I have heard people say that when they retire, their lives just get busier. Well, I think that when people experience vision loss, the same can be said to be true. It just takes so much longer to do anything.
I am often frustrated with paper. I can’t see to read regular or even large size print. I do use a CCTV Reader which magnifies single words or numbers. However, reading documents of any length is very time consuming. I am always glad that I live in a digital age and sometimes I can listen to communications on my computer with my audible screen reading program. What I am trying to say is what would take a sighted person to read in less than a minute takes me very much longer.
Then there are appointments. Mostly a sighted person makes an appointment – medical, dental or whatever – and simply drives himself or herself to the particular location. A person with limited sight needs to arrange transportation and coordinate the timing of this with the appointment time. Often making transportation arrangements can be complicated. Whether the end result is a ride with a friend, or public transport, or specialized disability vehicle, the result can be – yes, you guessed it – time consuming.
Coping with the challenges of communication and transportation are two of the major difficulties in the life of a person who is sight disabled. We need a full twenty-four hours in the day to accomplish all that we would like to do. Once a friend asked me what I did with my days. Wasn’t I bored sitting at home doing nothing? The question took me by surprise! My days are nearly always full. I have learned to plan. Admittedly there isn’t much spontaneity in my life but I do keep busy.
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