My Great Grandmother

by Jen
(Minneapolis, MN, USA)

My great grandmother had macular degeneration for the last years of her life, and it was very hard to see her try and struggle with the condition on a day to day basis.

At first it didn't seem like it was very bad. But her vision simply became worse and wasn't responding as well to prescription eyeglasses.

However, over time she began to describe a sort of "fog" in the center of her field of vision that slowly, over time, increased in size.

She described the center of this "fog" as that she really could only see shadows - the fog itself simply appeared to be gray.

She could still see things around the edges of her center of vision, but reading became increasingly difficult and eventually impossible.

I cannot remember her really driving at any point in my life, but of course this was out of the question at that point anyhow.

As it became harder for her to see she was very sad to give up reading, though my family checked out audio books for her so she could still at least have her favorite stories to listen to.

It got to a point where her bank accounts had to become dual with her daughter (my grandmother) because she couldn't read her bank statements or really even write checks anymore.

It was really truly awful to see her deteriorate so over such a long extended period of time.

She still greatly enjoyed watching television up until she passed, despite the fact that she couldn't really see it.