May is Mental Health Month
How has your macular degeneration diagnosis impacted your mental health? What activities or self-care comforts do you turn to when you're feeling down? What's the best coping advice you've ever received?
Pray pray some more and remind myself how great my retina specialist is. Left over debris from injections drying up leakage has been a challenge in adjusting to vision changes.
Hi
. Does the debris eventually clear up for you? I can see how that would be challenging. - Lori (Team Member)
Choc
no unfortunately it has not and unless an emergency occurs there is no solution for removal I'm sorry to hear that. I hope it at least gets no worse. - Lori (Team Member)
Bad time for me to have mental health month I am being fiddled around by My Aged Care who have stopped delivery on a roller for my cane because of red tape. My mental health is shot, my wife who is now my driver gets lost in an area she has lived in for 40 yeears, I sit on phones waiting for people who then tell me to read the website, Read the website, I cannot read my medicine botlles.. Mental Health month is a joke and does nothing to help low vision people who become a NOn person but a thing to be told what to do and when to do, that is when they answer the phone.
Hi
. It sounds like you are dealing with a whole lot of change at once. The issue with the roller for your cane must be maddening. Can your wife sort through it for you or is that something she can't handle right now? If not your wife, is there another relative or a friend who can handle the website-related issue? It is unfair and insensitive when they refer someone with low vision to a website. Should that happen again. I hope you come right out and tell them you are blind even if you are not fully blind. It's probably easier if they treat you as legally blind because they seem to have trouble with that gray area that low vision falls into. Are you familiar with bump dots? They can be a great tool for identifying medications and other things with small writing. Here is an article about them: https://maculardegeneration.net/living/bump-dots-uses. You might have to increase the text size. I hope someday we can add an audio feature for people with low vision. The fact that your wife is getting lost in familiar areas is concerning. Has she been evaluated for dementia? If she must drive, maybe she should use a GPS or a map application on a cell phone for all trips. You might have to begin looking into alternative transportation. I know that sounds overwhelming, but many people get by with a combination of resources. It can psychologically and physically overwhelming to deal with all this change and all these obstacles at once, but if you tackle them one at a time and if you enlist help, you'll get through this. Please remember that we are here for you, even if you simply need a place to vent. Sending the best of all wishes your way. - Lori (Team Member) First I share your frustration, the only people who understand are ones with the same problem. I am a research scientist (biochemist retired from lab) and have wet AMD and have been researching AMD for 6 years now. Yes, it is frustrating.
I recently got a devastating diagnosis and prognosis. I’m going to therapy to help me get a handle on the sadness. Staying busy helps; clean out closets, get organized for when blindness comes. Working with our state’s Commission for the Blind to gain skills. Best of all: Getting a dog! I desperately need the special companionship a dog provides PLUS I’m going to work with an organization in town for a year to get the dog trained to pass the test as an official service dog! I had to get out of the emotional morass and start taking some actions that will help me retain independence as vision is lost.
I am 92 and starting to experience the same problems most AMD sufferers have. Getting a dog is a great idea. I am also deaf, and have a deaf-trained dog who is my constant companion. A dog (or cat) won't help with your AMD, but they will listen without hesitation, and oftentimes know when you are really down and need their attention. Your dog will listen without judgment. Let us know how that goes. 
What a beautiful pup! How wonderful that you have a service dog to lean on, both as a companion and an aid. Thanks for sharing the photo. You really brightened my day. - Lori (Team Member)
