Hello, my name is Marianne and I’m DeafBlind. I grew up in my hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts. I was born Deaf, but later became blind in my 30s. My field of vision started to narrow. I needed to learn tactile signing, and started by receiving signs with both hands. Later, as I got older, I only needed to use one. My vision got worse and worse, and I needed intense glasses in order to read. As my field of vision got even smaller, I realized I couldn’t read anymore. That was when I started using large print. But thank God there is now technology that can make letters larger and make the font bolder. I can see large letters on my iPhone and iPad. That is amazing for some legally blind people.

But maybe in the future, I don’t know if I will become fully blind, but right now, I practice with braille in case maybe one day I need it. I started taking a braille class, but it’s hard to learn if you only take the class once a week or twice a month. You forget things. So really, I need to teach myself by reading more, but sometimes I feel lazy and I don’t want to! I have to force myself to learn, learning isn’t easy, but one day I’ll get there with the help of technology and people who want to help me learn.

When I realized that I was losing my vision, I was in denial until people really encouraged me, so I started learning when I was still living in Quincy. I learned braille with the help of one teacher, and that was probably ten years ago now. Then I worked on it and then the teacher left and I stopped learning because I could still mostly read. Then I moved here and I started struggling to read, which was very frustrating. So I was on the fence about working more on my braille skills. But then I decided to take a really serious braille class when I was 59 years old. There were some scheduling conflicts and cancelations for four months which didn’t make me happy, but hopefully a really good class will start on Friday with another man named Jerry.