Kerataconus and Me

Well this is not a technology related post, but I get asked about it alot and people have sketchy details about what it is (ie. they know my vision is messed up). Keratoconus (from Greek: kerato- horn, cornea; and konos cone), is a degenerative non-inflammatory disorder of the eye in which structural changes within the cornea cause it to thin and change to a more conical shape than its normal gradual curve. In plain English, light bends in a distorted way to make vision ghosted, blurry and less sharp. Glasses cannot fix this problem as they fix issues with your natural lense behind the cornea, as usually it has improper focus.

Thankfully it is a rare disorder, perhaps genetic and it only occurs in 1 out of every 1,000 people or so, I am wearing hard gas permeable (Oxygen can go through them) lenses which are the biggest pain in the world to wear, hard pieces of plastic literally sitting on your eye. This is a short term solution however, as my eyes will continue to degenerate for the next 20 years or so, then will be most likely followed by a Cornea transplant (ie. I recieve some other [usually dead!] persons’ corneas). There is technology being worked on, such as slicing the cornea and inserting half a contact lense (literally) in each side to prop it up. Most likely I am more fortunate then a person diagnosed with it 10 or 20 years ago, as time is on my side. The reason I don’t talk about it as I don’t want it to be a sop story or people to have pity, it is just a fact of my life, one which I am optimistic of for the future. Maybe awareness can help raise money for reasearch and such forth, that would make make me happy. Really my only cause for concern is this: will computers catch up enough on screen readers and other disability technology by the time I am blind??!!!! The Wikipedia article is fantastic, and was my first port of call about it when I found out I had it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerataconus