If I should go blind

[serene]

So there's no way to say this next sentence without sounding kind of dramatic, but imagine me saying it in a "hmm, that's interesting" kind of way, not an "OHMIGOD" kind of way, because I've known about it for a couple of years and it's not something I lie awake at night thinking about, 'kay?

There's a small-to-medium-sized chance, according to my eye doctor, that one day I will wake up and my eyesight will be very bad, and then I'll go blind very quickly. I have a rare enough form of macular degeneration that every retina examination I've ever had has prompted the doctor to go grab a bunch of other docs and students to take a look. Also? They're always *stunned* (and a bit unbelieving) that I've never done drugs (besides legal ones). Seems that the crystals in my retinas are in an unusual pattern that's generally caused by drug abuse.

So, anyway.

I am thinking of doing two things as proactive disability preparation for myself: Learning to use screen-reader software, and maybe learning Braille.

I know that Braille is used less and less often as other kinds of accessible texts spring up all over the place, but when I think about the prospect of being forced to be *read to* instead of reading things for myself, in my head, in my own voice, I get a bit agitated and upset.

So, anyone out there know the best way for me to go about learning Braille?

Comments

[ailbhe]

I don't know how you'd start but I imagine the cognitive process would be fairly similar to learning to read print, in that subconscious word-recognition would be important after a bit. I wonder would those magnetic labels for tins help? They're a shopping-list tool; a sighted person says what the tins are and the braille-reader labels them and when the tin is empty the label sticks to the fridge door for a shopping list.