News

So it's been a bit since I've posted. (Don't worry Becca, pictures are still being taken, I just need to get them off my camera.) I've talked about it to a few of my friends, though apparently fewer than I thought, but I've been having a vision problem since coming back to law school. It's called pseudomyopia, and I've had it before. When it started the first week back, I think I was just in denial that I had it. However, it's gotten worse ever since. A couple of weeks ago I made an appointment with the eye doctor, and the earliest I could get in was tomorrow afternoon. 

Pseudomyopia is basically just eye strain caused by focusing on one area for too long, particularly on a computer screen or a book.  The problem for me is that as a law student, I have no choice but to do either of those things. I have to spend hours each day on a computer taking notes or doing research, and my reading is required and takes me several hours to do. Pseudomyopia makes things so blurry that I can barely see the screen or my books. It takes me at least twice as long to do my work as it should, and I have difficulty participating in class. 

I had a breakdown yesterday because I'm so stressed out by all of this, and went to talk to Dean Adams. I wish I had done it sooner, because she set me up with the center for educational access (the new, PC name for disabilities). Today I spent a while talking with the vision expert about my problem. I think I'm going to have to get my books converted into PDF format and possibly into mp3s. We also discussed regular magnifiers and screen readers for my computer. I've got a problem there in that so far, all of the programs are for PCs, not Macs, and they're pretty expensive. The program I need is about $1000, though I think I found an educational copy for $600. Once I get documentation from my doctor, I can have letters sent to my professors and we can work on some of the classroom issues... such as seating, keeping the lights on, powerpoints in large print, and accomodations for me in May when I take my finals. Hopefully the eye doctor will tell me tomorrow that this can be fixed and isn't a lifelong problem. If it is, I'm going to have to find some way to accept it quickly and get used to all of the technology that can help me read, because I'm not giving up computers and books for the rest of my life.