"I take it one day at a time"

Hadley

I Take It One Day at a Time

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.

Vanessa: In my early stages of vision loss, I would just feel so defeated at times where I felt hopeless.

Douglas: My name is Douglas Walker. When diagnosed with a vision loss. It’s not unusual to go through the grieving process. Today, we’ll hear from Vanessa. Vanessa shares with us, how learning to live in the moment allows her, to look to the future.

Vanessa: My name is Vanessa Pruit and I live in Kennewick, Washington, Eastern Washington.

I have peripheral vision, but I have scarring in my center vision, so macular degeneration atrophy, is actually what it's called. And I just found that out in August of 2019.

Well, for me, because when I felt like I couldn't accomplish something, I would let, especially in my early stages of losing vision or vision loss, I would just feel so defeated at times where I felt hopeless, and I went through that for years, and that makes you feel low and depressed. And so, after a while I was like, you have to self-talk yourself out of things because even though the world doesn't really understand, I do.

So, I had to self-talk myself into saying, "I'm better than being defeated, I'm better than just sitting here and feeling sorry for myself because of the change from when I had vision until now." And it's not an easy thing for me to do, but I just take it one day at a time. And I do believe that because of that I'm able to face another day.

Douglas: I’d love to hear your story. If you’d like to share, you can leave me a voicemail by calling, 847-512-4867. Or, you can email me a recording to [email protected]. Again, my name is Douglas Walker. Take care and I’ll see you next time.