I went into glasses very young. Before I was a teen, my uncorrected vision was 20/400, which if uncorrectable, is legally blind. Fortunately for me, glasses or contact lenses worked. However, every time I removed them, I had a taste of what it was to be blind. Perhaps congenital blindness is a different experience, but for a sighted pers…
I went into glasses very young. Before I was a teen, my uncorrected vision was 20/400, which if uncorrectable, is legally blind. Fortunately for me, glasses or contact lenses worked. However, every time I removed them, I had a taste of what it was to be blind. Perhaps congenital blindness is a different experience, but for a sighted person to go blind is a very frightening experience. Imagine waking up in a hotel room and the moment of disorientation trying to figure out where you are because you can’t see it. Imagine going into the ocean as a kid to play in the surf, and not being able to find your parents when you come out. Imagine having to move the bottles to within 4” of your face to tell which is shampoo or conditioner. My husband didn’t understand until he opened the shower and saw me shaving my legs with my eyes closed because I didn’t want to get soap in them, and I couldn’t see my ankles anyway. I got LASIK surgery at 35, and wept the first morning after - it was the first time I’d ever seen my alarm clock when it went off, while it was sitting on the bedside table. Ableism my 🫏.
I went into glasses very young. Before I was a teen, my uncorrected vision was 20/400, which if uncorrectable, is legally blind. Fortunately for me, glasses or contact lenses worked. However, every time I removed them, I had a taste of what it was to be blind. Perhaps congenital blindness is a different experience, but for a sighted person to go blind is a very frightening experience. Imagine waking up in a hotel room and the moment of disorientation trying to figure out where you are because you can’t see it. Imagine going into the ocean as a kid to play in the surf, and not being able to find your parents when you come out. Imagine having to move the bottles to within 4” of your face to tell which is shampoo or conditioner. My husband didn’t understand until he opened the shower and saw me shaving my legs with my eyes closed because I didn’t want to get soap in them, and I couldn’t see my ankles anyway. I got LASIK surgery at 35, and wept the first morning after - it was the first time I’d ever seen my alarm clock when it went off, while it was sitting on the bedside table. Ableism my 🫏.