[NAGDU] {Spam?} Cataracts, Surgery, and Having a Guide Dog -- LONG

[Cindy Ray]

My goodness, Lisie. I think Buddy was right. You have over thought this to
the point of absolute chaos. Look, you decided to train your dog to be a
guide because you needed him to guide you. You would be using a cane because
you are blind. I don't know what any of the rest of this has to do with it.
First off, none of us would even have known about it if you didn't choose to
tell us. How could anybody think you were some kind of jerk? Even though
most of us are well adjusted and have learned to live with the amount of
vision we have, no one would want to be blind, and you clearly are not
faking it. Are you ashamed of the fact that now there are other reasons for
the blindness, or do you think you should be? There are costs to surgeries.
Your doctor told you what some of these are. If you decided not to have the
surgery you have thought through why. You can't have it yet anyway, so you
will maybe change your mind a number of times. Just enjoy your dog and learn
to use the dog and the cane efficiently. Any techniques that blind people
use are likely to help you with having a full life. Only you get to decide
how you will deal with it. Take care, take a deep breath, and get back to
your regularly scheduled life as you figure out what is best for you to do.
Cindy Lou Ray
cindyray at gmail.com


-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lisie Foster via
NAGDU
Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2016 7:43 PM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Cc: Lisie Foster <lisiefoster at yahoo.com>
Subject: [NAGDU] {Spam?} Cataracts, Surgery, and Having a Guide Dog -- LONG

This is long. I'm sorry. I tried to make it shorter but I failed miserably.
Please feel free to skip over it because it's long and probably whiny.

I know I don't post much but I really need help with figuring something out,
so I hope it's OK I'm posting this to the list.

I have progressive/degenerative myopia, with only light perception vision at
night and in dim light. My dog and I trained with and graduated from a
service dog training program as a team a while ago. And, since I have
trained working dogs before, and because I've studied guide dog training for
years ( I originally wanted to become a guide dog mobility instructor, but
continued studying when I was told my vision might progress to the point of
legally blindness). So, I trained my dog's guide work and he's now been
working beautifully for months. I can go out after dark again, and I've
gained a lot of confidence and independence because of him.

My near-total loss of vision in dark conditions has always been attributed
to the fact that I have a high-degree, progressive, not-fully-correctable
form of myopia (it's considered an eye disease, different from simple
nearsightedness, as it usually leads to other vision changes and loss, and
it typically reaches a point where it can no longer be fully corrected).

Yesterday, I had my first appointment with an ophthalmologist in a different
practice than my normal one; he was my second opinion because I never felt
like the other doctor took me seriously. 

So, the new doctor found that, in addition to progressive/degenerative
high-degree myopia, I also have two other things going on: one is something
new, but minor, called "convergence...something", which can't be corrected
but isn't a big deal. The second thing he found was that I've developed
unusual forms of cataracts in both eyes. He said these cataracts are
responsible for at least part of my near-total loss of night vision, my
partial loss of color vision, the problems with severe glare, etc.

When I asked him if it was a matter of having a simple surgery (like almost
everyone does at some point in their lives, at least in the U.S.), he
paused, then said carefully that I wouldn't have the same outcome as most
people do with cataract surgery. Most likely, I'd lose close & mid range
vision to a low or mid partial level that may or may not be correctable. He
doesn't know if the myopia would continue to progress; but, he said the
surgery might help, at least for a while, with regard to my long distance
visual acuity.

He told me having surgery would help eliminate some of the issues with
glare, and would improve my night vision to an extent. He's not entirely
sure that these cataracts will stay fully within the lens of the eye,
because they're different from typical ones; they are a lot like cortical
cataracts, but aren't age-related, (I'm in my early 30's), but they can form
in or around the lens, and sometimes invade surrounding tissues. They're
totally benign, thank goodness, but the dr said surgery may not be able to
stop the later development of more of these in the area that would surround
an artificial, implanted lens. He said my insurer wouldn't pay for surgery
right now, anyway, since the cataracts need to be larger before they'd even
consider it. My insurer's criteria for surgery isn't related to functioning,
but by objective measurement.

Last night, I decided that since I only had cataracts, I had no reason to
have my dog work as a guide anymore. I'd planned to simply stay at home at
night, stop working my dog as a guide, and undergo surgery whenever that
will be (it could be six months, or it could be a couple of years). I
decided that, since cataracts are treatable, it was an insult to people with
eye conditions that aren't treatable to ever consider letting my dog guide
again, and that it would be wrong of me to stay on guide dog lists like this
one.

I finally slept, after two days on two hours of sleep, and hope I'm thinking
more clearly today. 

After what my doctor said, I don't even know that I want to have surgery,
primarily because of the drawbacks and the likelihood that it would do as
much harm as it would do good. He was clear that having surgery will destroy
the vision I rely on most (near-to-mid range), which may not be able to be
corrected at all.

So, do I sound like a horrible person for not jumping at the chance to wait
and have cataract surgery? What if I decide not to have it? Do you think I'm
almost obligated by social norms to have the surgery, no matter how it
impacts my vision, and whether I want it or not?

I mean, would any of you -- people who are REAL guide dog handlers, people
who have their dogs due to far more significant and much more valid reasons
for vision loss than I have -- consider it selfish or wrong of me to choose
against surgery under these circumstances? Would you personally be offended
if I continued to allow my dog to work as a guide at night, and if I were to
keep using my cane in dark/dim conditions, at least for the time being
(until surgery was possible and I made a decision)? Would you think of me as
abusing the system? Would I be abusing it? If I don't have the surgery, will
I seem like an ungrateful idiot? 

I know that, without the surgery, I'd become legally blind both day and
night sooner than I would from progressive myopia, alone. But, not having
the surgery would mean I'd be able to retain a fair amount of the type of
vision I use most -- close/mid-range vision, despite being legally blind. 
(I only qualify for certain types of surgery due to the other conditions, so
there is no way to get around the side-effects on my near vision). But if I
allowed the cataracts to progress in order to preserve near vision, would
you regard me as someone who should NOT ever be considered blind, and as
someone who should NEVER be allowed to apply for a guide dog, because I
didn't have the surgery?

I'm rambling. A lot. I hope maybe some of this made sense. If anyone might
have any advice or thoughts here -- even if it's to say I'm a total idiot
for ever thinking I had a reason to teach my dog to guide, that I had no
reason to ever have had O&M training at all, or to say that I'm a complete
jerk for using a cane to navigate at night before my dog was fully trained
-- I'll be grateful to you. 

Having thought for years that my night vision, or lack of it, was due to one
thing, it's really confusing to suddenly learn that oh, it's also probably
because of something that surgery might help, but that same surgery would be
done at the expense of other aspects of my vision that I value more.

Help? Please? Thank you if you made it this far! I didn't mean to re-write
War and Peace on the listserv, but I just did, so I'm sorry if I broke the
list in doing so. Haha!

Thank you!


Lisie and her funny sweetheart of a dog (who keeps trying to get his mommy
to stop typing and get his leash for a walk)


Sent from my iPhone
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