Highlight: Bob Wheeler
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Judy Wolf
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Sudden
Blindness Can't Steal His Vision
by Judy Wolf
I
met Bob Wheeler while volunteering at the Central Association for the
Blind and Visually Impaired in Utica, New York. His story struck me as
inspiring on many levels -- not least of which is imagining what I myself
would have done under similar circumstances. We can only hope we all show
such optimism and generosity of spirit in our daily lives, regardless
of our personal challenges.
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The dark-haired, blue-eyed college student raised his bow, aimed at what he’d been told was the direction of the target, and loosed his first arrow. He immediately reached down for another arrow, reloaded, and let fly. A collective gasp went up from his classmates.
The young man was
Bob Wheeler, and because he was blind, he’d been put at the end
of the row as a safety consideration. He instantly wondered what had happened.
His instructor came over and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Bob,”
she said, “you split the arrows.”
Bob Wheeler lost his eyesight at the age of 26. He’d had 20/20 vision all his life, so when he started seeing black lines that persisted for days at a time, he visited his local optometrist, who instantly referred him to an eye clinic.
There the doctors estimated he had five weeks before he would be totally blind.
Wheeler had been working 18 to 20 hours a day at his successful flooring business and going through a stressful divorce. When a nurse put a blood pressure cuff on his arm, he registered at 214/170 (high blood pressure is defined as 140/90 or higher). Those black lines he’d been seeing were capillaries rupturing in his retinas.
A few months and sixteen corrective surgeries later, Wheeler was legally blind. Despite all efforts to preserve his vision, he no longer registered anything but blackness and an occasional pinprick of light.
Wheeler admits he sat on the couch for a few despairing weeks. Then a friend whose office he had previously measured for flooring called him up to ask if he could recommend anyone to finish the job. “Something rose up inside me,” says Wheeler. “I heard myself say ‘I’ll do it.’ I thought I was crazy when I said that!” He did the job. “They tell me it looks good.”
Having had no contact with blind individuals before losing his own sight, Wheeler had no measures for what he could or couldn’t do. He also had no idea what resources existed to help him. As far as he knew, he was on his own.
When another friend offered him a job running the front counter at his appliance repair shop, Wheeler accepted. The shop had a computer, but Wheeler couldn’t read the screen, so it sat unused. Instead, he took in over 100 items a day, logging contact information, due dates, and repairs completely by memory. “I kept thinking there had to be a way to access the computer. That knowledge had to be out there.”
So he began making phone calls. Eventually, he learned about the New York State Commission for the Blind and was assigned a counselor who came to visit him at the shop, bringing with him a woman from the Carroll Center, a blind training facility in Massachusetts.
Wheeler threw himself wholeheartedly into learning the skills needed to navigate his newly blind world, from walking with a cane and doing household tasks to reading Braille and accessing adaptive computer technology. “Nothing was going to hold me back,” says Wheeler.
A few months later, Wheeler announced that he wanted to pursue a legal degree. “I’d been fascinated by the law all my life, but it was never something I’d have considered if this hadn’t happened to me.”
His blue collar background proved to be a substantial road block. “No four-year colleges would take me because I’d been out of high school eleven years.”
Being newly blind and not having attended college before, even Wheeler wondered whether he could achieve his goals. He went on interview after interview, and finally enrolled in a two-year paralegal program at a local community college. He took a full course load, earned top grades and scholarships, and was invited to join the honors program.
He also placed in the top four in an archery competition. “Reclaiming archery was a deeply rewarding experience. It was one less limitation. That’s the sort of thing that convinces me I can do anything.”
Today,
he’s enrolled in law school and works as an adaptive computer technician
helping other blind individuals use current technology to broaden and
enrich their own lives. “Helping people is important to me,”
says Wheeler. “I want to share with people that we can do anything,
if we only believe in ourselves.”
Do you have an interesting story to tell? Or know of an adventurous or inspiring tale lived by someone else? Let me know!
Copyright (c) 2004 Judy Wolf
About
the Author:
Judy Wolf (www.judywolf.com)
is a world traveler, freelance writer, speaker, and whitewater kayak instructor.
She's taken numerous, extended solo journeys around the world, traveling by
foot, bus, jeep, camel, truck, boat, train, plane, elephant, and bicycle to
over 30 countries on five continents. She currently lives in upstate New York
with her husband and border collie, where she's working on a book-length travel
narrative about her most recent adventures…that is, when she's not plunging
off waterfalls or entertaining the dog.
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