Over 40 years ago, I visited Shoshone Falls outside my home town, Twin Falls, Idaho with my mom and my grandmother. I have a vivid memory of my mother slowly and nervously driving up the narrow steep grade that lacked a guard rail. Standing on the front seat between her and my grandmother (no car seat requirements in 1964!), I said "Uh Oh! I think we're having an accident!" My grandmother recounted that visit and comment for years afterward. Now, all these years later I took my son and my mother back down that same grade which hasn't improved much. Nor has Mom's attitude which was white-knuckled and characterized by small gasps of fear. Somethings never change. Shoshone Falls is still breath taking, and my mom still hates going there. Ethan loved it!
I met with my eye doctor last week about taking some time off from my vision therapy. I have been doing therapy since my stroke almost two and a half years ago. I am tired, and a need a break. My doctor said, “This is completely understandable. Take some time off.” At the appointment, my doctor tested my vision. Because of the strokes, my vision was affected, and I have a problem in my field of vision on the right side. I have a deficit with my right side peripheral vision. However, it is getting better. During the test, I told him that I “sense things on the right side of my peripheral vision.” It seems that I know that something is there, but I cannot really distinguish what it is. He told me that there is a body of thought describing phantom vision or phantom blindness. A Polish researcher, L. Bieganowski, described this phantom blindness this way: “The subject of the paper is the phenomenon of phantom vision. It occurs among the blind (or almost blind...
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