can anyone relate?

Posted by horsegal2012 on 10/19/2012 at 1:46 PM

hey I was just looking for people around my age who could relate to me and thought this would be a good place to find some. I was born three months premature and that caused complications, I had fluid build up on my brain which damaged my optic nerve so they put in a shunt to drain the fluid, the damage caused my eyes to be crossed and so I had corrective surgery but it did not completely fix the crossing in my right eye but it helped some. I have good vision in my left eye and not much vision in my right eye causing me to have no depth perception so ball sports are a nightmare for me. However my doctor says that I could drive in the state of georgia (where I am from) but I am TERRIFIED!!! Also just so you know a little more about me I love to read and I love horses and I want to become a singer, my mom said that she is gonna try and get me voice lessons and I would like to be able to audition for X Factor

- Alison

There are currently 11 replies

Re: can anyone relate?

Hello,

My name is Sarah. I am 20 years old. I was born 3 months premature and have Retinopathy of Prematurity.

Re: can anyone relate?

Hey, my name's Lindsay and I have optic nerve atrophy. I also had crossed eyes that were corrected at least cosmetically when I was barely a year old. I almost got my license but I felt it would be dangerous plus my vision was deteriorating so. I decided against it which has turned into a good decision cause its just gotten worse. I ended up just focusing on adapting since. I've always had a hard time with ball sports but I still liked them just got hurt a lot. My depth perception issues and night blindness has made working at woods of terror interesting but fun

Re: can anyone relate?

Hi there Sara I have the same eye kindition as you. I was born three munths preemy to. My name is J.C. Glad to meet you.

Re: can anyone relate?

Hi. Well I have ROP too, but I have light perception, but I don't find it very useful.

Re: can anyone relate?

I have light perception and can see colors and shadows. I have some usable vision, but not very much.

Re: can anyone relate?

Hi Sarah I am Amber. I have retinitis pigmantosa. I still have a decent amount of vision. I can still read print, I don't use Braille, and I loathe audio books. I also LOVE horses. I actually have a horse of my own. I was recently invovled in a horse riding accident. The doctors ended up finding something wrong with my top vertebra. They took that out and put in 2 rods, 4 screws, a cadaver bone, and a plate. So I am recovering from that right now. Enough about that. Right now I am working on a website for people who are blind and visually impaired. I also have two forums up and running. I can put up all of the links if anyone wants to check them out. I also want to educate the public about all the stuff that we can do. I really hope that I can start changing the definition of what society calls normal.

Re: can anyone relate?

Welcome to the American Foundation for the Blind's TeenConnect message board. I think you will like the group here, they share their thoughts, questions, and try to support each other.

I have retinitis pigmentosa (RP) with a healthy dose of cataracts. I have 2 degrees of vision or so, like trying to look through a pin hole, but the cataracts make it look like broken glass -- if that makes sense.

I hope you enjoy interacting with the group. There are some great resouces on the American Foundation for the Blind's family of websites: CareerConnect, VisionAware, AFB.org, AccessWorld (free online technology magazine), and FamilyConnect. You can fiind these resources from www.afb.org.

All the best!

Sincerely,
Joe S.
AFB staff

Re: can anyone relate?

thank you all so much for your responses and there are a lot of things that I struggle with physically and emotionally that I would love to share with you
-xo Alison

Re: can anyone relate?

Hi Amber. i also have a horse of my own and 4 other horses. I have a guide dog too.

Sarah and Wizard

Re: can anyone relate?

Hey guys,
My name is Abby.
I have rop as well. I just have light perception.

Re: can anyone relate?

awesome! I also have rop