macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis Boot Camp – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

Boot Camp

Waiting for a ride here. Looking through the allaboutvision.com site. Some interesting articles.

All About Vision is a decent site. That is my first point. Second point? Never have nothing to do. Waiting for people can be deadly when you have nothing to do. Third point: be ready to jump up and run when they finally do get there. Make sure whatever you are doing can go away in 15 seconds or less.

So that is my visually impaired lady wisdom for the day. Back to all allaboutvision.com. They have an article saying physical health, cognitive ability and emotional health need to be considered when dealing with the visually impaired. I really want to say “no s***” and label it a no brainer, but maybe people really don’t realize how important those factors are to a good adjustment.

Total human being here. The days of believing in the separation of mind and body are long gone.

Sort of like PLEASE in DBT. Take care of your health. If you don’t maintain your ‘vehicle’ you are going nowhere. There are plenty of data about the benefits of staying fit and strong. Vision loss is plenty. I, for one, do not need to add heart failure or diabetes to the list.

There is not much you can do about exceeding the smarts God gave you, but you need to remember what was given to you is actually a range. Biology sets the range and the point on that range is determined by the environment.

The point you are at can be up to you. Try to function towards the top of that range.

Don’t quote me but I think I read something like 80% of what we learn comes through vision. The flow of knowledge has been blocked for us. We now have to actively work on learning and staying sharp.

Emotional health, read depression and anxiety, can be a serious factor when you are visually impaired. We talked about loss before. Don’t let anyone downplay it. Vision loss is a death. Grief is natural. Depression is not uncommon. The number I read was 30% of people with vision loss are depressed.

Anxiety is pretty natural, too. My panic attacks were not fun but they could have been predicted. The article said that people who only have AMD in one eye are often more anxious because they are waiting for the other eye to fail. Will today be the day? Will today be the end ?

So do these factors truly affect your resilience? Duh, yeah! Therefore, it is time to go walk that mile. Solve that puzzle. Accumulate positives by doing things that make you happy.

This is AMD boot camp. Let’s get prepared! There is a campaign ahead.

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