Well, 6 months following my formal diagnosis of Retinitis Pigmentosa, I visited my Retinal Specialist for my bi-annual visit. After an excruciating morning of tests, poking, lights and dots, my doctor informed Angela and I that I am now Legally Blind.

Yay!

Oh, wait. This sucks!

As of December 2017, I only have 15 degrees of vision remaining, compared to a normal 180 degrees and am able to see a 20/200. With this news, Angela and I know that continued adjustments, tweaks, and accommodations will need to be made as my vision continues to deteriorate. My wife is the most supportive person in the world and even after a morning of watching her husband get blasted with tests, she still has the ability to make me laugh and see the bright side (no pun intended) of things in our life and in this situation. I love you Angela.

What does 20/200 even mean?

In simple terms, something that most people with a corrected 20/20 vision can see at 200 feet, I can barely see at 20 feet. Think of the eye chart that we all have seen, you know that really big E at the top of it? Well that is getting really difficult for me to see clearly.

I found this really cool example on BuzzFeed that slows what a 20/200 looks like, you can see the difference with ease below.

Example by BuzzFeed

The above visual examples show my vision without correction and also without the darkness that the Retinitis Pigmentosa is creating, however, it’s still a great visual example.

 

With the latest appointment behind us, we are moving forward and all in all, in good spirits about our situation. We continue to adjust and do things a bit differently and that is ok. We aren’t going to be your “normal” family and that is ok too. The cane is here and now it’s time to start using it, at least in the right situations for now…

 

 

Resources:

VisionAware

 

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