[Nfbc-sj] REMINDER: OUR NEXT CHAPTER MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR Saturday, November 19, 2022 at 3PM VIA ZOOM

[Brian Quintana]

Hi,
Another item for consideration is the 1999 movie starring Val Kilmer called At First Sight where he too has a surgery to restore his sight and the aftermath of that decision.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132512/
Look forward to the discussion on Saturday.
BQ

From: Brian Buhrow<mailto:buhrow at nfbcal.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2022 7:20 PM
To: NFB San Jose/Silicon Valley Chapter<mailto:nfbc-sj at nfbcal.org>
Subject: Re: [Nfbc-sj] REMINDER: OUR NEXT CHAPTER MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR Saturday, November 19, 2022 at 3PM VIA ZOOM

        hello.  In preparation for Saturday's discussion, here is an item to read to
provide food for thought.

Crashing Through: One man's journey from blindness to sight. (Available on Bookshare)
By Robert Kurson
Throughout human history, a vanishingly small number of people have made the transition from
being a blind person to being a sighted person.  This book describes the journey Mike May, yes
the same Mike may you know as the one who creates GPS navigation tools, as he takes that
journey.  This is a fascinating read which explores all the issues that have ben touched on
in this discussion: thoughts on how to decide what to do, questions about the pros and cons,
and the implications that come with each of the steps in this process.

When I was 17, long before this book came out, an eye doctor proposed that he could restore
much of my eye sight by performing a corneal transplant and thus eliminating much of the damage
caused by my congenital glaucoma.  I was about to graduate from high school and had already
applied to a number of colleges.  Since he could only say there was a 50-50 chance it would
work, and, if it didn't work, I'd assuredly lose any remaining eye sight that I still had, I
elected to not go forward with the surgery.  I wanted to get on with my life, which was just
getting underway, from my perspective, and not have to deal with the unknowns anymore.  After
reading this book, I now know that I made the right choice.  Even if the surgery had been
successful, I would still be living as a blind person because I lost my eyesight at a very
young age.

When considering this question, I agree with what David said.  I would add that as part of that
consideration, it's worth thinking about how much the cost of sight restoration might be.  Not
just the monetary cost associated with the medical aspects of the procedure, but the cost in
terms of time lost in recovery, potential retraining, not to mention the potential cost of the
failure of the procedure.


Looking forward to hearing evryone's thoughts next week.

-Brian

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