Honey no one ever wants to go blind. It is scary as shit. I’m 21 so I fully understand what you’re feeling, but accepting it is not as hard as it seems. of course hopefully your vision is okay and you won’t have to go through this but if it turns out that you do. Well first of all, just know that there are a lot of beautifully supportive people here who you can talk to. Secondly, although it will never stop being scary, you will wake up one day and feel at peace with it.

I do get it though. Life sucks. You have the right to feel all of what you’re feeling. And if you ever need to talk. I’m here.

I'm 54. Sounds like a dinosaur when you're 20 but seems like you're still a kid when you get there yourself.

I don't want to go blind, either. Who does? But it's happening. The cells in my retina are dying. It's genetic, it's permanent, it's irreversible, and it's incurable. That leaves me with two choices - I can fight against reality, or I can accept it and make the best of it.

I fought it for awhile. Everyone does. I spent time in denial, I got depressed, I got angry. I felt sorry for myself. Those are all natural reactions and everybody has to grieve. Anybody who gets a life changing diagnosis and doesn't get a little fucked up by it is, like my kids would say, kinda sus.

Then my son in Tennessee called me up and said "Dad, is there anything you want to do before you go blind?" I didn't realize it at first but that question changed my life. I thought about it and realized yeah, there's a lot of things I wanted to still do, like water ski. So two of my sons and I chipped in and bought a ski boat. That was the beginning of the blind bucket list.

The blind bucket list has been one of the best things that ever happened to me. It gave me a sense of purpose to replace the one I lost. It's been crazy fun. It's brought the family together. It reset my head, got me out victim space and made me Captain of my soul again. It's been the best therapy I could have hoped for. I spent half a week on the Tennessee River waterskiing with my wife and kids and getting pushed overboard by my grandkids, I flew kites at the beach on Galveston Island with my parents, I stepped inside the batting cages and swung at softballs I can barely see anymore, I painted my first and only painting, I flew to Arizona where my daughter took me hiking through all the national parks and hiking trails I used to take her on when she was little, and I flew back to the mountains to spend Christmas with my parents and see snow one last time.

Yeah, I could have done all of that stuff even if I wasn't going blind, but the point is I didn't. Life got in the way. Going blind reset my priorities. I quit being so serious all the time and quit giving my life to my job. It's strange but going blind made me see.

But enough about me - we're here for you.

When you get the diagnosis the doctor will ask you if you have any questions. Of course you have questions - your entire life just went sideways! But it's like your first day at a new job, you have so many questions but you're so new you don't even know what they are yet. You're still trying to remember your coworkers' names and figure out which ones are cool and which ones are dicks and where you can park and if you should bring a lunch from home or what. You're still miles away from asking the kinds of questions your boss is talking about.

It's okay to not know what questions to ask. We've all been there. You think the doctor is expecting you to ask questions about treatments and support groups and you're sitting there wondering *If I can't drive anymore how the fuck do they expect me to get my car home from this clinic?* The cool thing about r/Blind is it's here 24/7/365. It's the second day of work when the questions you realize you should have asked on the first day start occurring to you, right? Well, ask away. It can be the next day or the next year when you think of a question. Doesn't matter, someone is here to answer it. I'm still asking questions and learning new tricks every day.

I don't know what the ophthalmologist will tell you. Maybe you'll get your vision back, maybe you won't, maybe you'll lose the rest of it. I don't know. But I do know that a human being without eyesight is still a human being. You are just as important, just as necessary, just as worthy, and just as loved no matter what diagnosis the doctor gives you. Your hopes and dreams remain. You'll still sing along to Nickleback when no one's around, you'll still hope the girl behind the counter thinks you're cute, you'll still think the third season of SpongeBob was peak television, you'll still be you. Going blind changes everything, but going blind doesn't change anything. The change takes a while to get used to but once you do you'll realize you're still you.

And you're okay.

You got this, Queeze.

Glasses don’t help, most of my optic nerve is just dead. Everything is blurry, central vision is worse than peripheral, my depth perception is not very good, and I have problems with colors and contrast.

Oh thank you! I’ve done stem cells already, didn’t work. Other than that there isn’t anything you can do.