this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!
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My mother worked for the Minnesota State Services for the Blind for 40 years, so I grew up around a lot of blind people.
One of the things that surprises most people is that most "legally blind" people can still see, they just have impaired vision. Anywhere from complete blindness (no sense of light) to cloudy or blurry patches obscuring parts of their vision. So asking what blind people can see is kind of a complicated question, as it depends on their specific condition.
One of my best friends in high school woke up with clouded-over corneas one day. It was a congenital condition, inherited from his biological parents, but a surprise because he was adopted as a baby, so he had no idea what his biological medical conditions were until they happened. (He also has Marfan's Syndrome and a heart condition, and was basically told by doctors he'd be lucky to live past his teens, which thankfully wasn't true. He's almost 40 now and still going. But I digress...)
Fortunately, I had spent enough time around blind people that I was able to help him get from class to class. His biggest annoyance was people shoving their hands in his face and asking, "Can you see this?" And when he flinched at the blurry object flying at his face, they would accuse him of faking his blindness.
Eventually, he got a corneal transplant and was able to regain most of his vision. But his vision is still bad enough that he's considered legally blind. He had started working as a chef right out of high school (he attended the Culinary Institute of America, so he had professional training), but further complications with his vision down the road meant that he had to quit his dream job. No business would hire him, as his disability made him a liability in the kitchen.
In the case of my friend, he said it was reasonable that no one wanted him in the kitchen. He kept burning himself because he had a hard time telling the difference between countertops and hot surfaces. Also, he had a bad habit of putting his face so close to cooking food so he could see what he was doing, that he was getting splattered in the face with hot grease and oils.
If he had spent his whole life blind, he probably would've learned how to get around better. But developing blindness at the tail end of high school left him struggling to figure out solutions to daily life, just as he was becoming a responsible adult who had to pay bills.
He went to Harvard to pursue a different degree path and is now working as a manager of a financial investment company.