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Look Inside the Book
Introduction
Contents
Overview

Click Here for a Complimentary Downloadable PDF of the booklet (no illustrations)
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Learning to Cope with Sight Loss NEW TITLE 2010
Six Weeks at a VA Blind Rehabilitation Center
Booklet and Audio CD
By William L. McGee with Sandra McGee


Available in Three Formats

• Booklet edition only 36 pp, 4-color, 40 photographs, 8.5” x 11”, ISBN 13: 978-0-9701678-2-8, Softcover, $9.95

• Audio CD edition only 1 CD, 75 minutes, with complete text recording from the book read by San Francisco Bay Area Broadcast Legends, ISBN 13: 978-0-9701678-3-5, $12.95

• Booklet and Audio CD $15.95

"Best-written description of the VA's Blind Rehabilitation Program that I've seen and an invaluable tool for those veterans considering participation in one of the Regional Centers."
—Patrick J. Caskey, M.D., North Bay Vitreoretinal Consultants

"Thanks to the VA Blind Rehabilitation Center's program, I've come around 180 degrees."
—R.A. Rodriguez, U.S. Navy, Vietnam, Vision problem: Tractional Retina Detachment

From The Introduction
On the morning of August 13, 2003, my wife, Sandra, arrived home to find me sitting at my desk, staring off into space. “Sandra,” I said, “I have some bad news. I can’t see.”

That morning, I had suffered a hemorrhage in my left eye—my last good eye as I called it—that would render me legally blind from Age-Related Macular Degeneration (the loss of central focus vision). From that day on, I would never drive again, never recognize faces again, never apply toothpaste directly to a toothbrush again, and on and on for a laundry list of other ordinary acts that I once took for granted.

Then, in 2008, while attending a support group for men with vision loss, I learned about the powerful work being done at the VA Regional Blind Rehabilitation Centers located throughout the United States.

Description
In Learning to Cope with Sight Loss: Six Weeks at a VA Blind Rehabilitation Center, William McGee recounts his journey as a “student” at the VA Western Blind Rehabilitation Center in Palo Alto, California where he resided for six weeks with 30 other low vision and blinded veterans and together they learned how to cope with sight loss.

The author juxtapositions the VA’s descriptions of the various components of the treatment program (Visual Skills, Orientation and Mobility, Living Skills, Manual Skills, Computer Access Training, Recreation Therapy, Adjustment to Sight Loss, and Family Training) with his own day-to-day experiences and observations.

For the Audio CD edition, McGee, a former broadcaster for 32 years, drew upon the talents of four San Francisco Bay Area Broadcast Legends: Don Mozley, CBS Radio and KCBS/74 (Narrator); Director/writer/producer Ed Dudkowski, KPIX-TV and KRON-TV (Author’s voice); and first-person testimonials read by Emmy award winning news anchor Cheryl Jennings, ABC 7/KGO TV; and Warren Weagant, ABC 7/KGO Radio and TV. 

This personal journey told from the perspective of a legally-blind author looking for ways to continue plying his craft will inform and inspire anyone with low vision—as well as their families and caregivers.