Guest Blog:How My Fading Eyesight Taught Me to Focus on What Counts

Guest Post written by: Ingrid Ricks

I’ll never forget my dad’s words to me shortly after I was diagnosed with the degenerative eye disease, Retinitis Pigmentosa.

We were on the phone and I was nursing a water glass filled with wine, trying to numb my fear and terror over the future that awaited me. We’d had a tension-filled conversation, with me snapping at my dad every time he asked a question or tried to make conversation. Finally, after a long minute of silence, he had one last thing to say.

“Look, I know what you are going through is hard,” he said, his tone careful and measured. “I admit that losing my eyesight would be really tough. But let me tell you something I know for sure. I know that when something is taken away from you, something else is given to you in its place.”

It took every ounce of control I had not to slam down the phone. I didn’t know what possible good could come out of going blind, and it angered me that he had the nerve to suggest such a thing. But nearly nine lesson-filled years later, I’ve discovered that my dad was right. As a direct result of my fading eyesight, I’ve learned to see what counts in life and to make every moment count—a gift that no amount of vision loss can take from me.

For more than a decade I had dreamed of writing my coming-of-age memoir and resuming the social issues journalism career I loved. I had crossed over into the more lucrative, certain profession of marketing and PR to put my husband through law school and then felt trapped in that career when our two daughters came along and bills mounted. I wanted to write my book so much my gut ached. But I convinced myself it wasn’t the responsible thing to do.

Then my eyesight started closing in on me, and it occurred to me that I didn’t have forever and that the time to embrace life and start living it was NOW.

I wish I could say my epiphany was immediate. But it was actually years in the making. First I had to confront personal fears and terrors. I had to travel to Africa to write about AIDS orphans and gain perspective on what real suffering was. I had to learn to let go of my controlling ways, to trust my husband and work as a team. In the end, I had to heed a life lesson from our two daughters.

Three years ago, shortly before my forty-third birthday, the two of them were joking around and decided to do a parody of me as an old woman. They bent over, pretended like they were walking with a cane, and in the most crotchety voice they could muster, they both shouted, “My book, my book. I have to finish my book!”

It was the final push I needed. With my husband’s encouragement and full support, I cut back on my client work and gave myself permission to go after my dream. The journey since then has been amazing. I published my coming-of-age memoir Hippie Boy: A Girl’s Story in October 2011 and shortly afterward was invited to form an author partnership with an English teacher at a nearby alternative high school, where we used Hippie Boy as a guide to help at-risk teens write and publish their personal stories in a powerful anthology, We Are Absolutely Not Okay: Fourteen Stories by Teenagers Who Are Picking Up the Pieces.

I now divide my time between book writing and continuing my work with at-risk teens. I’ve re-prioritized my relationship with my husband and daughters and I wake up every day determined to embrace every moment I have.

What my journey with my blinding eye disease has taught me is that no one is immune to disease or death, life can change in an instant and all we have for certain is Now. So we better make NOW count.

More than anything, that’s the message I hope readers will take away from my new memoir, Focus.

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Thank you Ingrid, that was a great post. This was exactly what I loved from the book, how you really took a good hard look at your priorities and started shifting them. I'm sure it's a process you are still working on.

Now, dear readers, who would like to win a copy of Focus? Just leave a comment to be entered. Do you want extra entries? All right, just do the following and leave a comment when you complete each entry. I'll do a drawing next Friday.

• Follow my blog.
• Subscribe to Ingrid's blog - http://ingridricks.com/blog/
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Book Review: Focus - A Memoir

by: Ingrid Ricks

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Synopsis:
In her powerful memoir FOCUS, Ingrid Ricks delves into the shock of discovering at age thirty-seven that she was in the advanced stages of Retinitis Pigmentosa, a devastating degenerative eye disease that doctors said would eventually steal her remaining eyesight. FOCUS takes readers into Ingrid’s world as she faces the crippling fear of not being able to see her two young daughters grow up, of becoming a burden to her husband, of losing the career she loves, and of being robbed of the independence that defines her.

