best friend came over my house for my birthday celebration. The music was blaring, smiles appeared on everyone's faces, the rooms were filled with laughter and gifts. All the kids were running and and having a blast in the yard playing freeze tag, drawing on the driveway with chalk, shooting hoops or on the tire swing.
Each day was, and still is, a hard, frustrating and stressful time. This incurable disease has had a dramatic effect over the years starting when I was in kindergarten. I remember when my mother started using a cane so she wouldn't fall when she walked. She could still work, drive, and go on outings with me, her only daughter. In the beginning I didn't know how to grasp it all but I gradually understood a little more each day.
When I found out that I had developed a lazy eye I cried for two days straight making it an unforgettable day. As I walked into my math class, my friend stopped me and asked “Hey, your eye moves without you making any effort, right? Because when you are looking at me, I can see it move away.” All I could do was agree because I didn’t want to seem like a liar. I panicked because I still wasn’t aware that I
There have been tons of things that I have learned and been taught in my life, by a number of people such as family, teachers, or even friends on occasion. The things they taught me vary from math and other related subjects to just some truly simple yet meaningful life lessons. However, there is nothing quite as unique, quite as special as a person teaching themselves a life lesson. It really is an amazing accomplishment for a person to teach themselves something. It is not quite as simple as another person teaching them something because it is not just the transferring of information from one person to another. The person instead has to start from scratch and process the information they have in their mind in order to come up with a new thought
It’s funny how life can change in the blink of an eye; one day you are a normal teenager and the next you become the sole caregiver to your mother who has terminal cancer. For most, other family members are there to help, but in my case, I was alone. The summer consisted of a daily routine; we woke up, made breakfast, got dressed, and drove to doctor’s appointments. I remember waking up late one morning and not only did my routine for the day change, but also my life. That morning I ran downstairs to see if my mother was ready to go and I stumbled upon her silently muttering to herself in the mirror. I could tell she was frustrated, but I was unsure of the reason, and quite honestly afraid to hear her answer. When she turned to me to ask if
It was June 6, 2011. I remember taking my mother to the County Hospital’s emergency room. She seemed extremely exhausted; her eyes were half-closed and yellow, and she placed her elbow on the armchair, resting her head on her palm. I remember it was crowded and the wait was long, so she wanted to leave. I was the only one there with her, but I did not allow her to convince me to take her home. I told her in Spanish, “Mom, let’s wait so that we can get this over with and know what’s going on with you. You’ll see everything is okay, and we’ll go home later on.” I wish then and now that would have been the case. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to many parts of her body including her lungs and kidneys. The doctor said to me not considering that I was a minor and my mother’s daughter, “Her disease is very advanced and we don’t think she will live longer than a year.” With this devastating news, I did not know what to do. I thought to myself that perhaps I should cry, or try to forget and take care of her as best I could and make her laugh to ease her pain.
Around the age of 6 my mom was hospitalized because she had extreme headaches, and that’s when she found out she had a tumor in her brain. She kept this a secret from me because she didn’t want to see me suffer more than what I already was. About a week after she found out the news of her tumor, my mom was obligated to tell me because she had to go to Florida to get surgery, since the hospitals in Peru did not have the proper equipment to do this surgery. After my mother broke the news to me, we both started crying. I did not know much about tumors, but I did know that it was a life threatening disease. The next day my mom and I went to the doctor to find out what procedure she should take to not put her life at risk. In that same appointment, we found out the pricy amount of the surgery. With my mom’s salary and all of our expenses, it was going to be impossible to pay for the operation, and my mom had to make the tough decision to postpone