During my day, I often have the conversation with people how they would hate to lose their eyesight, and would rather have compromised hearing.  I often deal with people who have helped their aged parents through poor vision, and see how frustrating the simplest tasks can become.  I also see how technology is helping people with poor sight.

One of the most famous women who was blind was Helen Keller.  Helen was born with sight, but after a severe illness at 19 months old, she lost both her vision and her hearing.  She was born in 1880 in America, and became the first blind person to get a Bachelor of Arts.  She once said “the only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

I think this is so true.  What really matters is your attitude to things.  If you can’t see, you can still feel, touch, taste, smell.  Just think about your sense of touch and how sensitive our sense of touch is, you can feel the bark on a tree or the softness of an animal. 

Another person who comes to my mind, who also has very limited sight, uses her smart phone to take the photograph of the bus coming towards her.  She can then enlarge the photo on her phone to figure out what the bus number is.  Certainly not a fast process, but allows her to keep her independence.

Technology is really changing at an exponential rate.  Our smart phones can also be used to read aloud to us, so we can hold our phone over the product from the supermarket and be explained what it is.  Even using internet shopping can be far easier than going into a shop to try and find what you are looking for if you can’t see well.  GPS devices can be used for getting around.  

I also notice that all people who have a visual impairment have to be super organised.  They have to be really careful to put back into an exact location all their things.  They can’t just put the house keys on the kitchen table and hope to find them again when they leave.  They need to put them back into an exact compartment in their bag. 

The biggest barrier when you are first told you are loosing your sight is emotional.  We go through the grief process.  We worry that the things we loved, like cross-stitch wont be an outlet for our creativity and fill in our time.  And this is true, that some of the things we would used to do wont be an option for us when we loose our sight.  But, often we gain a new community of people around us who are interested in helping the poorly sighted.  

So I think rather than thinking about whether we would rather loose our eyesight or our hearing, we should think about the opportunites we might have.  You might get a new guide dog to help you out.  Or immerse yourself in the drama of talking books. 

I still believe in preventative medicine, and in doing all I can to make sure my body and especially my eyes are looked after through my life.  That’s why we recall people every year or two to check out their eyes.  Its always best to catch any problems when they are new, as any treatment options are always more successful earlier. 

Melissa Hay, Visique Optometrists, 155 Kitchener Road, Milford 09 489 4797 milford@visique.co.nz