‘I can read again’
Assistive reading machine provides senior with much enjoyment
Standing less than a metre away, Alan MacPherson looks straight at his visitor and sees nothing but a blur.
“I can’t see your face and I’m standing here right in front of you,” the 80-year-old Truro resident said.
“I see all around this room. But you’ll notice the only clock in the house is this big one,” he said of the round wall clock with its big, bold numbers.
“I can’t see any of the stuff here unless I take the pictures off the wall and hold them up here,” he said, putting his hands up close to his eyes. “I can see all around. It’s detail I can’t see.”
And that’s the way it’s been for more than 15 years after a sudden onset of macular degeneration robbed the Sydney native of his sight one night while he slept.
“I went to bed reading the Truro Daily News … and got up the next morning … and couldn’t see the pictures on the wall and couldn’t see my late, great wife’s face,” he said. “It happened just that quick.”
What his loss of eyesight has done, however, is take away his ability to read, except through the very limited and inconvenient use of a hand-held magnifier. And that, he said, has been especially troubling for him.
“I’m a news freak,” he said,
going on to explain his love for keeping on top of local events, politics and so forth.
A few weeks ago, however, MacPherson’s life took an abrupt turn for the better, thanks to the donation of an assistive reading device from the Royal Canadian Legion in Truro. He’s a regular volunteer during the annual poppy campaign.
“This has given me back the ability to read,” he said, with a smile, while placing the day’s paper into his machine. “I can read the newspapers again … I
can put a book under this machine and read it myself.”
And that restored ability, he said, “is invaluable to me. Because you don’t know how awful it is not to be able to read.”
MacPherson has essentially lived alone since the death of his wife Gloria in 2011. But, whether through sheer stubbornness or a fierce sense of independence, he has not let his near-complete blindness take away his ability to be self-sufficient.
“I do everything for myself,” MacPherson said. “Homecare
comes in to see I don’t fall in the shower because my legs aren’t the best anymore. But they don’t have to do anything else. They don’t have to cook for me. I cook and bake. I make my own beds. I clean my own apartment. I do my own dishes, everything I do myself.”
As one of strong religious faith, MacPherson also likes to study the Bible, something he had only been able to do since becoming blind by listening to a CD-recorded version. Now he can read his Bible.