Archive for the ‘vision’ Category

I want to see again

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Today I’ve been thinking that I might be willing to give a cornea transplant another shot if the opportunity ever comes up.  I have had a couple and both rejected.  I have no idea where this is coming from but it’s on my mind today.

The most recent one was fine one day and I woke up the next morning everything was very blurry.  Before that things were great.  I was noticing things every day that I had never seen before.  I went to the doctor and they put me on eyedrops ever hour 18 hours a day and it slowly got better.

Things stayed pretty good for a few years but then my vision in that eye slowly got worse.  It happened so slowly that I didn’t even notice it until one day I realized I was using my “bad” eye which hadn’t every been operated on.  That set off a long period of depression.

The eye doctors told me that I could get put on the list for another cornea but at that time I decided I didn’t want to because they weren’t working for me they might have a better chance for someone else and thought it would be selfish to get another one.

I’m not sure why the sudden change of heart on it but I really do think I would like to give it another try.  Maybe it would work better this time.  It would be worth it to me even if it didn’t last forever to have the opertunity to see things clearly again.  It would be great to be able to just read a book with out a huge difficulty

It would be awesome to be able to see nature.  Geocaching gets me out there alot.  I would love to see the hawks and other birds that fly along the Susquehanna river.  It would be wonderful to get the chance to see a bald eagle or just the shapes of complexity of trees.  Right now they’re just a green blur.  I didn’t aprecieate having the chance to see these sorts of things enough in the past but I would now.

Most importatly I would love the chance to see Molly’s face.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Large Print Books

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

I got to spend a couple hours in a book store yesterday.   I love books and could have walked out with a car full if it wasn’t so inconvenient to read them.  If they were readily available I would probably read all the time.

Large print books are available but they are expensive and still not quite big enough for me to see.   There is also not much of a selection of large print books out there.

It would be great if one of the ebook devices would actually let me increase the size of the text and also increase the contrast.  It would be nice if one could purchase any book at a reasonable price. 

Hopefully some day technology will enable something that works for everyone. If a device worked for me I’d probably have it loaded with science related stuff.

Popularity: 31% [?]

How One Teacher Ruined School for Me

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

My grand mom came up to visit last weekend and she brought some old report cards of mine that she had found in her house. They were from elementary school. That was when I still liked school. That whole thing reminded me of the time when I stopped liking school.

It changed in sixth grade. I didn’t realize my good eye had gotten worse but the doctor said I should have another cornea transplant so I put my name on the waiting list. Sometime in the middle of that school year they called my mom saying they had one for me.

When I went the Wills Eye Hospital where I had always gone. The doctor. did not want me to go to school for 2 weeks after the surgery. Actually I was not supposed to do much of anything.

When I went back to school I had one teacher who took me aside and told me how he knew I was faking it. He knew I just didn’t want to wear glasses even though I was wearing ugly safety glasses to protect my eye. The other choice was some eye shield thing. He also knew how I just wanted a vacation and I didn’t have eye surgery. It should have been a great time because I was seeing things I had never been able to see.

He really was an ass but I didn’t realize it at that time. He was the only teacher that never got anything to my vision teacher to be enlarged and didn’t want to let me go to the room in the school where my CCTV was because I might cheat. It was fair to make me struggle and take longer trying to read something that was difficult because he was too lazy to get things enlarged.

His answer to me not being able to see the blackboard was for me to stand up right in front of it to copy his notes exactly. That was good because I’d have the rest of the class telling me to move so they could see it. It made sense to him..

He’d also say he knows that glasses would help but I just didn’t want to wear them. I never told anyone because I was stupid enough to believe his crap.

My vision teacher found out and she was pissed. Actually I think she was more upset than anything. I think she talked to him or something because he backed off a little bit. I think I brought a doctor’s note directly to him. I really wish I had stayed in touch with her. She was a great person and a true friend. He would still tell me how he knew I was faking it to get out of doing the work.

After that I hated school. I enjoyed learning and would always be chapters ahead of the class but still did crappy in school because I didn’t care. I’d only learn want I wanted on my own and only did enough of the work to pass.

Popularity: 84% [?]