Hi Everyone! I’m Hannah Fairbairn and this is my blog. I’m here to help you with questions you have about personal, home, and social life with vision loss.

I post nearly every week. Please comment on any post, or email me directly: Hannah@VLPRBlog.com.

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I was born in the UK with some vision problems and lost much more at thirty-three. I’ve lived in the US for many years, most of them teaching at a well-known center for adults losing vision. Our younger daughter inherited my eye condition, so I have a lot of experience as a consumer of services myself, as a parent and as a teacher! I have a little vision but use speech programs to read and write.

Last year my book, When You Can’t Believe Your Eyes the first ever how-to book for anyone, losing sight and their families was published, a labor of love for fifteen years and now an award winner! It’s available in four formats. There are free accessible copies if finances are stretched. Well-wishers have created a fund to make free copies available. If you need a print copy email me your street address.

The book follows the phases of adjustment that people with vision loss often go through on the way to personal recovery. It also has a big list of up-to-date resources, and is divided into parts, chapters and 1-page sections so you can get right to the information you need .

The book also refers readers back to this blog (website) for up-dated and continuing information.

The menu has links to all the categories such as Cooking and Eating, and there is a search bar to find particular posts.

Personal recovery after vision loss is a step-by-step process. Today you may be struggling with finding a phone number. Next week it’s how to tell a friend about your vision problems. Or you need help getting your family to put everything back in its place.

Wherever you are in your journey with vision loss, you’ll find something here to make you more confident, more like your old self…or perhaps more active and productive than you were before.

Here’s a bit more about my background:

I taught personal management and interpersonal skills for eighteen years at the Carroll Center for the Blind near Boston. I retired in 2016 to write When You Can’t Believe Your Eyes.

I lost a lot of vision in my early thirties. Before that I had been a successful chef and afterwards a radio and print journalist and author. After moving to the U.S. I began my new career in vision rehabilitation.

Beginning in 1999 I worked with clients who were heads of their family, with clients living independently, and with clients struggling to explain to their families how to organize the home so they can share tasks and relax.

There is never enough time to teach all the ways to adapt social skills for vision loss. Hundreds of clients have attended classes, and more than a hundred have given me extended interviews to better understand what happens to independence, and social and family communication after sight loss.