Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the inaugural episode of Vision After Sight, the podcast. I'm your host, Bob McPherson. I'll be leading you out on this journey to discover what the possibilities are for a blind person.
[00:00:21] A little history on me. I'm a 57 year old man that lost his eyesight 10 years ago. I'm a father of four, grandfather of three, and I'm having to learn how to re establish relationships and appreciation for all those things that I accomplished as a sighted person.
[00:00:52] When I started my journey to blindness, I owned a business that was doing billions of dollars a year. I was in my community as a major provider of healthcare services in the homes of the patients.
[00:01:10] Losing my eyesight caused me to have to re evaluate what I was doing with my life and the changes that I had to make to remain unproductive.
[00:01:29] When I lost my eyesight, I was the first blind person I ever met.
[00:01:35] And I thought that was strange. So I went through the blind rehabilitation program that the state of Michigan had had for blind people because I'm from Detroit.
[00:01:49] Well, having completed the outline of their program, I felt that they were not providing me with what I really needed. And what I needed was to learn how to be blind.
[00:02:04] Everything else in my life that I had any success with, I had to learn how to do that. The people that ran the official program for blind people, most of those people are assigned and they view their charge as a job, not as a lifestyle. You know, I believe being blind is a lifestyle and for all the lifestyles you have to adopt to be able to be successful in that lifestyle.
[00:02:38] So I decided I needed to meet more blind people. So I went to blind and support groups and what I found in those groups were people that were encouraging and had experience that really helped me in developing this lifestyle for blindness. For me, I believe that I can share that with you, all other members of the blind community, their family members and their allies to help our group become more productive not only in their own lives, but in their community.
[00:03:23] I believe in my 10 years of blindness, the fact that I didn't see blind people before I lost my eyesight. And so, and obviously the U.S. census Bureau, it says that 9% of the population is blind or suffer some kind of side loss. That tells me that if you live long enough in America, you're going to suffer some kind of a sidelong and if you're old enough, you're gonna have it. But for those of us who don't want to retire from life or to sequester ourselves from our community, that we need to learn how to be blind. And in this journey of vision after sight, that's what I hope to share with you all. So if you know of someone that's blind or you're blind or sight loss by yourself, please subscribe for our podcast so you can receive a notices of when we release another episode. Again, thank you for sharing this time with me and I'll see you on the journey.
