The Coburn Blog

This is a Visual Simulation, of various eye conditions posted by the Arizona Center for the Blind

Vision Simulation

Of course, this is just a simulation, this isn’t even near close to how I see, but it does explain the various types of conditions I have to deal with everyday.

For instance, my right eye has Central Vision loss, so in the center of that eye is clouded like in that photo, but the left eye has peripheral vision loss. The peripheral vision loss slide is just a simulation, I don’t see black around the edges like that, the black areas just aren’t there, there like gone, so when I look out like that, that center area is all I am seeing.

Because both eyes have different degrees of vision loss, I do not see out of both eyes at the same time. For instance, I have to cover the left before I can see out of the right, because the left takes over. That has been that way since birth, eyes working independently of eachother I mean with the left eye always taking over. Its always very hard to explain that to people, even my mobility instructor doesn’t get it. She thinks I can use the peripheral area of the right eye to see objects on that side of my path, but she doesn’t understand, unless I cover the left eye I can’t see out of the right at all, and that has always affected my mobility, as a kid I was just stubborn about it.

Basically what I am saying, is when I was younger and could see the same out of both eyes, the left eye has always taken over, and for that reason among many others, I have been considered legally blind since birth. Social Security doesn’t see it that way, thats why I’ve always fussed with Social Security matters, because they haven’t always considered me Legally blind. They didn’t consider me Legally blind until April 2007, which isn’t true I’ve been Legally Blind under the law since birth, but they only look at the numbers, and don’t take other things like peripheral, and only being able to see thru one eye at a time, into account, that my eye doctors do.

I mean, think about it, if you can only see out of one eye, unless you cover the other, your basically completely blind out of that eye as your walking down the street, so why wouldn’t that be considered? I mean that has never made any sense to me.

Another issue I have that they don’t talk about at all in those simulations, is I see halos around lights every now and then. Thats mostly from the glaucoma, but I’ve always had some of that, its just worse now. One of my eye doctors thinks its just my eyes aging, and that I was prone to this happening long ago, I was just so young that my eyes could handle it, but I don’t know, but they do agree that Glaucoma is usually caused by Inflammation of the eye, and since Crohns Disease is inflammation of the entire digestive tract, why couldn’t it spread to the eyes as well? it only makes sense. My doctor just says I should thank my lucky stars I don’t have Lupus, which is the same condition except spreads to 11 additional areas, like the lungs, heart, liver, so on and so forth. I suppose I am lucky on that, but as fast as this spreads, I don’t feel a bit of comfort knowing that in the least. Instead of that fact comforting me, only makes me worry that it could one day be Lupus, so I definitely do not take the least bit of comfort in that. I don’t even know why he told me. I would have been better off not knowing what I don’t have, but could have, yet. I can only handle so much at a time, ya know?

The last thing I wanted to talk about, in regards to that simulation, is it doesn’t talk about the sensitivity to light that glaucoma patients experience. Basically without sunglasses, I see two of everything. Its called a glaire affect, but to me it looks like shadows around everything, kinda like the halo effect I suppose. Sunglasses, preferably ones that have blue light protection, take away the halos and shadow doubling effect, but have a disadvantage of blocking some of the light coming in to see with, thats why I wear a yellow pair that aren’t quite so dark. This is a disadvantage, because I need as much light as possible in order to see what I’m doing, especially that white florescent lighting helps a great deal, but it hurts to look at the light, so what I have to do is shine a florescent light behind me on the book I’m reading, and then use the sunglasses to protect my eyes from the blue light so the glare doesn’t double my vision. Its kinda confusing, and believe me I don’t understand it all that well either, but think of it, like how you have to wear sunglasses outside when the sun is really bright out? Well its the same thing for me, except not only sunlight but florescent lighting hurts my eyes as well, but the sunglasses themselves block some of the light I need to see where I’m going as well, they do for everybody I imagine, thats why people don’t generally wear sunglasses indoors, which as you can imagine impairs my mobility even more, which is why its so important for me to get mobility and cane travel training.

Not everybody who is legally blind sees the same. I went to the blind school in Indianapolis with many kids who never wore glasses or sunglasses, but I have to wear sunglasses because of the nature of my unique eye condition. The term Legally Blind describes a wide array of many different eye conditions, and visual abilities, just like any other type of disability, and because of that, there is no real way for me to explain to you guys what I can and cannot see. Because I was born this way, I don’t know what its like to have 20/20, and I never will understand, so I can’t explain it to you, any better then you can explain to me what its like to have 20/20, its just not possible, so alot of times, its just easier to have a white cane with me so when I’m at walmart walking around, or school walking around, other people see that cane and know I at least fall within guidelines of legal blindness, meaning they don’t have to understand it, just know I am blind in some way, and to watch out for me regardless. I mean, thats really the point to all of it I think. Some people, well alot of people, don’t carry a cane around because they don’t want others to know they have a vision problem, but for me I don’t have a choice, because any place I go in public becomes a hazard for me to get hurt if I don’t. I could not only hurt myself, but little kids or other people, so it isn’t just about me finding my way around, I also use it so others don’t get hurt in the process. I mean, most people think someone walking with a cane there gonna trip you with it, but that isn’t true. With proper mobility training, a regular person should never trip over a cane, and if they do, its their own fault for not looking where there going in the first place, because a white cane stays within that persons private space, so your not going to trip over a cane unless your too close to that persons private space to begin with, right up in their face I mean. So, when you see someone with a white cane, you don’t have to run away, they don’t have koodles, just don’t get up in their personal space and you’ll be fine, hehe, just kidding, but seriously you wouldn’t do that, get up into someones personal space while walking around walmart or someplace, so its no problem.