Blind Woman Turns Disability Into A Super Power

“Eclipsed: My Journey Into Blindness And The Miraculous Surgery That Restored My Sight Decades Later” By Elizabeth Pizzarello

Transcript

Super Power

Growing up Beth Pizzarello wondered what it would be like to be blind. Playing Marco Polo in the swimming pool she squeezed her eyes closed and listened for her friends. At birthday parties she’d be blindfolded and handed a bat to swing at a piñata. 

But at age five when she got glasses, she realized her vision was something to appreciate. She loved to read, especially Nancy Drew, and books about the solar system. 

My father was a scientist and he brought us… He worked for a university, a large university, and we were exposed to things they were unimaginable, including a super telescope. 

It was there that she saw how her glasses were like the telescope lens.

I was always amazed that these lenses that you could see stars were lenses like that were on my face. So when I was a kid, I considered my glasses like my superpower, where I could put them on and I could see things that maybe the rest of the world couldn't see. 

This is a story about how Beth learned to find other kinds of magic. This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.

Top Of The World

When Beth Pizzarello was 22, she was planning her bright future after graduation from a small college in Pennsylvania. She was wrapping up final exams, sending out résumés, and talking with friends about landing her dream job as a scientist or comptroller.

I was on the top of the world…. I had two degrees – one in biology, one in business. I had a minor in economics…So I saw all of these wondrous possibilities.

One day while studying for a final, she noticed she was having trouble keeping her eyes focused. She thought it was just eye strain from all the reading she was doing. But a week later when she walked into her friend’s desk, she thought she might need to get her eyes checked.

My thought was a couple of drops send me on my way to this great new life I was going to start in a matter of weeks.

Diagnosis

Two weeks before graduation Beth’s dad drove her to the eye doctor where they ran several tests. She sat in his office waiting for the results.

And he said, ‘Elizabeth, did you notice you have lost some sight?’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘you know, I studied hard, have some problems maybe from that.’ And he said, ‘no, this is something else.’ He said, ‘you're losing sight and you're going blind.’ And I said, ‘going blind. Like, who are you? Who are you talking to?’ I said, ‘Doc, I've got big plans. In two weeks I'm graduating with two degrees, both sight dependent.’I could still see him looking at me and saying, ‘well, Elizabeth, if things go the way we see they're happening right now. You'll be blind by 40.’ 

Beth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Shocked, she walked back to her father in the waiting room.

I couldn't even tell him. He said to me, ‘well, got your drops.’ And I said, ‘no, no, not today.’ 

Beth climbed in the car and closed her eyes as her father drove her back to campus.

I closed my eyes and pretended I was sleeping and I cried. I could feel the tears. And I kept thinking, ‘what am I going to do? Who is going to hire a blind scientist? Who is going to hire a comptroller, an accountant who can't see the numbers?’

As she rode back to school, the doctor’s words repeated in her head, ‘blind by 40.’ 

At that moment I realized I had lost my confidence in myself. On that day, I was totally paralyzed and blind to any opportunities because I could not see one good thing happening at that moment. 

The Gray Zone

Almost immediately Beth noticed her sight changing. First she lost her peripheral vision, then the number of floaters she saw increased, and she developed a blind spot in her right eye.

There were times where my sight loss would be more noticeable. It was full force. There were times where it stopped, almost like I thought, this is the end of it. 

The longest plateau lasted a year. She thought maybe the doctors got it wrong, then more of her sight would suddenly be gone.

As time went, I lost my ability to see any sort of detail on people. That was all gone. Color was next. And then all of a sudden, all I could see was white, gray and kind of black and people’s forms.

She called this period the gray zone. She felt alone and helpless. Every morning she frantically moved her finger in front of her face the same way the doctor did checking and rechecking her peripheral vision. She became obsessed.

The only thing I had left was this little speck of light in the eye that I used to swat out like an imaginary bug.

As she lost depth perception, moving around her own home became dangerous.

