"The vision I have left": One woman's story of living with degenerative eye disease

Writer Nicole C. Kear (image: Justine Cooper)

The top image shows normal vision. The bottom image shows tunnel vision caused by retinitis pigmentosa. (Wen-Hsuan Wu and Yi-Ting Tsai,Barbara and Donald Jonas Laboratory of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, Columbia University)

Kear and her children. After her diagnosis, the first thing she thought about was being able to see her children when they were born. (image courtesy of Kear)

(book cover image courtesy of St. Martin's Press)

Nicole C. Kear always thought it was normal when shed bump into things but when she turned 19, she soon realized it wasnt just clumsiness. She was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease that would eventually leave her blind.

In her newly published memoir, Now I See You, Kear details the story of how the diagnosis taught her to embrace life.

Just after her sophomore year of college, Kear went to her ophthalmologist for a routine check-up. She offhandedly mentioned an incident at the beach a few months prior, when she realized she couldnt see any of the stars.

[My boyfriend at the time] was really shocked, because they were very bright, Kear told FoxNews.com. I never suspected it was an actual problem; we joked about it.

Her ophthalmologist referred Kear to a specialist, who then used an electroretinogram to measure the electrical activity in her retinas in response to light. The device utilizes electrodes in the form of contact lenses, which measure the electrical responses of the eyes cells.

Once he whipped that out, I had a suspicion things werent going very well, Kear said.

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"The vision I have left": One woman's story of living with degenerative eye disease