How to Train Athletes Who Are Blind

May 2004. I woke up in total darkness. I soon found out that two months earlier, I’d been involved in a horrible auto accident. After losing control of my car, a tree had broken through the windshield and impaled me in the face. My jaw was wired shut, an infection on my brain was killing me, another infection was attacking my sinus cavity, and my brain had been swollen for so long that my optic nerve atrophied. The doctors told me I’d never see again. I wish I could say I popped up in that bed and said, “No problem! We’ll make it through this.” But that didn’t happen. I had a long, long recovery process. Worst of all, four brain surgeries later—with cyclical and ridiculous amounts of at-home IVs, plus prescription bottles that needed to be kept in a large shoebox—the surgeons still hadn’t saved my life. The brain infection was still killing me. When I woke up in the ICU after that fourth brain surgery, the incredibly emotionally intelligent brain surgeon asked me if I wanted to die. Image 1. I’d been in a horrible car accident, where a tree broke through the windshield and impaled me in the face. The swelling in my brain eventually caused my optic nerves to atrophy, resulting in blindness. That didn’t rattle me as much as it might most people. I didn’t know how I was going to survive in that moment, and I don’t think the surgeon truly did either. It was a pathetic attempt at patient compliance. But, moments earlier, I’d made a choice. And sometimes I need to remind myself about that choice and the unifying strength in all of us. If I’m going to die, it’s not going to be in pain. I’m going to live my […]

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