Normal eyesight is 20/20. After 10 years Beth’s vision was 20/200. 

Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, she caught a viral infection that completely took away her vision.

What the virus did was that it caused scarring tissue to form on the two eyes like little buttons. They could not be removed because for you to see or even do cataract surgery, you have a groove that holds your lens in place in your eye and ligaments. This viral infection destroyed all that. Even if they could remove that scar tissue, was no way my I could hold the lens. 

I thought that lightning doesn't strike twice to somebody. And it happened to me … I was so mad. I was mad at the doctors who didn't have an answer for me. I was mad at me that I had gone and learned all these things in school that might never, ever help me. I was mad at God that he did this to me.

To top it off this was a few years before the Americans with Disabilities Act passed, so there was nothing stopping her boss from firing her from her job as an accountant.

She became bitter and filled with contempt for the life she had imagined waited for her.

Eating Dirt

I was really angry and scared about a lot of things, so that's why I wouldn't leave the house for many years.

Beth tried to wish away her blindness.

I was not even going to admit to anybody that I was going blind. Not even admit it to myself.  I'm having a little bit of a sight problem. A little bit? I had to come to terms with what was going on with me. You can't move forward if you won't admit where you're at at this moment. 

Her rock bottom came one day when she went outside to get the mail.

It was in the autumn. It was getting dark. I talked to my neighbor… She goes in the house. Now I can't find my house …I could see a tiny spot of light. I kept falling on the ground. The first time I hit really hard and I could feel my face hit the dirt and I was crawling and crying. And I decided at that moment, I am never going to do this again. There's got to be a better idea than doing nothing.

Beth stopped wishing away her blindness. Instead she confronted the truth.

 I had to say to myself, I am going blind. I am going blind. And all of a sudden it was like this big gulp. Like I had to hear myself say those words because before that I was skirting around it and … skirting around it doesn't help you solve it.

She started to realize the words she was telling herself – can’t and won’t – were stopping her from moving forward. 

Because if you say you can't, you really won't. Because that's that's your parameters. I can't – end of story.

‘Legally Blind’

Even with such a low level of vision, for many years her sight loss still wasn’t bad enough for her to be classified “legally blind.” So Beth wasn’t eligible for services that could help her. 

That was one of the most difficult times because I never seemed to be blind enough to get help I needed.

So she made up her mind to teach herself how to cope.

I was a mess. I would walk into things I didn't know where anything was. I would wave my arm around …My friend would say, ‘you know, the people have children are pulling them closer.’ … The first step was get organize. I had to do things in the same way I come in the house, put your keys in the bowl at the front door, you know. That's what I had to start with. Next was counting. 

She counted how many steps it took her to get to the bathroom, the front door, the mailbox. She’d reach her foot out and tap it on the ground to make sure she wasn’t stepping off a curb.

 I call it my tap dancing foot to figure out where the angle and the stair or staircases or or even like walkways are. I would tap my foot out to get a feel if I was at the end of the walkway. 

By learning how to work through fear, Beth says she started to “see” solutions to problems. And she let go of her expectations on herself.

I was so stuck with just worrying about nitty gritty details about doing everything right. I have to do this right. I've learned that getting it done is sometimes good enough.  I learned that when I had little tiny victories. Like the first time I got a cup of coffee, didn't taste like super size cappuccino or something. Espresso. I am like, okay.

She still had periods when she felt discouraged and hopeless. But her mom got tired of hearing it.

And she said, ‘you know what? How long are you going to be miserable?’ She said, ‘women on my side of the family your grandmother lived to 102. Her mother lived to over 100. So are you telling me right now you're going to be miserable three quarters of a century? I can't be involved with that. You got to find a better answer.’

Her mom encouraged her to take a big step.

She goes, ‘look, you're not blind yet. Live a dream. You've always wanted to go to Florida. Go to Florida. Try it out.’ 

