"I found the support I needed"

Hadley

I Found the Support I Needed

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. It’s normal to feel all alone when faced with fading vision. Today, we’ll hear from Zenobia. Zenobia will share with us how she worked through the isolation, by finding people just like her, willing to share their frustration as well as their success.

Zenobia Carson: My name is Zenobia Carson. I live in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. I'm originally from Chicago, Illinois. Born and raised.

I'm 75 years old, and I've been a social worker, a writer and author. I'm an avid reader and when my eyesight began to dim a couple of years ago and I was also let go from a job, I felt that it was the ultimate insult. I would lose more and more independence, and I didn't know where to turn.

I didn't want to be a burden on anyone that my children and I didn't take offers here in Minnesota to find help.

And I believe that along with Hadley and the encouragement that I've received from friends who finally figured out the truth that I was not seeing as well as I used to. I became more comfortable with sharing my day to day, I guess you would call it my day to day distress sometimes, or my day to day happiness. It's not all stress. I have very low vision and going from being a visual person or a seeing person to being able to not see much at all is a great leap for anyone, especially for me.

I participate in the Writers groups and it just gives me a sense of well-being to know that I'm not alone. I've not been thrown away. I'm not being ignored. And I am still very, very capable of doing many things.

Douglas: 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 [email protected]. Again, my name is Douglas Walker. Take care and I’ll see you next time.