The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 46: What Else Should I Write, I Don’t Have the Right
For the past few weeks I have been wondering why I am still blogging, if anyone is reading it, or if it is even important that anyone is reading it. I wonder when or if I will run out of things to say or if my experiences have become so normalized they no longer have to do with my visual impairment. But then………………
My WTF of the week is the experience I had trying to put in and take out a contact lens. You may and should be wondering why I am even using a contact lens. A doctor came up with a plan to try and make my blown pupil smaller by using a non-prescription colored lens (the don’t it make my brown eyes blue kind). That way there is not as much light pouring in so I get less flashing and maybe a little less light distortion. What seemed like a good plan quickly went awry. First of all the contact made my eye two shades darker than my other eye and was noticeable, according to witnesses. Most people did not notice one pupil was bigger than the other one, but an iris much darker than the other one looks weird, not cool in a David Bowie two different colored eyes way. Then after going outside I realized the contact made no difference in my visual field. The doctor encouraged me to try it out as we had a 90 day trial period, but I said there was no way I was going to try and mess with a contact when i could not see what I was doing and that it was already irritating my eye after 5 minutes. So then she wanted the contact lens people to still teach me how to put it in and get it out. The fun started when I tried to get it out and it failed to move, then a nurse tried to get it out and also could not do it. A third person was called in and they began flooding the eye with lubricating drops and finally got it out. Because my eyes produce no oil that thing was totally stuck. In fact, most people with dry eyes cannot wear contacts and now I know why. They still wanted me to take the contact home since “it gets easier the more you try”. If it took two nurses and a ton of drops to get it out then I did not think I was going to do so well. Plus, since my eye felt irritated I would have to keep asking people if my eye was getting red. Too much work.
This week I can’t get enough of the fact that I am an award winner. I won the South Carolina Commission for the Blind Consumer of 2010 or maybe the Vocational Rehabilitation Case of the Year (which does not sound nearly as good, but what was in the letter I received). I am not sure what this means. I know that I did not win a cash prize. I think it means that I am the most awesome kind of blind person ever (or that the SCCB dealt with that year). This totally baffles me. I harassed those poor people and complained when the services were not delivered in a timely or in a professional manner. If holding people accountable makes me the best consumer then that rocks, because that is what a good consumer should do. This week I will pick up what has been described to me as a beautiful award. I am guessing it could be a plaque and if so I probably won’t be able to read it, but I will display it proudly. Or maybe it is a lovely plant. What it is does not matter. I will remember the awesome responsibility I have in being the blind consumer of the year and that means I will continue to not let it stop me. Also, if someone makes me a sash I will wear it.
I have been writing this blog for a year and am beginning to wonder if and when it should end. I began writing the blog because I started to write a book about how my life radically changed after my accident and I just could not get it all out. So, I decided to write a weekly blog that captured what I was thinking, feeling and going through as I dealt with my new reality. It was and still is cathartic for me. At first, I wrote the blog for me alone and did not think about or really care who read it. Over the past year that has shifted a bit in that I think about if what I am experiencing and thinking can be useful to others and therefore I wonder about the “take away’s” from my blog. I used a Kurt Cobain line (from All Apologies) as the title of the blog because at times I do wonder what makes what I say important or readable or why anyone would pay attention to it. I guess the bigger question is “does it matter or is it chatter”.
There is also a part of me that thinks sometimes it is strange to share yourself with others through blogging. I am honest and authentic in my blog and in that way I am letting people I do not know into my world. When I am down, my blogs are dark, when I am frustrated they are angry and when I am happy they are comical (hopefully). So they become a window into my emotional state. You would think I would go back and read old blogs, but the truth is I have never read a blog after it has been posted and I am not sure why. I think it is because the writing is almost a dumping process that reflects where I am at a point in time. Because I am a moving forward type of gal, I tend not to want to go back to those places.
My goal was to take all the blogs I have written and see if I have something, that with work could become a book. Right now I have no sense of what that would be. I think this is why I am still writing and maybe when I feel I have something I will stop, or at least pause. And maybe there will be some weeks where I don’t have anything to say. With all this said, the blog will continue, at least for the near future. I hope that those who read it at least get a chuckle or two at times and maybe some kind of “ahha” moment. But if not, that is OK too.
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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