“Asking for Help Is Not a Weakness”

For years, Marcela San Miguel Cantu didn’t fully understand what she was experiencing with her vision.

She had been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) at age 40, but the signs had started much earlier. As a child, she struggled to see in the dark and often looked down while walking. At the time, she thought these were things everyone experienced.

Even after her diagnosis, it took years for Marcela to fully recognize how much her vision had changed.

“I really only started dealing with my condition about three years ago because I didn’t understand the time that my brain was filling in for a lot that I couldn’t see,” says Marcela. “There wasn’t that connection made at the initial diagnosis.”

That realization came after two falls within a few months. The first happened while Marcela was walking her dog. She tripped over a pavement edge she couldn’t see and fell hard enough that the leash flew from her hand. Then, while out celebrating her birthday with friends, she fell again in a dark parking area, scraping her knee.

After the second fall, Marcela realized she needed to make a change.

“I need to ask for help,” recalls Marcela. “I don’t want to seriously hurt myself. I’m not used to asking for others to help, and then I felt I really had to humble myself, and just start asking for help.”

That realization led Marcela to begin exploring the tools and resources that could help her navigate the world more safely and independently.

Marcela also began to recognize that her experience with vision loss was not necessarily what others might expect. Having grown up with a father who was visually impaired in one eye, she had her own misconceptions about what blindness looked like. Her experience with RP helped her understand just how different vision loss can be from one person to another.

“Everybody is on their own journey of vision loss,” says Marcela. “It looks different for everyone.”

That perspective is something she carries with her from her years as an educator, where she taught elementary school as well as composition and literature at the community college level. She understands the importance of helping people learn about experiences they may not have encountered themselves.

For Marcela, finding others who understood her experience became an important part of that learning process. While looking for organizations that could help, she discovered the Foundation Fighting Blindness and attended a local event. There, she met someone who also had RP for the first time.

“She was like a mentor, introducing me to the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the low vision world,” says Marcela. “Her journey started much earlier than mine. So for me, it helped me to see someone who’s been through it longer to kind of reassure me of certain worries, or be someone I could talk to who could relate to my journey too.”

That connection also opened the door to a larger community and to research that gives her hope for what comes next.

“It excites me to know that there are researchers all over the world working on my disease,” says Marcela.

Now, Marcela hopes others navigating vision loss will feel empowered to seek the support they need.

“Asking for help is not a weakness,” says Marcela. “There is help out there.”

 

Will you join Marcela and share your story? This Blindness Awareness Month, #ShareYourVision and help raise awareness of the many ways people experience vision loss. Together, our stories can build understanding, strengthen our community, and move research forward.