That’s where she met the man that would become her husband. Bill was a builder helping people fix their homes after Hurricane Andrew. Beth was a comptroller for the company he worked for. He came to her to fix his name on his paycheck and they hit it off. On their first date Beth laid it out for him.

I said, ‘look, I'm not going to lie to you. This is the deal. I'm going blind.’ If you're looking for something else, let's just be friends and let this go. But he was willing to he was willing to go with it because I could say to myself, I can do this. 

At Last The Lighthouse

After almost two decades of gradually going blind, the doctor finally told Beth she qualified for services. She was 38. For years she’d read about Lighthouse for the Blind in Florida, a center for teaching individuals with severe sight loss how to manage everyday challenges. It was there that she learned the skills she needed to do the things so many of us take for granted, things like counting money, and crossing the street.

You stand on corners and you listen for traffic patterns. And I said to him, You know, I really don't think I can learn how to cross the street. I'm going to get myself killed… And he said, Let me ask you something. You want to live a really safe life. And I said, Oh, yeah, I do. He said, You want to live right hand turn life right? And I go, What's the right hand turn? He said you go to the end of your corner and you make a right hand turn and you making a right hand turns. You're moving. You're going nowhere…He said, If you want to have the life that you say your independence, you've got to cross that street. If not right hand turn, you go. And that was a big moment.

She learned to use her other senses.

When I got to the moment where I had to release my sight as my primary sense and bring hearing into the mix. When you relieve when you release yourself of that. Of that depending on your sight. And so, you know what? I got to use my hearing. 

And her whole world changed. One day, a woman at the Lighthouse who’d been blind since birth provided some perspective.

At one time, I felt I was evicted from my life and I wasn't evicted...She said, You're not evicted. She goes, you and I are just parallel universes. She said, ‘when you were in kindergarten, you were studying the alphabet. I was studying the alphabet too in Braille. She said, you like watching cartoons on TV? I liked watching them, too. Hearing them because I could make the pictures that you needed somebody else to draw for you.’

She finally felt she could take some control back over her life. The Lighthouse taught Beth to navigate the system to benefit her and it gave her the confidence to teach college classes.

I had to know who they were. I told them that I ran my my classroom like a game show. And at one point, I'd say, ‘ladies and gentlemen, we're at that point. Who wants who want some extra bonus points? Stand up. Tell us with confidence who you are and give us your great idea.’ Well, I needed them to tell me who they were so I could sort of check them off. 

She had to let go of the life she originally envisioned for herself to create a new one.

I got to the point where my blindness no longer defined me.

Eye Of The Storm

In 2005, Beth’s husband was away for work when Beth heard Hurricane Wilma was headed their way. She listened to the radio and when the announcer indicated the storm was at her back door she found the safest place in the house was the closet.

And then I could hear in the warnings. So I figured I'm going to go in the closet with the dog. And when we were in there, I could feel the cement wall vibrating. We were in full like over 80 mile per hour. And I was scared out of my mind. I think I went to the bathroom. That's how scared I was. I would not leave that closet. Then all of a sudden, I started hearing the roof. I started hearing this noise. And then all of a sudden, I hear water and I'm like, what is that? And I was too afraid to go out there. 

Beth and her dog stayed in the closet all night wide awake afraid to leave. 

Next day I came out and it was all the roof was gone. I could feel the warmth of the sun from the house and I could feel the water sloshing around. It took the whole door metal and all and blew it right through the house.

Florida’s governor called for a state of emergency so Beth and her dog stayed in the closet a second night. It was then she heard someone snooping around what was left of her house.

I'm in a in a closet. We're in the dark. He's in the dark…I said to myself, I've got to get out of here. The best idea I could figure was I thought to myself, I'm the queen of dark. I can get anywhere in the dark. He can't probably as easily as me. So I figured that if I came running out, screaming, yelling, and he was so caught off guard, he was either going to run or come after me but then I would figure out plan B. I start screaming… ‘I'm a black belt in karate. I could kill you.’ And then he ran away. 

