Marconius

Having lost my sight at 29 after being hyper visual up to that point, it's definitely a lot of work living through the grief of the loss. It has been 6 years and it becomes more something you live with rather than overcome. I accepted the loss and do my best to keep moving forwards, but the daily struggles of blindness still provide incredible frustration especially with things that were so easy to comprehend and understand/accomplish with vision. Thanks for doing your AMA! It's Marco from Twitter and the Lighthouse, though we've yet to meet in person :)

Long story short, I had retinal cancer as a baby and long-term side effects from the radiation I had to kill the cancer back in the 80s started screwing up my vision back in 2010. I was undergoing treatments for a few years that weren't taking, which led to surgery, which led to complications, then had 4 more surgeries, each with a complication, and finally a few months after my last surgery while recovering, my eye threw a retinal arterial clot and permanently killed all of my remaining vision in 30 minutes. It was like blacking out when you stand up too fast, but the black out never resolved.

Hi there, I went blind very suddenly two years ago from a retinal arterial occlusion which was an unanticipated complication from surgery. I know the bionic I functionality will differ case by case, but has there been any work looking into having the system function in an eye that has lost sight because of an occlusion rather than a disease? I love that these trials have begun and are producing positive results like yours, and in trying to hang on to every bit of information, waiting for the day when I can get my sight back in some form or fashion. Congratulations to you and your doctor in the meantime! :)

I'm fully blind and work in the TNC space helping to keep transportation apps accessible for people with disabilities. Are you considering accessibility of your self-driving project from the start? Are you working with consumer groups like the National Federation of the Blind and others to keep disabled people in the loop as part of your design and scaling process? Remediating for accessibility after you've designed, engineered and launched a project is extremely wasteful and expensive, and blind people are one of the strongest advocates for mobility and transportation independence, so I really hope that is considered with what you are developing.

Very long story, but i'm a retinoblastoma cancer survivor and I was battling a cystoid macular edema a few years ago when my retina detached after surgery. The following reattachment surgery didn't hold and I continue to have a tractional detachment over the next year. Switch doctors and they attempted to stop the detachment, and just ran into complication after complication. Had four more surgeries to try to fix the complications, and eventually the trauma of everything just caught up with me while I was recovering. Just lost my vision in about 30 minutes one day, and it didn't come back.

TL:DR Eye just gave out after poor medical decisions and compounding surgeries and complications.