Is he going blind?

A piece in today’s New York Times caught my eye.

Am I Going Blind? was written by columnist Frank Bruni, who describes waking up one morning late in 2017 unable to see clearly. “The affliction that stole my vision, or at least a big chunk of it, did so as I slept,” he writes. “I went to bed seeing the world one way. I woke up seeing it another.”

Bruti’s artful account of living with his deteriorating vision would make anyone feel empathy for him. For me, I was struck by some uncanny similarities to my own experience decades ago.

His diagnosis (nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy) is quite different from the diabetic retinopathy that stole my vision, and at age 53, he is precisely twice as old as I was when my eyesight began to diminish. Those two facts aside, his other accounts of early vision loss are so similar to my experience that it’s downright uncanny. Let’s start with this excerpt, where he describes his first symptoms:

On that first morning, several hours passed before I accepted that something was seriously wrong. I figured that I was just groggier than usual. Maybe I needed more coffee.

As I sat at my computer transcribing a long interview that I’d just done, I repeatedly took off my eyeglasses to clean them, convinced that the smudginess of my vision was some streakiness on the lenses. When I finally gave up on that, I rinsed my eyes with water — to no avail. It was as if someone had deposited a blob of petroleum jelly in my right eye and nothing would dislodge it.

As for me, I first noticed spots in my eyesight on our honeymoon in Scotland whend Mike had to stop the car to let the sheep cross the road. Here from my memoir Long Time, No See:

Maybe sheep in Scotland have spots on them. Or maybe my contacts were dirty. I took out my contacts, gave them a quick wipe, and put them back in. Still the spots. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed my eye. Still the spots. I looked up at the blue sky and saw it suddenly go cloudy. I closed one eye, then the other. I could see fine out of the right eye, but in the left eye the spots were spreading into spider webs.

Bruni mentions not just one, not just two, but yes, three injections directly into his eyes. I, too, endured three such injections. He is involved in a research study and may have been given a placebo. Same with me. He was told only 20% of people with his disease lose their eyesight completely. Those were my odds, too, and for nine months after my initial diagnosis I woke up just the way Bruni describes in his article: “It was the same every morning: a stab of suspense, then a gale-force sigh of relief. I could still see.”

And then, one day, I couldn’t.

But that happened to me 30+ years ago. Science, technology, and research are all on Bruni’s side, and I hope–and expect–his remaining eyesight will be saved. And of course I approve of his coping method in the meantime: writing a personal essay about it. He includes some strong reporting in addition to his personal descriptions,too, and I hope you’ll give the piece a read.