Good afternoon Bloggets. I hope I find you well? A couple of
things I need to write about today, one of which I have touched on many times
but all the time I’m getting new readers and some old Bloggets have asked to be
reminded about certain subjects that I have covered before.
Well as the sun shines and the wind blows, I wait for the
rain then I must dash as I have put some washing on the line outside. My dog is trying to wrestle with one of her
toys with a biscuit inside. Little Fella couldn’t get it out no matter how much
he tried all yesterday evening. As I told Hub off as a flying rubber toy just
missed decapitating one of my lady ornaments, my voice found itself. Hub said
it wasn’t him. It was, LF. No way a dog can throw like that I replied. Yep,, it
was LF. Without luck getting her treat. so today Waggatail is trying her best
to get the prize, curtesy of my lovely rug. You can’t keep things new when you
have a dog. And two dogs? Impossible, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love
our house having two dogs.
Talking of animals/pets. I was reading about a two faced cat
the other day. Not as in sly as in one saying one thing to one cat, and another
thing to another cat, but it was born with two faces. Something like two noses
two mouths and three, blue eyes. I wonder how many ears? I didn’t read that. It
wasn’t meant to live but bless him, he did and he lived until dying of cancer recently
but h was a whopping 15 years old!
Oh, that cat must have looked really spooky don’t you think?
But it must have had really caring owners all these years.
So, my subject to start with is one of which I certainly did
and most of my friends are doing. Burying their heads in the sand not wanting
to face what could be reality! Going blind. No one wants to think about this. It’s
terrifying. Painful and it won’t ever happen to you, right? That was me 21
years ago. Not prepared. I had great sight especially in comparison to being
blind obviously. My vision would go slowly. Not from reading
one night to blind the next morning, right?
Wrong!
If I had have been strong and prepared, then I would have
gone blind earlier, right?
Wrong!
If I have thought about being blind then I would have given
up, right?
Wrong!
Think positive and life will be positive and I won’t be
facing blindness, right?
Wrong!
If you have a condition that means you may go blind, it will
happen if you are ready or not. You can slow it down possibly, by taking vitamins
such as A. but you need to research into how much of that and ask your doctor
as you will have to be monitored. Eat foods with Vitamin A in it. And where
sunglasses when it’s bright. Problem I had; I couldn’t see out of sunglasses at
all. But you can get tinted prescribed glasses. After I went blind, I had to
have cataracts removed from both eyes when everyone around me in the hospital
was talking about how much their eyesight would improve after the operation, I knew
that wouldn’t be me. Nothing worse than going through that pain to know you
will still be blind.
I had to have the operation because apart from I was afraid
my eyes would turn white, the sun though I couldn’t see it, really hurt my
eyes. Once I had the operation, sun shone, but it didn’t matter!
I have heard of late. “I don’t like thinking about going
blind!””
Who does?
I didn’t for sure. As I said, it wasn’t ever going to happen
to me. But if only I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have been suicidal!
Depressed,
distraught, angry and scared stiff, for sure, but not needing to die. And life
would have been so much easier.
Now I’m blind and have the skills put in place, I still hate
being blind. It’s still after twenty years depressing but not scary. Not terrifying
at all. I’m just left with anxiety depression and deep thoughts of what if I could
see, how much better would my life be, how easy it would be. But my life now in
comparison to when I went blind, is so different.
If you prepare yourself when you have good vision meaning
you can see your face in the mirror, you can still read though it may be a
challenge and you can still see colours, it’s better than having to adapt your
life when you have gone blind. That is too much to ask of yourself. Believe me,
I know first hand.
So, what things can I do to prepare myself for something
that may never happen, but if it does, I will be able to cope?””
1
Learn to touch type so you can still shop and contact people
and research the internet. The last thing you need is to be cut off from the
world in your new environment. You will need so much support and you may find
you lose all your so called friends, so, you will need to keep the ones you
have on line just for your own sanity. To be able to write emails and so on is
so important. Of course, there is the iPhone which to people who are blind is
so important. Gosh, I really don’t know what we would do without our iPhones. There
are so many Apps that help us. Without them, reading letters and so on would be
impossible. I mean, if you can learn Braille, as well, even better, I’m
hopeless I just can’t get around to that. If I could, taking notes and reading
pill boxes and even some products now, I also know the shop in the UK the Co-op,
their frozen food is all written in Braille. How good is that because once your
boxes are in that freezer, oh, heck, they almost all look the same. Personally,
I use Seeing a.i., for that but boy does it test my patience! Though thank God
for it. Well the manufactures anyway.
