“You don’t look blind!”
Oh, if I had a nickel.
It still amazes me, though, when someone says this to me like I don’t already know it. Sometimes I think this person believes he or she is giving me a compliment, meaning to say I look “normal.” But blindness comes in varying degrees, and most people don’t know that.
I’m legally blind. My visual acuity is 20/260, which means I can see at 20 feet what another person can see at 260 feet. In other words, imagine seeing a person approaching you, and she’s about 20 feet away. If you have normal vision, you can recognize her easily. But now imagine seeing her from 260 feet away (nearly the length of a football field). You might have trouble recognizing her, and you probably wouldn’t be able to clearly see her face. Now imagine lots of other people coming and going, and it suddenly becomes really tough to spot your friend. That’s what my vision is like– as if things are too far away to easily see.
I have a large blind spot in my central vision due to a inherited retinal disease called Stargardt disease, which is a type of macular degeneration. A person needs central vision to see detail, which is why spotting things from a distance can be tricky. They’re either in my blind spot or appear blurry if I try to use the vision just outside of my blind spot.
I’m legally blind. My visual acuity is 20/260, which means I can see at 20 feet what another person can see at 260 feet. In other words, imagine seeing a person approaching you, and she’s about 20 feet away. If you have normal vision, you can recognize her easily. But now imagine seeing her from 260 feet away (nearly the length of a football field). You might have trouble recognizing her, and you probably wouldn’t be able to clearly see her face. Now imagine lots of other people coming and going, and it suddenly becomes really tough to spot your friend. That’s what my vision is like– as if things are too far away to easily see.
This photo gives an idea of what my vision is like. It shows a dessert table at a brunch buffet my husband and I went to recently.
As you can see, there’s a dark spot in the center. The area just outside the dark spot is blurred, and the outer edges of the photo remain clear. The red circle in the center indicates where you should focus to get the best idea of what my vision is like, and then you use your peripheral vision to look at the things outside the blind spot. Some items can be hard to identify because they’re too blurry when using peripheral vision. And to add another complication, my eye condition makes me photophobic, or light-sensitive, so I often wear dark glasses, even inside, because too much light can be painful. You can imagine the looks I get, especially when I do something since I don’t use a cane or guide dog. I can practically feel people trying to figure out if I’m actually blind or not.
So, there you have it. While I’m blind in my blind spot, I’m not completely blind. I’m somewhat blind.
Blindish!
