Blindness isn’t seeing nothing.
October is blindness awareness month and despite how prominent visual disabilities are in society, not a lot of people talk about it. So here I am, talking about it.
According to the Canadian Institute for the Blind, also known as the CNIB, blindness cannot be characterized as “seeing only darkness”, as if one was walking around with their eyes closed. The definition sounds more like “a spectrum of visual disability from when your sight is impaired enough to interfere with daily activities like reading, cooking or driving, up to total blindness.” So what does this mean? Is everyone who wears glasses considered blind?
Not exactly. There is a tone of legal and medical mumbo jumbo that can explain the qualifications to be considered “blind” but none of you want to hear any of that, many people won’t even know or understand what 20/20 vision is and I’m not here to explain it. Rather, I’m here to develop some conditions that may have some myths and prejudices, such as total blindness, and to develop on some ways that you, as a regular person, can help make the world more accessible for the visually impaired!
Now you may be wondering, why am I writing on this? Why do I get to teach on accessibility, why don’t we just let the ACCESS center deal with this? Because as those around me know, I am considered blind due to my visual disabilities. One of them will be touched upon because it is extremely rare and in my opinion, extremely amusing to discuss. So let’s begin with a few statistics and the most known type of blindness…
Numbers and today’s visually impaired community
According to Vision Loss Rehabilitation CANADA, the broad spectrum that is visual impairment affects about 1.5 million Canadians. Many of these people, according to various sources, including this one, have affirmed that their conditions/symptoms have either been neglected (sometimes, causing the condition itself to develop or to worsen) or been invalidated by not only health professionals but also the general population. This speaks directly to the importance of advocacy and accommodations, as well as to the importance of listening to those impacted by sight loss. And without further ado, let’s see what type of sight loss there is out there…
Total Blindness
When people hear that someone is blind, they often automatically think that this person can see “nothing”, which is not true except in the case of the rarest type, complete blindness. Simply, this refers to a person who cannot see or detect any light. However, despite popular belief, these people do not see black when they open their eyes like a seeing person does when closing them. Rather, they simply do not have any use of their sight, which is hard to imagine for seeing people. Some professionals have characterized it as seeing static, but this is a controversial way of understanding it. And before you pity these people, just look at Stevie Wonder, this man adored being blind because it allowed him to see the world “through truth, not through sight”.
Legal blindness
Legal blindness is a very medical and, yes you guessed it, legal term to describe vision under 20/200. I know, I said I wouldn’t talk about medical terms and I won’t, but it is a part of the definition. To make up for it, I will explain what this means : for someone with 20/200 vision, an object needs to be 10 times larger for it to appear to them the same way as someone with “perfect vision”, aka 20/20. Fortunately, this can be corrected with accommodations such as glasses and in rare cases, surgery. These people are not inherently doomed to a blurry life, don’t worry (there are some exceptions of course).
Low Vision
The last member of the big three categories of Blindness is Partial Blindness, also known as Low Vision. This is much more common than the two above and is a broad umbrella term for various conditions that share one thing in common : to be considered Partially Blind, your vision cannot be corrected with glasses, surgery, contacts or any medical/therapeutic intervention. So, this being said, a term like this is very broad. It easily encompasses many types of conditions… like the one I’m going to cover next.
Horror Fusionis
Yes you read correctly, horror. I have two reasons for including this condition in this article despite its rarity.
- Conditions like cataracts, macular degeneration and glaucoma have a lot of coverage on the internet and in the media. They are often researched and are more common than Horror Fusionis so there is no need for me to touch upon them today.
- I suffer from this condition. My account of this is a first hand account, and it’s needed because I don’t even think there are 3 articles on it when you look it up. Funny enough, a video of mine pops up when looking for it, but that’s not what’s important.
So what is this condition that sounds like a horror movie title (hilarious when considering October is blindness awareness month)? Literally, it translates from Latin to “fear of fusion”. What does this entail?
This condition, unlike many others, is neurological rather than optical (brain issue, rather than eye issue). Simply, when a child grows up with Amblyopia, a common condition also known as a Lazy Eye, they, in most cases, grow up seeing double. This condition is diagnosed after years of attempts to correct this lazy eye, or in some cases, neglect to treat it over developmental years. So, the brain gets used to it and it becomes a form of “normalcy” for it. In consequence, when in later years professionals attempt to help the patient with an eye patch, surgery or prisms in the glasses of said patient, the eye that’s affected by Amblyopia suffers spasm-like movements, as the brain rejects the fused image (no longer double). This means that the condition cannot be treated with medical intervention and categorizes the patient as Low Vision and therefore, a member of the blind community.
Canadian Healthcare and Visual Disability
Canada, as we know, has a healthcare system that is constantly changing and the speed or size of the changes depend on the province! Us, in Quebec, really struggle with waiting times and access to healthcare specialists. As of right now, getting an ophthalmologist appointment can take from a few months to a year depending on the severity and urgency of the issue! To add, CTV news has brought up the issue of our lack of healthcare professionals in the public sector and are now informing us that 85% of optometrists within the Quebec Optometrist Association are withdrawing from the RAMQ by the end of November. Which means that adults over 18 and under 65 will not have free access to eye exams and those covered by the Public Plan (which covers 1 eye exam a year, more than what the average person needs but a necessary accommodation for the population when they do need it) will no longer get compensation for their expenses despite eye-health being a major aspect of daily life. However, it is being said that the Ministry of Health is attempting to force these optometrists to stay within the public sector. Do you think that’s right? Who is correct in this situation?
To conclude…
Blindness awareness month is important for multiple reasons, but the main one is that blindness comes in many different forms and that the only way to be able to accommodate the visually impaired community is to listen to us. Today’s healthcare system is struggling when it comes to optometry, an essential service, so the blind community needs your attention more than ever. So please, ask questions and listen to the answers, do not assume things about us or treat us differently because of our disability. And most importantly, if you are a blind person, you are valid. Do not hesitate to affirm your disability and be proud of it. For any help with accommodations, the ACCESS center at vanier is there for you!
Happy Blindness Awareness month!