2
An iPhone is great as you can get lots of apps that will
help also out of the box a bit of initial sighted help and you have speech on
the phone and you can use dictation too. It takes some getting used to but if I
can do it you can for sure. Let’s say tech isn’t my middle name.
3
Buy an accessible Dictaphone. This is a tiny recorder that
fits into the palm of your hand. The size of a lighter. You will have to be
there when you buy it though as some now are all touch screens and are
impossible to use. But if you have one, you can have recorded emergency numbers
on it. Remember if you lose your vision, how will you look numbers up? Now, if
you can touch type, you can have a file on your computer with important numbers
on. But if you need to take down a number, address or just a note, you can if
you have a Dictaphone.
4
Every year try to check what needs updating in your house. Such
as a microwave. It’s nice and modern if you again have a touch pad microwave or
washing machine, but what happens if you can’t see to do that? You need things
with dials and dials that don’t constantly turn. Dials that click are great as
long as they stop rather than keep going around. Otherwise you will not only be
unable to see, but you may go hungry and have dirty washing… we even had to
hunt for a dish washer that we could use, well, in fact, a cooker too and
dryer. Even your TV. There are accessible TV’s out there.
5
Learn to use the white cane. Now that has such a stigma and
what a shame and no one knows more than me just how that feels your first walk
with a cane even though you were with an instructor, oh gosh I still remember
the first time I went public wit my white cane. And I had the best instructor. But
I also can remember the first time I went solo with my cane. Wow, I was that Pegasus.
That white horse with wings. I was so free. That feeling also hasn’t left me. And
over the first feeling of pure humiliation where I wanted to crawl in a hole
under the ground I was walking, my Pegasus moment, smashed to pieces the pain
of having to except I needed a white cane.
Again, I had to be blind before I trained with a cane. Silly
me. Risked my life and my babies because of all that sand in my life. of
course, my sight was coming back, right?
Wrong!
And before I go.
Always remember what you have been through in life. how you
survived. Remember when you fought against everything and everyone who was
against you. You, on your own. How strong must you have been? Remember when you
were let down by those who were there to protect you, love you and watch out
for you. Remember when you barricaded yourself away from the world. Locked your
doors and closed your blinds? Disconnected yourself from the world as it was
much easier to do that? You may have been in that room when you couldn’t go on,
but you did. You chose life. you could be hard now but you are not, you are
good, kind, strong though there are so many times when you really feel anything
but strong, you have to be after all you have been through. You forget you have
survived what most people couldn’t. why is that do you think? I believe it’s
because you are so strong. You are meant to live for better to come. You are so
special. So amazing.
I know of a girl who has had a past that isn’t very nice. She
went blind, she thought she would never find love. She did. He sadly died. She was
heartbroken. She carried on. She had an accident that made it so she was paralysed
from the waist down. She would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life as
well as being blind and left to get on with it by all her family apart from one
person who was also blind. Her Father. She spent three years in a hospital. A couple of weeks ago, her father died. She got
a place of her own. She is now using an adapted wheelchair and a white cane to
get about. She is a survivor. How? I will never know but I read her words and my
heart breaks for her, though she is in a much better place than those behind
closed doors who never go out into our big bad wonderful world. She is so
strong. I think the strongest person I have ever known. I can only hope now all
what she has been through will stop testing her and fait will give her a break
in life.
When I read, she went on three buses to get her bus pass the
other day, I was shocked. Stunned. How can she be like that? I couldn’t be that
adventurous. But I do what I can and that is all we can do, isn’t it, question
is, what can you do for yourself now? doing for yourself will help those in
your future.
Never underestimate yourself.
“When you are facing
a labyrinth in life, look beyond the narrow pathways and get
to the other side of the lane. Life can leave you alone for a while but love
will find you and again you will, laugh!””
© Fiona Cummings
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