A day in the life of Visual Snow

This morning I woke up... I enjoyed the few seconds of silence before my brain decided to turn up the volume on my tinnitus. My tinnitus sounds very similar to that of a far away tea kettle screaming on a hot stove begging to be taken off. My first thought is "It's still there!"

I blink my eyes several times to focus on getting into the bathroom. If it's too dark I have a hard time due to an off balanced sensation I often get.

I jump in the shower and try not to focus on the tiles in my shower which appear to be flashing when I move my head. This is very similar to a light being turned off and on very quickly. The tiles also shimmer and shake ever so slightly. 

After I get dressed I go into my sons room to wake him up for school. I make my way to his bed while navigating through a dimly lit room and a visual field full of static. This is very similar to an old analog television screen having bad reception. My eyes make brief contact with a sliver of light shining through my sons window. I am then left with an afterimage of that light (a vertical line appearing everywhere I look for several seconds). 

After my son is dressed I get into my car to drive him to school. I try and focus as hard as I can on one object as everything in my peripheral vision appears slightly choppy. It's basically like looking at a moving image behind an oscillating fan. The medical term for this symptom is conspicuous akinetopsia. You are more likely to get into a plane crash than getting that particular symptom. I can still drive and I can see all movement, however movement in my peripheral vision is not as fluid as movement in my central vision. The anxiety that this causes swells up inside of me. Some days I fight back tears while my son is in the car because it terrifies me to think about my future. I sometimes glance at people in the cars next to me. Some with smiles on their faces enjoying life. Others upset over traffic as if it were the worst part of their day. I immediately become angry and jealous over my situation. I try my best to overcome this by positive thinking, but it's hard. I have had this condition for over 7 years and though we've located the areas of the brain that is causing these symptoms, we still have no treatment. In order to find a treatment, we need more medical studies. In order to get these medical studies done, we need funding. 

I have been on the other side of this illness. I have been the person smiling in the car enjoying life and I have been the person screaming at others in traffic. I never thought about donating to any cause because it didn't pertain to me. Infact I just didn't really care because I had too much going on in my own life. I understand this thinking. But we need to change this type of thinking. There are so many people out there struggling with different conditions and they need help as well. 

Please consider donating to help continue studies on Visual Snow so that one day I might be able to see normally and enjoy my life once again as well as countless others.

www.eyeonvision.org

www.gofundme.com/visual-snow