Finally on the third day she left the closet with her dog and tried to leave her house.

BETH: All of a sudden I hear this voice a man. Stay right there. Don't move. And I'm like, Oh, no, I think they're going to arrest me because you're not allowed to leave your home. And he goes, I am the police. You have an electrical line down. We've got to get you to safety. LAUREL: Oh, my goodness. BETH: And he goes, We'll carry you. And I said, I have an old dog, carry the dog. If I could have seen all that going on. I don't think I could come to those decisions so easily.

‘An Explosion Of Color’

In 2012 Beth went to see her eye doctor about a pain behind her eye that came and went.

And he said to me, ‘Elizabeth, why are you here?’ I said, ‘well, I said, I have a pain behind my eye.’ I said, ‘look, I'm going to cut to the chase and I'm going to make it easy on you. I know nothing can be done. I've gone to the best places. I know I'm blind. I said so I know the deal. But can you do anything about the pain?’ And he said, ‘Elizabeth, today's your lucky day.’ He said, I have a colleague here at Bascom Palmer a little over a year ago created an implant for people like you. 

He thought Beth would be a good candidate for an ophthalmologic lens implant that would give her the ability to see again.

I said, ‘if I was a member of your family, would you go and tell me to do this?’ And he said, ‘yes, because you have nothing to lose.’

He told her they’d insert the lens then bandage her eyes for eight hours. 

And then whatever you see, you see, because we don't know, because we don't have a smart and the starting point for you. You're either going to see something or see nothing. I mean, somebody telling you the amount of 8 hours after a surgery when you haven't seen anything for 12 years ... 

So she had the procedure done. They bandaged her up and sent her home. Eight hours later Beth’s husband woke her up to remove the bandages.

It was an explosion of color. I felt like I just couldn't absorb it. Reds, greens… I saw the house and I went out into the hallway of the house and I looked around and I said to my husband, This is the middle of the night. I said, ‘where are we?’ He goes, ‘the house.’ And I said, ‘whose house?’ He said, ‘our house.’ And I said, ‘I live here.’ He goes, ‘you live here.’ My husband, he asked me. First day I saw him. He goes, How do I look? I said, You look good because what do you like? I said, I like that. I can see you. And he goes, ‘you should go back to bed. And then, you know, give yourself a rest. And tomorrow look it over.’ But I tell you something. I had waited over a decade. I wasn't going to rest at that moment. I looked a little strange because I looked like I was petting the flowers because I couldn't believe they were real.

LAUREL:  I'm wondering if there were lots of things you had on your list that you wanted to see. Like a sunset or like the ocean.

BETH:  Believe or not, the one thing I wanted to say most of all was when I laugh, I. I laugh when I'm very, very happy. I have this weird laugh and I wanted to see myself how I looked. When I did when I was full of joy again. I went right to the bathroom and I looked and I laughed. I snuck up on myself. I missed that. 

Beth was so overwhelmed by the experience she sat down and wrote this poem.

Wow 

Wow is the word I use to define. 

Wow is the word I say all the time. 

Wow’s what I say when I see a green tree.

Wow’s what I say when I see you and me. 

Wow’s what I said when they told me I'd be blind. 

Wow’s what I say now I see all the time. 

Wow’s what I say when on bended knee grateful for the gift bestowed upon me. 

Miracle

Today Beth is 62 and she’s written a book entitled Eclipsed. Next year she and her husband will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. She’s still completely blind in her left eye and has 20 percent vision in her right. And she never takes the vision she has for granted.

There was a lot of things I never thought about that I'm so grateful for now.

You may catch her taking an extra look at a palm tree or a wildflower growing in the crack of a sidewalk.

I'm looking at it right now because I don't know if I'm going to see it tomorrow. I think that that daily appreciation makes my life in general much better.

And Beth knows if she loses her sight again not all is lost.

I didn't think I could ever find happiness and blindness in the same sentence. The biggest miracle my story was that I had a wonderful life in spite of it. 

This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.