Day to day life with KC

[matt28]

Hi all just a quick question , i imagine this may of been asked in the past but i was wondering how having KC affects other peoples day to lifes and other aspects such as each idividuals confidence levels and how people adapt in different situations , i know that my confidence has personally been greatly affected due to my KC ..

[Andrew MacLean]

I guess that some of the obvious ways in which living with keratoconus affects my own life is that there are routines that occupy parts of each day:

I have to be careful about eyelid hygiene.
I have to dose my eyes with artificial tears.
I have to footer with my contact lens and be careful not to over-wear it.

These are small things that are easily accommodated in my day. I used to have a far greater impact with which to live when I became contact lens intolerant and, being legally blind without my lenses, needed transplants in both eyes. I am glad to say that those days are gone now, for me.

There are also more subtle ways in which keratoconus affects me, but I am not sure that I have a vocabulary to describe those, but they do impact on things like self-esteem and confidence. I guess that chief among these is living with the knowledge that I have defective eyesight and could lose my sight again, knowing that I am made of three people: myself, my first donor and my second donor, knowing that my sight is an artifact of the generosity of two families who gave my the tissue of someone whom they had loved and who had died.

On the other hand, I do enjoy little moments of triumph when a problem ceases to bother me and I find another way round a common difficulty.

Swings and roundabouts, I guess. Good question; thanks!

Andrew

[house]

Keratoconus has had a huge impact on my life
and day to day.

Contact's are a pain at times........

Sometimes not for the better thow......been very
difficult moments changed my life direction.

however its made me a better person than I would have
been........ if I didnt have Keratoconus and am 100% sure of that.

See things and life in a diffrent way......

biggest impact I have promised myself to take my 3rd cornea
graft out to Auz in 2010!

otherwise I dont think I would have bothered because
I have not travel much. But am going make the most
of what I have......learnt so much what sight means.....
and am sure we all have who has KC

[GarethB]

For me the group has really helped.

When I encountered graft problems KC detsroyed my life and I was off work for 3 months.

Now I am more confident at work, with the help of this group I am able to function perfectly normally without any vision correction. the only things I am unable to do without lenses is drive and work in a laboratory. I have visual aids from work and some I have purchased my self so I can still interpret all the information generated at work. Someone prepares the samples and puts them on the instrument and remptly from my PC I set the equipment going and I can still process the data as well as a person with normal vision.

I am more patient, better at delegating, not afraid to say no and it means I work sensible hours compared to what i used to do. My ability to plan my time is much improved and it has been recognised at work i am more productive/effcient. It is only the small group of people I work closely with that know I have vision problems. In the past 4 years i have managed to get promoted and last Novemebr managed to make a sideways career move which puts me in a good position for another promotion.

None of this could have been accomplished without the support of the group from local group level, those who post on the forum, my GP, councellers, RNIB, Action for the Blind, my employers, optoms (hospital, local optoms and those who post here) and my familly. I feel i'm in control of my KC but only because of the team effort from all those mentioned.