Tags
Acceptance, Alternative, Awareness, Blind, carefree, Diversity, Equality, Gratitude, Guide Dog, Hidden Disability, Inner Peace, Life lessons, Non Judgemental Attitude, Sight Loss, vision, Visual Impairement
Having blurred vision from birth has had its blessings.
As up to 80% of our impressions rely on sight, so having to rely on other senses, I have been able to view a different life to most. I have always thanked my alternative vision for not being able to join in with toxic judgment of others. When others around me would comment negatively on the appearance of others, I would remain silent and thank the universe that I was not blessed with functional vision to cruely judge.
I have never felt that I have missed out on anything significant in life due to being born with a sight impairement. Not being able to drive leads to stress free travel. Travelling to sightsee has never felt like an option when you can travel to more than landmarks in your imagination anytime. Not being able to see the facial expressions of people when I say or do the wrong thing is greatly appreciated always. Therefore, when my opthalmic surgeon advised recently that my grade 3 cataract is pretty inoperable, my world didn’t fall apart. In fact, I had not really noticed that it was living happily in my eye anyway due to being severely sight Impaired.
For the general population with healthy eyes, cataract surgery is a pretty straightforward operation with a very high success rate. For those of us with preexisting eye conditions, things get a little more tricky when being offered surgery. With Marfan Syndrome, due to the impact of the condition on the connective tissue in the body, complications are more likely. When I had my first eye surgery in 2000, the complications from the surgery caused far more damage than expected and left scarring and the need for a lensectomy. News of not being able to operate, therefore, was more of a relief than a curse.
My opthalmic surgeon spoke about the only small possibility to operate would be to have two teams on standby in surgery as he was uncertain what the eye was like until he went in. Even if the cataract surgery was a success, there could be no guarantee that my vision would improve due to my eye/brain connection insufficiently developing from birth. In short, I could have amazing surgery to restore vision, but my eye /brain connection still wouldn’t be able to play ball in helping me to see clearly.
Having never been able to see things around me clearly is not a problem for me, really, as I know no different. A sighted individual may see this as something that needs to be ‘fixed’ due to their only frame of reference they have in life, is centred around sight. My only frame of reference is sight loss, and fixing that is something that would cause more problems that it would solve if it ever miraculously could be ‘fixed’
I have lived 46 years, ‘seeing’ the world differently. Blobs and blurs make sense to me. Having to learn a whole new way of interpreting these blobs and blurs into the visual world would be challenging, to say the least. Having an open discussion with my surgeon about this was refreshing . He explained that I have never had ‘good enough’ vision throughout life, and that is perfectly okay. My cataract will soon become hypermature as it reaches stage 4 (I wonder if it will be entitled to its own pension?) and obscure my lack of vision even more and it doesn’t bother me at all.
Surrendering to the inevitable is the most freeing thing you could possibly do. The immense feeling of peace in acceptance of even the most challenging of life changes can allow life to be lived harmoniously. Living your own unique life path alongside the masses helps strengthen essential resilience in life that will get you through tough times. My blurfectly full life is blurfect just as it is.