My name is Karl Johan Seitz. And you may know me as young Jack Damon on “This Is Us”. This is me… I was born and raised in Southern California. I was also born with bilateral Peters Anomaly, a rare genetic condition that clouded the front of my corneas and severely limited my vision. Dr. Bibiana Reiser (my favorite doctor in the world) has been caring for me at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for over seven years and checks my eyes monthly. I have undergone 21 surgeries, including several cornea transplants. As a result, I was able to gain a limited amount of my vision back – but I am a ..read more

I grew up in the country in Kewanee, Illinois, at our family veterinary clinic. Growing up, I was a skinny, nerdy little kid – and my interest in fitness developed to address that! Fast forward to 2014: I had graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree in Health Science and was working a couple of jobs in the fitness sector. Then that November, my sight went downhill suddenly. I had always worn glasses, then contact lenses, so thought I was just in need of a new prescription. As it turned out, I had developed Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy. I learned the “fun” way that I could no longer drive, p ..read more

At the age of fourteen, I was faced with a brutal reality – one I did not see coming – literally. Two words changed my life forever: cone dystrophy. At the time, I wasn’t ready to accept this rare eye condition, not to mention the term “legally blind” that followed it. And why should I have been ready? My Sicilian birthplace in Italy gave me no support or tools because teachers and peers only viewed me as incapable in every way. Thankfully, my parents were not ready to give up on their legally blind daughter. They were determined to make sure I still had a bright future ahead of me, even if t ..read more

No one becomes blind by choice. This is a tough road. Yet despite the hardships that this condition brings, being blind does not automatically mean that a person is helpless or lacking in abilities or capabilities. Nor should anyone ever deprive us of the respect and dignity that we deserve within our society. From the blind person’s point of view, our disability is only confined to our eyes. All the other sensory and intellectual capacities are functioning similar to an abled person – and a blind person has the same creative, analytical and communication skills as anybody else. We have the a ..read more

Hi, I’m Chris – and I was born with less-than-perfect vision. The medical stuff mystifies me to this day, but the easiest way to explain it is to say that I’m super near-sighted. For those who want the official medical terms, I have encountered a retinal detachment, glaucoma and cataracts along the way. I know – that might sound like a lot, huh? But my vision has stayed pretty much the same throughout, give or take a line or two in that fun eye chart. Sure, there are days when I scream to myself “Why me?!” But they’re far and few between, and I allow myself to play the “woe is me game” for a ..read more

My mum has been visually impaired as a result of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) for 15 years. Today, she is almost completely blind. I’m her caregiver and I have followed her journey from the beginning – seeing her doing less and less activities over time. I shared my concerns with associations for the blind, orthoptists and opticians because I saw a real need to develop solutions that would help people like my mother continue to engage in brain-stimulating activities, especially word games. As R&D manager for more than 20 years in a healthcare company, I decided two years ago to ..read more

My name is Jessie and I have an incurable degenerative eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa (RP). I was diagnosed with RP when I was only seven years old – and learning how to accept my condition has been an ongoing and confusing process. When I was seven, I didn’t understand the gravity of my disease or what it meant for my life, and I was able to live carefree. It wasn’t until I was fourteen years old when my parents talked in more detail about it with me, and I will never forget how it felt to have them sit me down, and tell me that I was slowly going blind. To say that my world was tur ..read more

I stood smiling in my kitchen that was set like a stage just before 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 11, 2020. My parents and sister had spent the early afternoon reorganizing, and now, it was almost time. My sister sat behind the camera, making sure my phone was angled correctly on the tripod to keep me in frame throughout the Facebook livestream. My long curls were perfectly styled, my makeup light, and my dress pretty and pink, my favorite color. My parents and little brother gathered in the other room to watch on the big TV, and before I knew it, I was reaching over to turn on my speaker and cue ..read more

I always wanted to be a disc jockey. I started doing gigs at school in the late 1970s as I loved music and it really helped me overcome my shyness. I continued the mobile DJ role until I was 30 when I was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disorder that would eventually leave me blind. So I gave up the music and just stuck with my day job of working with acrylics. Then I thought “Why can’t I be a DJ again?” With some great training at RNIB Connect Radio in north London I managed it and it was during that time that I decided to take up golf. When I first took it up, my sight was a lot better an ..read more

You’ve made a list. You’ve checked it twice. Now it’s time to find a non-visually accessible gift that’s really, really nice! The blind and low-vision parents on your holiday gift list definitely deserve a little holiday cheer! Whether they’re on the city bus juggling their infant, their groceries, and their cane all at the same time; walking their kids to school in the freezing cold; or figuring out how to help their teenager with print algebra homework, being a parent who is blind sometimes feels like running a marathon along a route you have to personally pave yourself as you run. We asked ..read more