January 28, 2024

through elizabeth's eyes

A close-up view of office supplies seen through glass. There are many colorful pencils + a plaque that says "MOM BOSS"

Elizabeth Lane, 62, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, suffered sudden, irreversible vision loss in 2022 that left her legally blind overnight.


As evidenced by her desk, “color is a big part of my life. I used to love to spend hours in Sherwin-Williams or any paint store, and I could pick dead on, you know, ‘this is the color I’m looking for.’ Now, I see shapes, I see shadows. I’m blessed that I can still see color. I’m trying now to find that there’s still a lot of beauty I’m able to see. But it’s very different.”



In the process of adjusting to life with low vision, she has learned much about how blindness, like color, exists on a spectrum.

Elizabeth, a woman in her 60s with short brown hair, frowns while trying to draw a picture to depict her vision
This image is meant to portray Elizabeth's vision; a highly blurred and distorted image of sunlight comingthrough blinds

Elizabeth struggles to articulate what she sees and says that this is one of the most frustrating aspects of her vision loss. “It’s sort of as if someone made a beautiful painting and then took their hand all over it before it dried and smeared it all together. I wish I could [show people what I’m seeing], because that would explain so much of ‘why can you do this, but you can’t do that?’” When asked to draw what she sees, she tries, but says her representation falls very short.

Horizontal lines are particularly vexing. Elizabeth’s vision started to blur on the night of June 3rd, 2022, but she chalked the issue up to having worked a long day at her computer. She recalls seeing the blinds in her kitchen the next morning and realizing that something was seriously wrong. On hearing her description of them as “very wavy, and missing chunks,” her ophthalmologist advised that she immediately go to the emergency room at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston.

A  woman in her 60s looks out a ferry window to a gray day on the ocean. She has short brown hair + a green coat

“There’s an element of grief about being blind – for me – and wishing that I could go back and appreciate more of when I did have vision, and all of the things I took for granted…I think that comes with life, with many things. You never realize what you have until you don’t have it.”



Despite the loneliness of Elizabeth’s newly blurred world, she says her family has been incredibly emotionally supportive, and she still finds joy in daily life. She and her daughter recently took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard for an off-season getaway.


While on Martha’s Vineyard, they took in sights, sounds, textures, and smells at a local alpaca farm. Elizabeth’s doctors have cautioned her to prepare to lose her vision entirely, and she says there is still so much more she wants to do while she is able to.

Elizabeth, wearing a green coat and holder her white cane, smiles with a wonderous expression at an alpaca on a farm

While she is on the fence about doing any significant travel, she hopes to resume activities that she used to love, such as rowing. “I know there’s a group in Maryland that does it – it’s actually a group of young women. They’re blind and they row. And that’s fascinating to me.”

Elizabeth watches a man who is visibly blind use a computer keyboard in a yellow-walled office
A close up of Elizabeth's hands above a kitchen counter as she uses a device that enlarges text to read a quote

In pursuit of both personal and career goals, Elizabeth is learning to use technologies like JAWS (Job Access With Speech) at the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Massachusetts. JAWS is known as the world’s most popular screen reader, and helps users navigate computers using keystrokes and speech/Braille output. JAWS training is one of the many services offered by the Carroll Center, which has served blind and low-vision clients since 1936. 



Elizabeth is not alone in using assistive technologies to maximize the vision she does still have. 90% of legally blind individuals have some vision – i.e., only 10% experience the complete blackness that is stereotypically used to depict blindness for sighted individuals. For Elizabeth, “that’s been the most fascinating thing to me, to learn that blindness is a spectrum.”


Another area organization, the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind (MCB), serves blind and low-vision individuals in the state. They regularly hold events, like White Cane Awareness Day, which informs residents about driving laws intended to protect white cane users.

A young man with brown skin and dark hair is seen through a crowd in a large room, peering closely at his cell phone

Here, a young man with a visual impairment uses his phone while attending the October 2023 White Cane Awareness Day celebration. Elizabeth takes a similar approach when using her cell phone or looking at a document up close, something she says can confuse people and even lead them to suggest she is “faking it.” Misperceptions like this can be emotionally harmful and dangerous for blind and low-vision individuals. Elizabeth suspects they generally arise due to a lack of awareness about the variety of experiences along the blindness spectrum.

A Golden Retriever sleeps on a marble floor under a group of chairs w/people in them. A white cane is visible on a chair

A service dog rests during White Cane Awareness Day. Elizabeth plans to apply to work with a guide dog as soon as she is eligible to do so. Guide dog applicants must be able to demonstrate that they have independent travel abilities using their existing mobility devices. Though the costs of breeding, training, and caring for guide dogs can be upwards of $50,000, guide dogs are typically made available to users at no personal cost to them.


For now, she relies on her white cane and her family. Though using a cane can bring frustrations, to Elizabeth it ultimately represents independence. Certain canes have additional features, including the ability to be folded up when not in use.

Elizabeth, in a pale pink sweatshirt, folds up a white cane as she sits at a counter in an oceanside sunlit restaurant

Part of the cane’s utility can be in signaling – for example, when Elizabeth walks through a restaurant like Fisherman’s View in Sandwich Massachusetts, other restaurant-goers notice her cane and give her a wider berth or offer help. While blind individuals say that respectful offers of help are generally appreciated, many report that people will feel comfortable touching them without permission, or will shout instead of speaking at a normal volume. These approaches are, understandably, less welcomed.


As Elizabeth reflects over a drink with her husband, she considers the year ahead. “All of us get handed things in life that can just totally stop you in your tracks. But it’s all life and it is a cycle. And I’m hoping in the next year to continue finding my way through this new challenge that I’ve been handed.”



One sign of a hopefully auspicious year to come? In early December, Elizabeth and her husband adopted Maple, a three-month-old dog rescued from Arkansas. Though Elizabeth must wait for a dog who can help her navigate the world, Maple can provide something that is arguably just as important: comfort, companionship, and joy, thereby bringing just a little more metaphorical color to Elizabeth’s day-to-day life.

A closeup of a light brown Chihuahua mix puppy staring into the camera from Elizabeth's arms. Elizabeth smiles.