As an alumni of the Mu Rho chapter of Kappa Sigma at Missouri State, any time I'm back at the old school, I try to meet the new members and pledges. One of the duties of a pledge was(several years ago, at least) to collect interviews from as many brothers as possible. An interview consisted of learning year born, year pledged, pin number, favorite movies/books/beer, etc.
This afternoon, I got an E mail from a brother who pledged seven years ago. His message said, "Engel, remember when you gave us your interview? Scottie asked you if they magically found a way to restore your sight, would you want it done? You said no, that you'd already gone through one major life's trauma and the next big change might not be welcome."
I'm not sure those were my exact words, but they do have some of my thoughts. Most people can't fathom why, if the medical community would have knowledge to restore my sight, why I wouldn't do it. Well, there are lots and lots of things to ask before considering this: is it permanent? Would it be a 100% restoration? What is the process? How much recovery? Is there any chance of a loss reoccurring? So many questions that can't be answered now in May of 2007. In 10 years, maybe we'll know those answers, but today we don't. Thus, I'll cross that bridge when/if the medical community has that breakthrough.
After telling me what I said, the brother forwarded an article about the new breakthroughs in embryonic stem cell work that has restored sight to some blind mice(three of them? I dunno!) It was an interesting article with some work that sounds promising...but I put so very little stock into this.
It seems people are forever giving me articles on how new research is coming up with new and improved medical hopes for the future. That's all good and fine, but to state for the record-I love my life! I do not need my sight back to have a perfectly happy and fulfilled life! And I don't spend my time falsely hoping for docs to come up with something new. I just don't. If it happens in the future, well, we'll worry about it then! Until then, I'm pretty darned content with who I am(though I would like to lose about 20 lbs.) and I'm content with my life(though I would like to get some of these moving boxes unpacked soon)...if you're interested in the article, it can be found in Reuters.
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I agree with your comments regarding sight restoration. I have been visually impaired my entire life and would not want my sight restored. My visual impairment is part of who I am, and changing that would change me as a person.
Sight restoration could pose some interesting challenges for people who were born blind as they would have to learn to navigate the visual world from the beginning.
Your entires always make me think. This one was no exception. Thanks for the nugget of thought in my Monday night routine.
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