[stylist] having obviously different eyes

[Kasondra Payne]

I was born with cataracts in both eyes.  The cataract in my right eye was removed when I was a baby, I developed glaucoma in that eye some years later.  The cataract in my left eye was removed when I was thirteen, and I had some sight in both eyes for the next year and a half.  My retina in my right eye detached during my freshman year of high school after a surgery to control the pressure.  Later, an inflammation invaded the remaining eye, and caused a lot of pain and havoc.  

At about that time, a young man named Shawn entered my life.  We had met in church several years before, but we hated each other.  Finally we decided that the other was worth a second look.  Even though we were too young to date, he was my closest friend, and he attended Church dances and activities just to be with me.  He understood how I had been teased and left out because he had got it too because he was overweight.  He is one of the few people who knows what I looked like before I got my prosthetic shell over the emploded mess of my right eye.  

Shawn and I dated during most of high school.  We drifted apart, and we didn't see each other for four and a half years.  I dated others, but they weren't right.  I had believed as a teenager that Shawn was the right one for me.  

I thank God that he brought us back together in January of 1999.  We were married on July 17, 1999.  Shawn has always accepted my blindness, and he joined the NFB before we got married.  Shawn is sighted, and sometimes he has become the default driver for events, and he is always willing to help.  He has learned Braille and had cane travel lessons.  Two of our children are blind,  and he has been right there wit me to make sure that they have the education and skills they need.  

Yes, my eyes look different.  Sighted people think my right eye is real, and they do not believe that it is fake--until I pop it out and show them.  I am so thankful that I have a sweet man by my side who accepts me no matter how my eyes look!

-----Original Message-----
From: James Canaday M.A. N6YR <n6yr at sunflower.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2009 7:04 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] having obviously different eyes


 I'd posted this under the thoughtprovoker-love, and thought I'd
 repost on its own topic in case anybody wants to discuss this.  I
 found and fixed some typos, too.
 I understand what you express about your eyes, I understand it first-hand.
 I was born with a half dozen eye deformities, some of which weren't
 supposed to occur in the same eyes.  the miracle was I had some
 limited left eye vision
 until I was thirteen when a generalized inflamation whiped out my
 retinas in the seeing and unseeing eyes.  so, besides the
 deformities, my eyes then  always looked
 perminently bloodshot.  one eye was smaller than the other.

 I could never ever even think of getting a date in high school.  many
 times on the high school campus I would first become aware of one or
 more girls staring
 at me because I would hear "eewwwwww!"  I did go to the Prom, a third
 party arranged for me to go with a Japanese girl who had braces.  I
 don't think she
 was happy to go with me but she did.  we had no relationship after that.
 when I was twenty-five, the scarring from that general inflamation
 was calcifying, hardening, and one of my birth defects was
 glaucoma.  put these two together
 and you get very painful eyes.

 so, mine were removed.  the eyes I have now made by the occularist
 are quite nice and people really like them.  they absolutely cannot
 tell they are prosthetics.

 yes, sighted women love to look in their men's eyes, especially at
 special moments.  but there are women who are of a deeper disposition
 who will see your
 heart, and if you have a good character, they will find that very
 attractive Justin.

 having deformed eyes is hard, I won't lie to you about that.  but
 there are other things in life.  and the really good women won't be
 put off by deformed
 eyes.

 ---
 to add, after the removal of my eyes, it took me some months  to
 adjust to having prosthetics.  that was hard too.  it felt strange,
 though my ugly deformed eyes were gone I had to learn to use the
 prosthetics and to have them as part of my appearance and who I am.

 jc

 Jim Canaday M.A.
 Lawrence, KS


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