Walking around

[tjpannu]

Does anybody here who is suffering from Keratoconus have any trouble walking around without the lenses? Does legally blind mean, that you have trouble walking?

[Andrew MacLean]

Legally blind means not seeing well enough to be legally sighted; yes that can cause disorientation and create difficulties in getting about.

I used to move about the house with no lenses, so that when I became unable to wear lenses at all, I was well used to moving about with out useful sight.

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

I can move about, walking an dotherwise, such as bus or train, without the lenses.
I can find my way around places I normally go and know the way. If the tube station I normally go to gets shut by, for example, a bomb scare, then I have problems finding my way by another route.
I can also find it difficult to see how smooth the ground is, and can trip over potholes, uneven paths, etc have problems with slopes and steps without bright coloured edges - and once fell down the steps at the tube station because I thought I was at the bottom and there was actually one more left.
I'm now the one who goes round London counting all the steps at the stations, etc.
there's also the problem of knowing when to gt off the bus - and the arrival of talking buses is such a relief!!!!!!!
Rosemary

[melissa]

i couldn't go anywhere without my lenses. rosemary is very brave. i manage to get around my house, but even that i don't do unless i have to. i pretty much put my lenses in before i put my feet on the floor in the morning and only take them out when i am in bed in the evening. of course it is easier now as i only have lenses in one eye after graft in the other.

[space_cadet]

I am sure my Fiance is indirectly making our new spare room a health and safety hazzard as we have so many things that need to be assembled - flat pack furniture - bed base n bookcases, a tall lamp , stacks of books, boxes to unpack, a patio table n 2 chairs and random other stuff, oh and my desktop pc n desk. In our house if you hear a 'meh' it's tends to be followed with 'no what have you walked into'. Although the old place was worse as I would get up to get a drink in the night and simply not notice anything, managed to tear the toaster out of a plug socket and smash it into the kitchen floor - oops. He was oblious other than in the morning 'I had a dream involving a very loud crash last night' - 'no darlin that would of been the toaster it went flying'.

I don't get the bus anywhere if on my own, have a nickname from friends of 'keeps a cab firm in buisiness' its safer. Trains are semi ok if I know the routes, as well I can't learn to drive and he has appareenly had lessons, given up and says will try again later in life!

I was in London a couple of weekends ago, had a lovely TFL dude at Kings Cross say he would of travelled out to West Wickham with me if he thought his boss would of let him, then I got the Northern Line to London Bridge adn bumped into a good friend, which was rather kewl. Leeds to WW, I used to do every weekend for 24 weeks back in 2001, but my vision was better, yet it is still a familiar route.

My best mate n her fiance live in Hendon and I can find my way to theirs from Hendon Central yet can never go from theirs to Hendon Central - go figure.

A good friend of mine has a sort of 'satnav' devise which tells him where he is going, for years he has teased me that he has a spare cane with my name on it, wasn't till a few weeks ago he rung me to say sorry for saying it.

I am rambling,

Take care and be safe navigating places
Lea
xox

[GarethB]

It took me about 3 months to adapt to poor vision, uncorrected right eye can't see the eye chart and the left can get the top two lines but very blured. The only thing Ican't do without lenses is drive, everything else with hints and tips from the guys here I hvae been able to adapt with very little cost or life change to continue pretty much as normal.

Afterall there are people with worse vision than me and have guide dogs and look after themselves pefectly well.

Let us know what the specific problems you have walking around?

I am sure everyone here will give you the same help thay gave me.

[Loopy-Lou]

Without my lens I can walk around but I can't read, use the computer, watch tv, see bus numbers/train indicators, tube maps, price tags, sell-by dates, signs, judge distance/depth, see people's faces unless close, light switches, nothing has sharp edges, and unless I'm somewhere very familiar I am very anxious and will ask for help as I can't navigate well [bus/train indicators/street signs/A-Z] and if I were shopping, again I would get assistance around the shop otherwise it's just painful holding things 2 inches away from my face. I do feel disabled without my lens because pretty much everything I do requires better vision so I don't handle it well. If my RGP has to come out for a while than I don't want to be outside in an unfamiliar place on my own. I'm sure everyone has had those difficult experiences of bumping into someone accidently or misjudging traffic and people being abusive. We're all different in how we cope, for me, I don't adapt. When I had very impaired vision in my teenage years for 2 years at no point did I adjust, I just got progressively more depressed. Whereas the next person might take it in their stride. Bear in mind that some people who are all out blackness blind with a guide dog may have been born that way or lost sight at a very young age, this is quite different when it's all you've known to people here who have ended up partially sighted if not legally blind for temporary periods of time before/after surgery/lenses. When you've been used to having a sense it's harder to adjust then if that's what you've grown up with.
Basically however you feel is justified whether you feel strong and ok or anxious and scared there's no 'right' way of feeling.

I do have a bright yellow 3 inch badge with the partial sight sign on it [in black] and the text 'I have partial sight' on it, so if I've had to remove my lens whilst out I put the badge on until I can put it back in. This offers a visible sign to others and makes it easier for me to ask for assistance where I need it.
You can always design your own badge and get one made up by the online badge companies, that's what I did and a couple of members here use it.

[space_cadet]

I have had to deal with deterioting vision for 10 years now, 3 years of getting the stupid NHS to fully listen then the last 6-8 months of rapid deterioration. I have a 27" wide screen monitor on pc magnify text, have audio software (altho it bugs me like hell so rarely use it) and just sit about 2" from the monitor.

Have attempted to watch 4 things on tv in the last month as cant see anything other than aditonal limbs. So spend my time on the pc attempting to keep up wiht my friends as meeting up is too hard for me at moment.

But hey ho, walk into things and get bruised and carry on!

Lea
xox

[rosemary johnson]

My eyesight has been deteriorating for so long, I wondered when I was offered a graft how I'd ever learn to cope with good vision if I ever had it again.
I asked at the eye hospital what help, training, whatever, there might be with that - got only blank looks.
Needless to say, if there is any help or support available, I've yet to find it or even hear of it.
Haven't worn a lens in my grafted eye since it was diagnosed with glaucoma (too sore fromt he glaucoma drops to want to crank a lens in - now Ive given those up, by the time it got over the ithdrawal symptoms, hay fever season was upon us and eyes red and sore from hay fever.
When I did try it, last summer, it was quite uncanny and unnerving. And a bit dizzy-making. SOmetimes very dizzy-making.
Never did get my head around being long-sighted, seeing things unnervingly sharp in the distance and nothing at all less than arm's length away.
Grooming a horse and pulling up ragwort in reading glasses totally weird.
WOrst of all - can't recognise friends' faces. They all look either fatter or more wrinkled or more blotchy or either older or younger. Don't look like the friends I've known for ages at all.
ver unsettling.
Meanwhile, over all those years, have grown to depend heavily on having a good memory to remember where things are, etc. And the operation has screwed up my memory horribly.
SO I have - or would maybe have, if I ever wanted to put a lens into that THING again - nearly-6/5 vision I don't know what to do with and don't really want, and am completely devastated at having my memory f... up.
Oh,and I was actuallyr eferred round tot he medics (rather than the CL people) for the firt time in donkey's year because of the photosensitivity - and the op has made that far worse!
Think I'd rathr walk round semi-blind and bump into things, meself.
ANd yes, I do quite a lot of that. And typing when I can't read the screen (as you can no doubt tell from the typos). And do rather a lot of walking I should have to do cos of not being able to tell where to get off the bus - up, talking buses are WONDERFUL!
Rosemary