Kia ora koutou, when I was in Auckland over the weekend I found out how really poor my eyesight is. I have made changes at home to cope with age-related macular degeneration. New beautifully clear LED lighting over my work desk, the kitchen, sitting room, bedroom. I have a fair idea where everything is. I moan to myself about not seeing spice packets clearly and not being able to see in the mirror well enough to check hair etc but I manage. Putting on a shoe easily depends on the colour. I was peering in the wardrobe yesterday and accidentally dislodge one of my hearing aids and had to get the torch to find it. This would have been funny once but at the tine I was really anxious whether I would see it. After a panicky search, I did. So all was well.
I’ve had my laptop seen to so the type/font on everything is large and that makes life easier. I know there are other things I can do when it gets worse, which it will.
I can see distance and I can walk up to the shops. I peer a bit at product labels and quickly put the ones I can’t read back on the shelf. Last time I went to the pharmacy I said to the assistant, ‘Could you come and read the labels for me please’ and she did. On Friday a friend put a magnifying app on my phone so that will help at the shops. Have you noticed how many things have small small print on their labels? Probably not. I never did either.
In the hotel surroundings I couldn’t see light switches, lift buttons, all those sorts of things, because they’re black. They’re things we all take for granted until we can’t. I have the same problem with ATM machines. They’re all hard now but the ones I have to walk away from are the ones which are all black. We only have two in Otaki and both are a problem for me and anyone else with sight issues. I have to either get a friend to come with me and read directions and shut their eyes when I put in my pin or ask a friend to take out the cash I want from her bank account and then I pay her back through online banking. I do both. There’s a guy, a staff member, at Westpac in Coastlands who was very helpful last time I wanted cash. He knew how to do it for old people with poor vision and was kind enough to infer that it was a pleasure to help.
I am not asking for sympathy. Eyesight dimming is part of the deal as I grow really old but what I, and others, both young and old, with poor eyesight would like, would be less black and more light.
We’d like to be considered part of the population not as some weird person who if she only made an effort, could see the numbers. I don’t blame anyone for not ‘seeing’ someone in difficulty at a supermarket shelf, or a pharmacy or in any shop or office. We all work on experience and I didn’t notice unless it was very obvious, when someone was having difficulty. Now of course I am that someone peering at price labels, picking up fruit and holding it up really close to my eyes to see if its blemished, peering, peering, peering at labels. I am the one who can’t see the Tasty on cheese unless I pick it up and peer.
Now when I go to the supermarket, the friend who gives me transport there, says, what would you like me to find today and I tell her.
Don’t think because I walk past you without saying hello that I’m ignoring you. Just say, ‘Hello Renée, it’s me, how’re you going?’
Like a friend/colleague from Auckland days came up to me at the recent Writers Forum in Auckland and called out, ‘Hey Renée, remember that drunken party where we were both playing guitars and singing our heads off?’ The only reply I could make was ‘Which one?’
