You have to be put in the position of having a need that you don’t know how to handle, control or cope with that makes it necessary for you to begin to explore what there is that meets your special requirements. This is what drew a group of people with low vision together to share experiences, successes and failures, laughter and information every month to enable us to keep searching for the means to overcome the deficits we have acquired, acknowledging the variability of the disease from beginning to later stage.

Whatever the stage, or type of eye disease, it is a shock to be told you have a progressive eye disease that will require treatment, possibly monthly, especially if you have been independent and self-sufficient all of your life. Denial is the first reaction to being given this diagnosis. At least that’s the case with the members of the Low Vision Group, meeting at the Vashon Senior Center the first Monday of every month. One might think that this would be a somber, depressed bunch of folk gathering together in common misery. Far from the truth. By sharing experiences that both worked and failed, we spend a lot of time trying to develop new coping strategies.

To aid us in our exploration of new technologies requires keeping abreast of the publications, inventions, devices and treatments to keep us informed. We know there are many more people with debilitating eye disease than those who have now found us. New patients are being diagnosed every day, so there are a lot of people that the group would benefit from and who would benefit from our experience. If you know someone who needs us as much as we need them, please bring them to the meeting. It will be 1 p.m. Monday, April 1.

— Dorothy Napoli