I called Kira (one of the sight training folks) on Monday to ask if she had time for me cause I had some questions. In advance, I’d prepared a paper explaining my condition, residual vision, lighting etc. and had put questions in it in italics. So as I saw Kira on Wednesday she read the paper and was able to answer my questions.
Some questions were about my visual acuity as stated on my report. It said something about my right eye having something called “spatial perception” along with light perception, while my left eye was said to have light perception only. Kira didn’t know what that meant, but assumed it should’ve been the other way round, since I see more with my left eye than with my right one. Then there was the explanation about object and colour perception, which Kira thought to be an approximate estimate of my vision. I’d written down my own experiences and asked about not seeing more detail when objects were near. Kira said that not seeing detail was a better explanation than a vague statement about what objects I did and didn’t see. We experimented some. Kira lay her pen on the table, and I could see something on the table but absolutely not what it was. Then she lay her diary on the table, and I could see its size, but not its form. I could also see the glass in front of me, but not the lines on it, which Kira could see. Today in CPH training, Ellen mentioned being able to count the holes in the buttons on my sweater, while she was sitting across the table. I never knew.
Kira explained some more about how we see objects. She said that it’s size, contrast and light that allow us to see. She took as an example that I might put a white cupboard against a white wall but not be able to see it, or I might put a black doll cupboard against the wall, which was too small for me to see, or I might put a large, black cupboard against the wall with no light in the room, so I wouldn’t be able to see it either. This combination is not something I didn’t know about already, but it made me think about some things, like why I do see a sidestreet between grass fields - the sidestreet is one two people can walk on with ease - but don’t see a crosswalk, which has black and white stripes on the road.
Kira made some comment about my field of vision, and I said it wasn’t measurable. Still, we could say something about it. We got to speak of facing people again, and I tried to face Kira, but according to her I looked at some blackboard to her right, between which an other person could’ve been sitting. The Dutch term for that is “excentric fixation”, and I don’t know if this term exists in English as well. I’m surprised that I truly look to the right when trying to face someone, not just when trying to see them sharply. But Kira said it wasn’t rude to change between looking in the other’s direction and looking to face them in my own opinion.
I had lots of info and lots of questions about lighting. I’d thought about perhaps asking Mirjam about these things, but now that I had this time with Kira I could ask her just as well. I asked her about changes in lighting and how it could be that I had trouble when going from darkness into lighht, even when light normally isn’t too bright for me. She explained that it was possible for someone’s pupil in their eye to react slowly. Well, that’s likely, as my parents have said similar things.
I also wondered why natural light seems to bother me less than artificial light. Kira explained about the spectrum of colours of light and said that sunlight has the full spectrum and in artificial light it’s tried to imitate it. The white light I like best is the best reproduction of natural light. So that explains why indoor lighting is too bright for me, while when it’s cloudy, I only sometimes need a sunshade but no sunglasses, while if you were going to measure the Lux values, outdoors the light would still be brighter.
Then there were some comments in my report about colour perception and my not being able to identify colours. I wondered why I did not see everything in shades of grey while I still can’t identify colours - I seem to call everything red. Kira didn’t really know. She explained some about green, red and blue light being some sort of basic colours of light, and thought that it might be I am more sensitive to one colour, but she’d ask someone else.
Because of my troubles with indoor lighting and my sunglasses not really working there cause then I get trouble when going outside, we’re going to look if some pair of lighter sunglasses might help. In the meantime, I also did some experimenting with my sunshade - after all, it only costs 2 euro, while my 49.50 euro sunglasses are cheap -, and am going to take it to sight training next Monday, when I’ll get to try on the sunglasses.
