We Are Never Alone

By Bradford Blair

In fall 2021, I was in a new city and starting to find a post-COVID pandemic groove. New opportunities, new challenges, the desire to begin anew. Since senior year of high school, I knew retinitis pigmentosa (RP) was a part of my life, but it was still mostly on the literal and figurative periphery of my life. Certainly, I had way less vision than the average dude, but I could get around. I decided to give up driving, that seemed one area of my life where the costs vastly outweighed the benefits. And the tell-tale night blindness was, more or less, manageable. I could still show up for the open mic at the dimly lit bar, and after I navigated a place once, I had the way forward tucked into my memory for next time. I could manage, or so I thought.

By winter 2022, it was painfully obvious to me that my vision was degrading at a rapid clip. The first big sign was my inability to handle brightness; a white computer screen, the mid-day sun, impossible. This was not part of the fickle deal I made with my RP, that being limited peripheral vision and low vision at night. The isolation of COVID was globally shared, but only I was experiencing the change in my vision. Frankly, it felt extremely unfair.

Before long, I had gotten warm, shaded glasses to help with reading bright computer screens, adopted high contrast screens for work, and had fully wraparound sunglasses made for me just so I could go outside during the day. Irony of ironies, the dude with RP now often would only go outside dusk to dawn. I could navigate the void dark, I could not navigate the blinding light. Being in airports felt humiliating. I take no pride in saying that, at that moment, I was simply not prepared, willing, or able to live with my disability for the pre-check line to see. I wanted to hide it like before. Plenty of people with perfect vision don’t drive, everyone eventually has trouble seeing in the dark, both plausible commonalities. As much as I wanted my sight back, I think what I wanted more was the feeling, correct or incorrect, that I was no different than anyone else.

Sometimes it is indeed darkest before the dawn. By fall 2022, I was working with an RP specialist who found an opportunity for relief. My RP wasn’t the cause of my vision degradation over the past year, rather it was the enormous cataracts smeared onto my eyes like dollops of hazy butter. Those with RP often get cataracts earlier in life. While a cure for RP is not (yet!) here, cutting out those cataracts was most definitely within reach.

By January 2023, I had one cataract removed, with the next one coming in February. That gap period was extremely validating for me. Doing the Wayne’s World “Camera one, Camera two” cycle between my cataract-free eye and soon-to-be cataract-free eye was unequivocal proof of what I was dealing with. I am forever grateful to the medical community for giving me this life-changing experience, and to my family and friends for holding me up every step of the way.

I mentioned life was unfair earlier, that cuts both ways. It is extremely unfair that so many people on this earth do not have the means to get cataract surgery. I am one of the lucky ones, and I am here telling my story to nudge us all, even if just for a moment, to wonder how we can make those dealing with vision loss of any kind feel just a little bit more included. That goes for me too, self-acceptance is a work in process.

As of summer 2026, my RP is still along for my life’s journey. Running into stuff on my periphery, firing up my iPhone flashlight to find the dimly-lit restroom, I can handle that! So much hope and promise in all the research the Foundation Fighting Blindness and others are doing, I know someday a cure will be found.

Life is inherently uncertain, what happens if we embrace that? Trust yourself and your intuition. When you are in a crowded place, grab your buddy’s shoulder, they will guide you. My strength is for me to define, no one else. Most of all, I know I never have been, and never will be, alone.