Well, after several attempts, I’m afraid that I didn’t
master braille. Fortunately though the pessimistic prediction of that
particular ophthalmologist hasn’t come to pass either. I am indeed “legally
blind” but I do have much more sight than he forecast.
However, in the initial days of my vision loss I persisted
in teaching myself to type. Indeed, I
have come from tapping away with two fingers to becoming a fairly proficient
typist.
It was at our last peer support group meeting that Denis reminded
me of all this. Lyle had read out a lengthy manuscript that I had written.
Denis was curious to know if I had typed it myself or if Lyle had done this for
me. I felt pretty good when I acknowledged that I had done it on my own.
It was only after our meeting that I started to mull over
the different skills I have acquired over the years. When I was a fully sighted
person, I didn’t anticipate that I would need to have more than a two finger
typing skill. I now type with both speed and reasonable accuracy. Nor did I anticipate
that I would be using an audible screen reading program on my computer instead
of using my eyes to see the print on the screen. It was another skill to be learned.
As a fully sighted person, I was an avid reader. Little did
I know that as a visually impaired person I would now need to develop my
listening skills if I was to continue to enjoy books, magazines, newspapers and
other literary works. Listening instead of seeing is a learned skill.
As a sighted person, I had never thought about using a white
cane as a mobility tool. Again, this was
something I needed to learn. There is an art to using a cane safely. I took
mobility cane instruction with Janice at the Edmonton CNIB office. Thanks
Janice for your patience with me.
While becoming partially sighted might not be the best thing
to happen to a person, it is not the worst either. Certainly for me, diminished
sight created opportunities for new learning experiences. As well as the above
obvious challenges, I went back to university and earned a Masters Degree. I
gave the valedictorian speech at my graduation and was offered other opportunities
for public speaking.
In spite of, or perhaps because of the varying difficulties
associated with some of these lessons, I found that I was in a position where I
could share my experiences with others in similar situations. Of all the new things
that I have learned over this journey with vision loss, I feel that lesson of
sharing with others is the experience which has meant the most to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment