In late September we introduced you to team Polar Vision, Alan Lock, Richard Smith, and Andrew Jensen, three recent MBA grads who are trekking to the South Pole to raise awareness for visual impairment. While on their journey, the team will be filing periodic blog posts. This is the first such post from Jensen.
“You feel like a cobra is tightening its coils around you,”
Rabih Dow, Director of Rehabilitation Services at the Carroll Center for the Blind, says this to me, sets his white cane aside, and leans back in his chair. There’s a brief moment of silence in the room as the last few leaves fall off the trees outside the Center’s Newton, Massachusetts, office.
I don’t mention to Rabih that cobras don’t coil. He continues: “Tonight, when you’re in your home, try to brush your teeth with your eyes closed. Try to put toothpaste on the brush. It’s hard! It’s really hard!”
Another pause, while this sinks in. He leans forward, excited now. “But it’s not impossible! You can learn to do it! And we can teach you! And then we want you to leave the Center and get out into the world,”
Rahib is talking to me about progressive, sight loss causing disease. We often think of blindness as someone either being able to see or not, but typically what happens is a gradual erosion of eyesight, until it fades completely. Rahib, and the Carroll Center, teach people to accept the challenges which accompany visual impairment, and through acceptance build the techniques necessary to live independent lives.
Read the full article: Dispatches From the South Pole, Entry 1: Preparation