My Vision

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision." Helen Keller

These words mean so much to me today and after reading this perhaps you will know why.  My name is Kimberly and I have Congenital Glaucoma and Rieger’s Anomaly (scarred cornea tissue).   I was thought to be completely blind at birth.  However my Mother noticed my responses to different color and light.  Our family made our way to Kansas City's Mercy Children's Hospital and so my journey began.

My first surgery was at six months old to relocate my pupil in my good eye and by the age of three i had several eye surgeries. It was discovered i had very little sight in my right but the left eye had promise. My parents totted me to the hospital nearly every thirty days for a checkup.  In 1979 little was known about what causes my type of Glaucoma and educated doctors were few and far between. 

Fast forward 34 years,  I'm now 37 years old, live is SW Florida and this past year has been one of the most difficult years of my life.  I've had three major eye surgeries in the past two years and have become what is considered legally blind in my good eye.  

In my lifetime i have had over 20 major eye operations, faced many obstacles one encounters with having a disability and trudged through life like everyone else. In the past year I've given up driving due to my vision loss.  I've learned a few things along the way and that is to ask for help, to educate myself and to be my own advocate.  My perception is to keep an open mind, to be willing to learn and to be honest with myself and others about my experience.  I've decided that i will not let my disabilities define my existence (I also have hearing impairment).  Instead I prefer to be positive, to be accepting of life and its opportunities. I prefer to find solutions instead of dwelling on the problems. It isn’t always easy and how I handle things is always the best way to go about things.  I’ve learned that reaching out to those who are similar to me.  It is a wonderful feeling to know I'm not alone with this disability and others have much to share with me.  So when a friend suggested that i share my story on a blog, I thought it was a marvelous idea.  But I have a tendency to jump into things without thinking it through.  So I thought about it for some time and asked the advice of those closest to me and I sat still and prayed about it. Today I decided to start my blog Vision not Sight.  My hope and my vision is to share my experience, strength and hope about being a person with visual disability.  I plan to share the information I’ve obtained along my journey and to offer the world an insight into what it’s like to be me.  If this blog helps but just one person with a disability that it will have served its purpose.

I’ll close with another quote that has come to be close to my heart……..

“The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight.  The real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of information that exist.  If a blind person has proper training and opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a physical nuisance.” 

 National Federation of the Blind