Looking Into My Future

It’s crazy how my eye disease can affect both my sight of a paper in front of me and my sight of the future. When I am looking into my future, sometimes I see blurry spots just like when I forget to it in my contacts. However, the blanks in my future are much harder to fill in than the missing part of the wall I’m looking at right now 

What will my education look like?

I am currently a senior in high school. As I have been applying to college, I can’t help but wonder about a few things. 

Will my professors understand my situation?

Will it be hard to get around campus?

Will I be able to complete all my assignments/tests on time?

For some background info, I’m planning on double majoring in psychology and dance. Then that will be followed up by med school and a residency to be a pediatric psychiatrist. I realize these goals are a little ambitious, which is why I am nervous. I don’t want my eye disease to hold me back from going after what I want in life. 

Also, I want to go out of state for college. For context, I live in Ohio so I need to get out asap. But my mom is worried about me living on my own. She thinks I’ll struggle because of my eye disease and won’t have anyone to turn to. I always tell her that I’ll be fine, but it’s still a little scary (don’t tell her I said that!). 

Are my options limited?

More than anything, I want to help kids to work through any problems they might have so that they can go on to do whatever they want to do. I figured that the best way to do this is to be a pediatric psychiatrist. I am so excited to pursue this career because I think I could help a lot of kids in meaningful ways. 

But sometimes I think about how lucky I am that this is my passion because other careers may be more difficult to pursue. There are many jobs that require 20/20 vision, which I will never have. What if I wanted to be a pediatric surgeon? I couldn’t because of the limits my vision puts on me. I am lucky that I’ll likely be able to pursue my goals, but other kids in my situation may not be able to. 

How will my future look?

I am also very aware of the fact that I may not know how my future will look when I get there. Why? Because I may lose more of my vision. 

Right now, I am fortunate enough to have kept most of my vision with the help of my extra-strength contacts. But five years down the line? Ten? I don’t know what, or if, I will be able to see. It’s a scary thought that haunts my mind. Will I forget what my family looks like? Will I be able to see the faces of any children I may have? Will I still be able to dance? It’s all unknown to me. I don’t like not knowing things. I really, REALLY, don’t like it. But that’s the reality of living with a progressive eye disease. Everything is unknown, and when we try and squint to lol for the answers, all we see are a bunch of blurry spots. 

If you like this post, check out one of my previous posts that goes into more depth on my experiences with education: Back to School