"That Was the Turning Point for Me"

Hadley

That Was the Turning Point for Me

Presented by Douglas Walker

Douglas: Hello, and welcome to the Insights and Sound Bites podcast, where people facing vision loss share insights about what has helped them cope and adjust.

Voice 1: You cannot do this alone. You need people who are experiencing the same thing.

Voice 2: Probably the hardest part was just navigating through the emotions of it.

Douglas: My name is Douglas Walker. When faced with changing vision, it’s the everyday tasks that can become so frustrating. Today, we’ll hear from Ruth. Ruth will share with us how leaving Hadley a comment led to an unexpected phone call.

Ruth Alhilali: My name is Ruth Alhilali. I live in Farmer's Branch, which is a suburb of Dallas, Texas. I developed glaucoma last year; my glaucoma came on suddenly. I was at a doctor's appointment, had a good exam in March of last year, and then in April my pressure was high, and I'd already lost quite a bit of vision. So, it's all in my left eye, which was the eye I was using most of the time. I have a lazy right eye, which has now been forced to do some work.

The first thing that I guess it was both emotional and visual is trying to find things, trying to put them in one place and then not seeing them. And I just wasn't seeing, even though it was there, and I was looking at it, I wasn't seeing. And that took me a while to get used to. But the worst is just the emotional, not being able to read, and not being able to do all the volunteer activities that I filled my time up with, because they either involve driving, and while I can drive, I've limited my driving a lot or if it's where you're packing something or moving around in a kitchen with limited peripheral vision, I sort of felt I was a danger, that I would bump into somebody. So, it was just losing all the things that I had filled my retirement up with.

Somehow, I discovered Hadley, and I was listening to Doug's Adjusting to Vision Loss, and he was saying, "You know, it just takes time. Be a little patient." Well, that's not me. And so, after listening to that, I was feeling a little unhappy about what I heard, so I wrote a comment that was on the negative side I guess, and showed how frustrated I felt. And low and behold, Debbie Worman called me back. I never thought anybody would ever read my comment, and that was just fantastic. We later on had a long conversation and just to know that there was somebody else on the other end and who was there in the position to show me where things were and to tell me "Try this," or "try that, it will work out."

I think that was the turning point for me.

Douglas: Yeah, that was the turning point for Ruth. She was thrilled to get a call back from Hadley and connect with someone to get the one-on-one support she needed.

Was there something that someone said to you or something that happened along the way that made all the difference in the world in helping you adjust to living with vision loss?

We‘d love to hear from you if you’d like to share with us, just leave us a message on our Insights & Sound Bites voicemail by calling, 847-512-4867. Or you can use your smartphone or computer and email us a recording to podcast@Hadley.edu. Again, my name is Douglas Walker. Take care and I’ll see you next time.