Author: Linda Moore

Happy June 1st! As Sue’s 65th birthday approaches as does her retirement from the school where’s she’s worked as a School Psychologist for many years, she’s having to make quite a few decisions.  She shares some advice about handling…

Life’s Transitions

DIY CCTV

Have an Apple or Android tablet? Did you know that you can make your own CCTV using it and an inexpensive stand?  Both types of tablets have built-in accessibility features and available apps to use their cameras to magnify whatever the camera is pointed at.  You put the tablet in the stand with the camera pointed down so that anything you put under it will be magnified on the tablet.  You can also use a text-to-speech app to read any text you put under the tablet.

Click on the image to the left to go to the website for the Justand V2.

There is another option to make a customized stand for your tablet using a Modular Hose System.  Sue writes about it in her page  DIY CCTV which has links to a video by Sam of The Blind Life who reviews the system.

iPad to HD TV

You can connect your tablet to an HD TV so that whatever is on the tablet is shown on the TV.  You don’t have to have the tablet on a stand to do this. [Not sure you can do this with an Android tablet but you can with an iPad.]

To connect an iPad to an HD TV,  you need:

1. a TV with an HD (high definition – HDMI) port;
2.  a connector that connects the iPad to an HDMI cable; Click here to find the Lightning Digital AV Adapter – Lightning to HDMI 
3. an HDMI cable that goes from the iPad cable to the TV’s HDMI port.

Sue shares the step-by-step instructions in her page As If By Magic.

If you know how to connect an Android tablet to a TV, please tell us how in the comments.

 

If you’ve been reading Sue’s pages, you know that exercise is critical to her well-being.  After five days with no exercise at the professional conference she attended, she’s getting back to her routine.  The older we get, the harder it is to recover from detraining.  Despite the lack of physical exercise at the conference, it gave her a chance to use a quote about…

Old Age and Treachery

As May comes to the half-way mark (at the time the page was written), Sue continues to plan her summer.  On the subject of AMD, Sue reviews an article about the clinical trial process and what we need to watch out for (eg, trials that ask you to pay to be in them).  The author of the article shares some “extremely promising developments” in stem cell research.  There are incredibly brilliant people involved AMD research so…

How Can We Lose?

 

Sue attended a conference with four colleagues from the counseling center.  They bonded over several different cuisines, something that can be a special experience for those with vision loss.  At the very least it gives us something new to talk about.  So, we wonder…

Do You Like Thai?

She also writes about how she was able to get PDF documents of the copyrighted text for the conference, something that is allowed by law.  And last but not least, she shares the information in an article that outlines how this is the decade for those with inherited retinal disease.

Although the concept of ‘talking books’ has been around for MANY years – since the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877 – it wasn’t until the mid-to-late 1970s that they became available commercially.  1986 is considered a turning point (read more about it in Wikipedia).  Now the industry is going “where no one has gone before”…

Audio Holodeck?

https://mymacularjournal.com/archives/10192

I apologize that I’ve gotten behind with Sue’s pages.  You’ll know how far behind when you read her first line “Happy Cinco de Mayo!” and read about her getting ready for a conference that she’s been back from for a week!  She wrote about news of research pairing Eylea with an antibody with the hope of increasing its effectiveness while she was packing for the conference and declared…

I Need a Sherpa

Spoiler Alert – why should you read Sue’s Journal Pages?

After a year of learning how to deal with her visual impairment both physically and emotionally, Sue has a rather ‘normal for her’ life: At age 64 and with advanced AMD geographic atrophy, she works several jobs, attends regular exercise classes, rides her bike safely, travels, walks her dog, kayaks, attends social events with her friends.   We are not suggesting that reading her journal will ensure you the same results but we hope that Sue’s Journal of Her Journey will be educational and inspirational.

We’ve compiled the first part of a series of Sue’s Best Pages.  If you don’t think you are ready to tackle all 500 of them, here’s our suggestion of where to start.

Sue’s Best Pages: Part 1

Sue writes about…

That Little Summer Dress

Spoiler Alert – why should you read Sue’s Journal Pages?

After a year of learning how to deal with her visual impairment both physically and emotionally, Sue has a rather ‘normal for her’ life: At age 64 and with advanced AMD geographic atrophy, she works several jobs, attends regular exercise classes, rides her bike safely, travels, walks her dog, kayaks, attends social events with her friends.   We are not suggesting that reading her journal will ensure you the same results but we hope that Sue’s Journal of Her Journey will be educational and inspirational.

We’ve compiled the first part of a series of Sue’s Best Pages.  If you don’t think you are ready to tackle all 500 of them, here’s our suggestion of where to start.

Sue’s Best Pages: Part 1

Continuing with…

From the Inbox

Quiz Time!

Once again, the topic of the AREDS/AREDS2 supplements keeps coming up and there is still mis-information being passed around. I understand it’s a complex topic so we’ll just keep going over it. Test your knowledge.  The questions are all based on the AREDS and AREDS2 research (and related studies) after they were done.

Click here to go to the quiz and the answers.

Sue’s email inbox is usually full but she eventually gets to most of the ones about research into AMD.  She writes about two studies using anti-VEGF injections for wet AMD.

News From Research

It is so frustrating not be able to do things at home that you might have been able to do in the past and do safely.  There are some good tips for avoiding some of these things so that you can remain safe and independent. Here’s a good article with tips on:

• finding clothing that matches
• using the microwave control pad so you don’t burn your food
• avoiding falls on floors, over furniture and down steps by providing contrast
• chosing the right kind of lighting for the area and the task
• putting lighting where you need it, inside and outside
• cutting down glare that makes it more difficult to see
• finding out what low vision aids are available for the home and where to get them
• adapting each room in the house for your needs

There are some research studies that just don’t look like they’d be fun to be part of.  Sue & I both agree that this is one we wish we’d been part of!

Chocolate!

It’s been 2 years since Sue started writing her journal pages and I added content from my research.  With all that content, we know it is hard to know where to start if you’ve not been following from the beginning.  Earlier this year I went through her journal pages and highlight some of her words to help you to find pages that may be helpful to you.

There are 4 Sue’s Musings pages, you can start here:

Sue’s Musings: Then and Now – Part 1 – 1/18/2018

I know that some of you save your favorite journal pages. Do YOU have a page you’d like to recommend?  If you do, add it in the comments section or email you recommendations to me at light2sight5153@gmail.com.  Thanks!