Servus!
I’m Stefan Lohmaier and I’m over 40 years old now. In my mid thirties I lost most of my vision and I’m almost blind now. This was due to bleedings and infections in my eye, while I had graft-versus-host-disease after a stem-cell-transplant. That was necessary, because I had cerebral form of Adrenoleukodystrophy. Now My daily life is a bit different than before! The only thing, that was stable was my job situation. I still work full time as a Senior Software Engineer. My website mainly focuses on my blindness.
Visual Impairment
My visual impairment is strange to describe. I used the Impairment Simulator Software by University of Cambridge to make show, what I’m seeing.
On both eyes my field of view is tiny. That alone grants me blindness by law in Germany. In addition I have constant noise, like on old televisions. On the left eye my vision in the small field of view is about 20%-30%. On the right eye it’s less than 2%. For my vision the black parts of the simulation do not exist. They are not black. They are gone! That’s what’s the haredest to imagine for most people.
What does that mean in every day life? My right eye is completely useless. It’s distorted and just some colors mushed together. On my left eye I can actually see a couple of letters depending on the light conditions. If it’s dark I only see black. If it’s bright I only see white. Every year what I see in the small sport gets worse due to new bleedings, which are taken care of by the eye clinic.
This of course affects my every day life. I can’t really read in any acceptable speed. So I read using Braille or speech output. I can’t walk without bumping into things. That’s why I use a white cane. I will write some reviews about the help devices I have.
