Tag Archives: vision

The Day a Candle Became My Worst Enemy

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One night in the fifth grade I remember running into my mothers room to tell her about an assignment I did well on. She had come back from a 12-hour shift at the hospital and she was excited to see my brothers and I. When I finished telling her about my grade I noticed she was tired so I asked if I could blow out her candles, which she always lit every night. My mother is a very cautious person, especially with dealing with trauma and emergency patients at her hospital, so blowing out a candle or going anywhere near fire at a young age was a big deal in her eyes. Reluctantly she said yes and I was so excited, seeing as I was the baby and small for my age I never really got to do much on my own.

As I went to blow out the candle I remember vividly my mom saying, “don’t give me a reason to go back to the hospital”, and then I blew. Needless to say I blew too hard and the wick from the candle blew back into my eye causing me to have a corneal abrasion. Obviously my mother spoke to soon, and jumped up as she saw me cradling my eye. Rushing back to the hospital I was vaguely aware of what was going on. My mother took care of me patched me and was overly attentive. The rest of that night is still hard to remember.

However, a few days later I do remember being sensitive to light, had some blurred vision and some of the things I viewed with my right eye were distorted. From my perceptions class I realized that my visual activity was distorted a little. My retinal ganglion cells in response to spatial frequency weren’t cohesive. Because of the damage and my cornea repairing itself, my vision acuity was off. Shapes and objects were off in my vision if they were too far away because the edge of an object produces single stripes and can be blurred but shadows in a retinal image. The visual system breaks down images into different parts and this caused for my eye to not be able to focus well until it was healed. After a week or so my vision was back to normal and my ophthalmologist said my eyesight was back to normal and my astigmatism wasn’t as sever any more. Even though this story is embarrassing and at the age of 21 my mom still wont let me blow out a candle, its nice to know what happened with my vision all those years ago and that my vision did improve if only slightly.

 

“What Color is This?”

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Throughout my life I have been corrected numerous times when stating the color of an object or material. Shades of purple and blue can get mixed up as well as shades of green and red. I am often corrected by my fiancé when picking out new clothing at a store, and there are even times when I have to ask her, “What color is this?” Although it can be frustrating at times admitting that I am wrong and my fiancé is right, this form of colorblindness has not affected me too much in my daily life. Maybe this colorblindness is a reason as to why I often chose neon colors as my favorite because they are the easiest for me to identify?

Unfortunately for my younger sister, this problem has become much more of an obstacle. During this class we have learned that red/green colorblindness can be hereditary and this has proved to be true for her as well. She is in her sophomore year at The United States Air Force Academy and recently found out she is red/green colorblind just like I am. However, she suffered immediate consequences regarding her future in the military. This colorblindness meant that she will never be allowed to pilot an airplane like she had once hoped. Many of the indicator lights in an airplane are small dots of red and green next to each other, so the slightest hesitation in determining them could prove deadly. Although I know this seemed like a huge setback for her at first, I believe she is handling it quite well. As a result of not being able to fly a plane, she has learned to fly her body, and has become an avid skydiver over the last year. She even is planning on helping me earn my skydiving license this summer.

This red/green colorblindness is a result of genetics. When light enters the eye is hits the rods and cones in the retina. The cones are responsible for color vision and contain photo pigments that respond to the amount of light that is hitting them. There are three types of cones in the eye that allow a person to see color when they send signals to the brain together. However, if any of the cones are deficient, then a person will not be able to see a full spectrum of color. My sister and I have most likely both inherited this from our parents due to a bad X chromosome. The difference is that I inherited this from only my mother because as a male I only have one X chromosome. My sister however, has received deficient X chromosomes from both my mother and father because she has two X chromosomes and still is red/green colorblind.

There are many tests to determine if a person is colorblind and the most popular is a dot test. These tests are often available for free online and can help a person gain some insight into their ability to see color. The following website has a free colorblind test for those readers who are interested.

http://enchroma.com/test/instructions/