Success Story

Macular dystrophy my eye disease

Hi,
I am suman dahal.I am thirty years old, and I am from Kathmandu, Nepal. When I was in grade 9 and fifteen years old, I couldn't focus my eyes and see the blackboard letters even with the corrected minus glasses. I visited the eye doctor and came to know that I have 6\12 vision. He referred me to the retina specialist and I was diagnosed with macular dystrophy. From the beginning I was missing some part of the face of my teacher and this has slowly worsened over a period of time and at present, there is a complete black spot when I look directly to their faces. But I still can roam around with my peripherial vision and can see some part of their face.

It has been fifteen years that I have been diagnosed and indeed, it is difficult to perform daily curricular activities. But I have been working hard and I am a graduate in my major subject, Sociology and Political science. I am using low vision aids like domemagnifier and telescope. It is very hard to explain about the disease to illiterate people but we should not give up. I still have my peripherial vision that is why I am still able to read and write till now. This disease is unpredictable and so I don't know which type of macular dystrophy I have, as we do not the gene test available in our country Nepal. People in my town think that I am suffering from depression when I don't recognize them on the way but I try to explain them about my vision that I don't have a central vision. It is really hard to compete with the friend but we should try to find out the way to perform a activities like they do by using our mind. Yes, it will take a more time than the people with good vision to perform any task but we should be optimistic. I don't know what will happen in future but have been trying to compete with the world and been hopeful that I can be a role model to those who feel sad due to their eye condition.