I am sure I have mentioned that we LOVE the show Extreme Home Makeover. We love it for many reasons. As parents of multiple children with disabilities we are always inspired by the families featured on the show. Some episodes hit a little closer to home than others. Last nights episode featured a family in which both parents were blind. If you missed it you can watch the episode here.
Our daughter Sera, is visually impaired. At this point we are still not sure what she is seeing. She is considered to be legally blind but we believe she has some type of vision. It is amazing at 2 years old how well she has learned to compensate for her lack of vision. Before she got her glasses she could not see anything beyond 5 inches from her face. Like I said, we are not sure what she is seeing now she has glasses and what her brain is processing. We do know that she has no depth perception and no peripheral vision. She is SOOOO good at compensating you may not even notice her using her hands to guide herself. Here is a video of Sera playing with a toy with both of her eyes patched so that we KNOW she cannot see anything.
Although Sera is learning to use her "stick" when she is outside of the home and we are beginning to talk about her learning braille, I still have a hard time seeing her with a visual disability. She is just Sera! It was really good for me to see the Anderson family and the obstacles they face daily. That will be a reality for our daughter some day. As she gets older her visual impairments will be more obvious. After watching the show and then looking around our house I see we have a lot to work on. We want to give Sera a home where she is safe and can grow and blossom into the beautiful girl the God created her to be.
Oh my goodness..she is adorable!!!
ReplyDelete