Jamie’s Story

When I was about sixteen I noticed my eyesight wasn’t as good as my best friend’s was. My Mom always warned me that if I read without good lighting my eyes would go bad so I took great measures to always have adequate light. My best friend Sarah did the exact opposite, reading as best she could wherever, even if it was practically black in the room. I warned her she would lose her vision. It turned out to be the exact opposite.

As the years wore on my eyesight grew steadily worse, at age nineteen I noticed something very disturbing. One day as my teacher lectured I realized that when I looked at his shirt it was dark blue, but when I looked at his face it became gray. It worried me so that I finally went to the doctor’s. My older borther had already been diagnosed with Stargardts a few years earlier, and when I went to the optometrist he told me I had it too. I’m now twenty-one and I’m learning to deal with this disease. The thing that bothers me the most about Stargardt’s is the lack of ability to see people’s faces clearly, even though they are only about six feet away, I’ve had people think I was mad at them because they waved and smiled at me from across a room and I just stred them down without a smile or acknowledgement.

Of course because I couldn’t see them. Sometimes I marvel at how I used to take my eyesight for granted. now I would do almost anything to get it back. I’ve decided to start a real crusade about doing whatever I can to somehow miraculously heal it, avoid oxidants, and drown myself in anti-oxidants. shield my eyes as much as possible from bright sunlight and always keep lights on when watching T.V., and continually pray.

I feel very deeply about everyone out there with this affliction, because I know how disturbing, restricting, and in some cases, embarassing, it is. If anyone want’s to just talk about it, feel free to write to me at: Koalabee81@aol.com.

Good luck to you all.