Sight Central Rain

September 1st, 2009

It is still getting harder to read, and use the computer. The blindness has pretty much reached the central part of my eye. It doesn’t completely cover the center, but it does partially obscure it. Noticeably harder to read compared to a week or just 5 days ago.

So that’s not so good. I have done my best to fight it but the blindness is winning. I think it’s just a matter of how long it will take and how bad now. And then we’ll see what happens.

Yesterday I had a visit from a very nice lady from the sight central. She seemed very kind and sweet and we had a good talk. I didn’t get so uch out of it right now, but several things put in motion. We’ll be having more meetings and things happening. I should be getting a pair of filter glasses. That filter out the sunshine but let normal light in. That should be handy. We’re going to get in touch with their “IT section” as well. They have some software that makes your cell phone talk. Though I’m not sure my cheap model can use it. Might have to get a new one. But that’d be handy. I can sort of still manage to use my cell at the moment, but if the blindness keeps spreading then I don’t know how long that’ll last. And it is important to me, so I can still get a hold of my parents if I need help for example. They also have some stuff for the computer. Some speech software as well I think and some zooming stuff. The zoom isn’t going to help much if I can’t see at all of course. But the speech stuff should be helpful. It’s just a question of how much I’m going to want to use my computer when I can’t see anymore. If I have to use a screen reader to go online then I don’t think it will be worth it much anymore. I might be able to check my mail and bank some times, but it’s not going to be the same. But better than being completely cut off I guess.

We also talked about the cane. I think next time we meet they’re going to teach me how to use it and we’ll go out and try some of the routes I want to be able to go. Which will mainly be to Føtex in the shopping center around the corner, to my parents and to the playground. Those are pretty much the three places I’d wanna go. But that will be interesting. It’ll take some getting used to, using a cane. But I do need it now.

We talked about other things like meals and cleaning and stuff. But we’ll get back to that when it becomes relevant. A lot of things I can still handle with the help of my parents, and that’s still how I prefer it. So I have to deal with as few people as possible. Right now there is a lot going on and more to come and many things to deal with and I feel a deep desire to tell everyone to leave me alone so I don’t have to deal with it. But again, I now I need the help now. And I’m grateful I can get it.

She also talked about a course you can take. A sort of “intro to blindness” course. It takes 3-4 months and it’s in Copenhagen. You have to live in some kind of institute or something, while it’s going on. If I had to answer right now I’d say a clear no to that. I couldn’t deal with moving to Copenhagen for months and being alone there and all that. But it wouldn’t be right now. It’d be some time next year. So I have time to think about it. And by then perhaps I need it so much that I can force myself to say yes. But you can learn a lot of the things little by little at home from the sight central people too, so that’s an option that might be easier for me to swallow. We’ll see.

But lots more to come on that front.

Today I had a couple of people over to read the water counter. It went okay. But it’s a little scary to let strangers into your apartment when you can’t really see much. I can’t really tell if it’s a couple of guys from the water company or a couple of ninja zombie nazis. So that’s not fun. But of course I was expecting these guys, that makes it easier. Generally I don’t open the door anymore if I’m not expecting someone. My dad has a special way of ringing the bell so I can usually tell when he’s there. But other than that I don’t open unless I know someone is coming. Perhaps that’s a little impolite of me, but I think it’s fair enough. If the zombies want to talk to me they can call ahead.

Tomorrow it’s back to the hospital so the doctors can check my eyes again. I am quite sure that they won’t be able to say anything new. It’s a little maddening to be going slowly blind and have doctors prope and prod your eyes over and over and still say that they can’t see anything. But so it goes. We’re doing all we can. Fingers crossed for miracles.


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Fair Forandring

August 30th, 2009

There is no doubt that the blindness on my left eye is spreading. Slowly but surely. It has pretty much reached the center of my sight. When I focus on letters now they are half-greyed out. Won’t be long before they are completely gone, I am sure. It’s getting harder to read, I have to sort of read the letters to the right of my focus. I don’t know how long that will be possible. But we’ll see. You should be warned though that there is a good chance the blog will be ending in a month or two. Time is slipping.

I went shopping on my own yesterday. I managed to do it, s0 that’s good. But I could feel that that has gotten harder too. Harder to navigate myself around. Harder to pick out the right cheese. I had to give up on the cheese in fact.

It’s an odd thing to have part of your eye blind. If I move a hand in front of my face then I can see it when it’s to the right, then it disappears and then appears again when it’s to the left. If I look at cars driving by on the road then I can see them coming and then they disappear for a second or two and then appear again. The blind spot sort of blends in with the background so it just sort of looks like the cars go invisible for a second. If I look at a picture of a face then if I focus just to the left of the face then I can see the whole face. But if I focus on the right eye (from my pov) then half the face is just missing. And so on. Parts of the world just disappear. Odd. And it won’t be fun when it covers everything.

But I’m doing okay really. Not stressing out over it. I think I have come to a certain acceptance. I will work on the things I can work on and the rest I will not worry about. I will leave the panic for later.

I forgot to mention that I met a new friend at the playground. There’s a new horse. A sweet little one. It has replaced Musse. You remember Musse? The small, black, calm horse. The one that never gave me any trouble when I fed the animals. She has retired to pastures green. So now there is Sille, the big and sometimes stubborn one, and the new one. I don’t know her name. But I know that she seemingly came out of nowhere. Limping around on roads near where Kurt lives. No one knew where she was from. So she was handed over to Kurt, and now she’s living the sweet life at the playground. She’s about the same size as Musse and about the same colour as Sille.

Alsp. I had fish oil today. So everything is on track.


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