Ultimately, FOCUS is about Ingrid’s quest to fix her eyes that ends up fixing her life. Through an eight-year journey marked by a trip to South Africa to write about AIDS orphans, a four-day visit with a doctor who focuses on whole-body health, a relationship-changing confrontation with her husband and a life-changing lesson from her daughters, Ingrid learns to embrace the moment and see what counts—something no amount of vision loss can take from her.

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When I reviewed Hippie Boy, I told you I didn't even know it was a true story until I had finished reading it. Ingrid really does have a flair for words. She came to me and asked if I'd like to review it. I remembered her and knew for a fact I would love to read anything she writes. So here we are. And if you come back on Friday, she has sent along a guest post and a giveaway of her book Focus.

So, back to the book. Ingrid is writing about her degenerative eye disease, Retinitis Pigmentosa - which I'd never heard of before. She was going blind, slowly. And I wonder if that's worse. You are constantly aware of your field of vision getting smaller and smaller by degrees. She really does paint a vivid picture of the roller coaster of emotions.

Well, like most strong women, she wasn't willing to just accept the diagnosis and crawl into a corner. Her husband started problem solving and they moved into the city she she could use public transportation for anything she couldn't walk to. And she found a new doctor with alternative treatments. While it didn't cure her eyes, she did really come so much further than her journey through her childhood.

The fun thing in this book was reading about her desire to finish her memoir, Hippie Boy. She kept putting it off until her whole family was sick of hearing about it. There was a scene where her daughters were pretending to be her as an old woman saying, "My book! I need to finish my book!" and it was like a slap in the face. And then she made it happen. I'm glad she did, it was so good.

The not so comfortable bits were seeing things that I do that aren't helping me in my life there in print form. This memoir will make you laugh, cry, and think...much more than you probably want to. But it's totally worth the time and effort. And really, it's not much time. This woman has a way of grabbing you by the eyes and holding on until she's ready to let go.

I freaked out when I had forgotten the timeline I promised to review it in. I started reading it on Tuesday night. I finished it Wednesday morning during my workout. Seriously, like 2 hours. While I get that it's only 100 pages long, that time still went by incredibly fast - not a boring moment in here. And a funny little twist, she also talked about stem cells. She needs to talk to Amy from Monday! lol

Book Review: This is How I Save My Life

by: Amy B. Scher

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Synopsis:
Fueled by her self-created motto "when life kicks your ass, kick back," a fiery 20-something woman with a debilitating, often misdiagnosed disease ventures to a tiny clinic in India for a controversial embryonic stem cell treatment. In hopes of saving her miserably failing body, she finds not only a world full of wandering cows, cultural mayhem and radical medical treatment, but also a piece of her life that she never even knew she was looking for.

Join Amy as she takes you on her heartwarming and often hilarious journey, wildly grasping at hope for health while still trying to remain focused on the journey. Find out how this experimental and widely criticized treatment saves her life. And, learn the life altering lesson Amy had to travel more than 10,000 miles from home to discover. A powerful and uplifting story of sheer determination when all hope appears lost. For anyone who believes in (or doubts) the existence of miracles and the infinite power of self-healing.

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The book is brilliant. I'm in awe of this woman who spent so long losing a battle with Lyme Disease. She went to India for stem cell treatment. The stem cells used, are from a single embryo that was donated to the doctor from a couple who had embryos made up for fertility treatment. When they reached success, they wanted to give something back.

It's a very easy going book, being that it's mostly made up of blog entries that Amy wrote while undergoing treatment. And reading about her healing is just amazing. Why are we not doing this here???

It's also a wonderful study of the culture shock when a San Francisco gal goes to one of the largest cities in India, Delhi. I'm still in love with India, but I'm less eager to move there. lol

Amy doesn't really pull any stops. She's working her butt off to get rid of the Lyme and all the things that go along with it, and she's sharing it all right here with us.