My Nano for this year centers around a teenager around 16 years old that has always been blind, and not just legally blind, I mean totally blind. I'm looking for a type of disease or maybe a kind of birth defect that can make her blind since she was born, or within a few months from birth. My main goal is for her to have no memories of being able to see, and all I've found when I'm snooping around the websites are diseases that occur later in life...or the little kid staring at the sun for too long.
And since I don't want the 'why-did-i-stare-at-the-sun?' angst going around, is there a disease that can make my character totally blind?
Note from moderator: edited to create [TOPIC] and refine subject.
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50,117 / 50,000
Sep 28, 2008 - 17 22
I don't know of any DISEASE. But there are people who are simply born without eyes. In the Discovery Channel interview with a dude born like that (he was being interviewed because despite this disability he was somehow able to paint beautiful paintings, but I forget now what his name was) the dude had his eyes closed the whole time, and I assume that's a habit you'd get into.
If you rather like the idea of the blind person with the moon-white eyes, I'm fairly sure it's also possible just to BE born blind, as a genetic mutation. You'd have to look it up to see if it has a name.
For that matter, didn't Helen Keller just go blind after a bad bout of some sort of disease as a young child? Or was that when she went deaf?
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2008: Police fantasy with ASLAN
2009: An entire month of bromance and fluff. Probably. WILL I SURVIVE?
15,037 / 50,000
Sep 28, 2008 - 17 28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindness#Causes_of_blindness
2,321 / 50,000
Sep 28, 2008 - 17 30
i've heard that some sort of HIV can cause blindness. HIV is contracted by bodily fluids touching, so if a woman with HIV gives birth and blood or vaginal fluid gets in the baby's eyes, it's actually plausable.
and that disease Helen Keller contracted caused both -- or at least, that's what happened in the play... <_<
----------I'm going to hate myself for doing this, but who cares?!
31,433 / 50,000
Sep 28, 2008 - 17 32
My friend's stepfather has been blind since almost birth. He and his twin brother were born prematurely, and there was something wrong with the oxygen level in his incubator that ended up ruining his eyes.
15,037 / 50,000
Sep 28, 2008 - 17 46
From transmission to onset of symptoms for HIV can be years and when HIV can cuase blindness is usually at the endstage, so this is unlikely at best. Also, mothers who know they are HIV positive are put on preventatives to reduce the virus in their system and prevent infections at birth.
They put eyedrops (silver nitrate is what it used to be, but I'm not sure it is anymore- antibiotics?) in a baby's eyes at birth to prevent infection from syphillus contracted from the mother. It used to be a cause of blindness until that practice became widespread. If you place the birth out of a hospital and away from medical aid for a few weeks, you could use this cause.
64,807 / 50,000
Sep 28, 2008 - 17 47
Congenital ichthyosis.
...But that causes a lot more than blindness. :)
...And don't image search on Google unless you have a strong stomach/get high on fetal deformities like I do.
0 / 50,000
Sep 28, 2008 - 17 59
Yeah, agreeing with what everyone said about being born without eyes, my brother's friend was born without ONE eye. Figure that out! lol But that could make for some interesting plot ideas. XD
150,301 / 50,000
Sep 29, 2008 - 12 44
The optic nerve can be completely destroyed due to an excess of oxygen in the incubator.
You can also be born with eyes but without optic nerves to process the information provided by the eyes.
----------2006 - Whodunnit?!
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0 / 50,000
Sep 29, 2008 - 15 05
Many babies born with complications were given too much oxygen at birth. For some reason, this can mess up the brain/eyes so that there is no longer sight. This was more common in the 1950s-70s, before they were sure of how and why.
----------Nothing is impossible, there are only differing degrees of probability.
100,065 / 50,000
Sep 29, 2008 - 18 44
Off the top of my head: congentital glaucoma and cataracts. The latter can usually be fixed, though.
The thing with oxygen in the incubator is called rentinopathy of prematurity. It's partly why my vision is so bad uncorrected (far worse than 20/200), though it's correctable with glasses to 20/20.
I know there are others, but I don't know them myself. My areas of interest are orientation and mobility (O&M) and Braille, though I am far from an expert.
----------"Footsteps in the snow suggest where you have been, point where you were going: but where they suddenly vanish, never dismiss the possibility of flight..." - Diane Duane, A Wizard Alone
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50,781 / 50,000
Oct 8, 2008 - 03 23
SOD - Septo-optic Dysplasia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septo-optic_dysplasia
I have a close friend born 100% blind because of this.
0 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 13 27
If your story does not take place in modern times, scarlet fever, measles and other diseases which cause high fevers freqeuntly created blindness in those infants that survived them. The optic nerve was literally "burned out" by the fever.
50,816 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 13 46
Gonorrhea....
Babies get it from their mothers and it can cause irreversible blindness, joint infection, and/or blood infection.
50,577 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 16
This is my area of expertise. I have been teaching the visually impaired for the last 16 years. Here are some common childhood issues that sometimes happen early in life. If you loose your sight before three you rarely remember seeing.
Cancer - quite simply - cancer of the eye itself. It is called Retinalblastoma. It often takes both eyes. Sometimes they can save one. They do have to do chemo and radiation.
Retinopathy of Prematurity - ROP - is from too much oxygen at birth. This is being reversed for most premie babies. What happens is the oxygen rich air is LOVED by the blood vessels in the retina. When taken from the oxygen rich are the blood vessels shrink and then cause the retina to detach.
Optic Nerve Hypoplasia - this can have additional side problems, though
Leber's is a hereditary condition that is passed down. You can range from limited vision to no vision.
Have any other questions feel free to ask. I work with students every day that I can even ask specific questions if you like.
Sirena
----------Nano 2005: Story, 10,000 words (ran out of steam)
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Nano 2007: Sugarmaker, 18,641 words (life got in the way)
Nano 2008: Light Perception 50,577 words (Nov. 25) WINNER!
0 / 50,000
Oct 27, 2008 - 13 16
I'm curious if anyone here is, or knows someone who is blind who would be willing to answer some questions about day to day life.
Let me explain: a large portion of my novel takes place in underground communities devoid of light. So while not actually blind, my characters are going to be without sight most of the time.
I would love to have a conversation with someone who has a personal experience with blindness.
If anybody needs more information about me or my novel, please feel free to message me!
0 / 50,000
Oct 30, 2008 - 17 08
Oh, I know someone who was blinded that way. Don't know if he was premature, though.
52,996 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2008 - 21 52
You have just answered my own question about blindness. Thank you!
----------"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" ~Adam Savage from Mythbusters
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50,000 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2008 - 22 01
helen keller was not born blind and went blind from either meningitis or scarlet fever.
50,003 / 50,000
Apr 15, 2009 - 16 11
...But that causes a lot more than blindness. :)
...And don't image search on Google unless you have a strong stomach/get high on fetal deformities like I do.
Holy Christ, squidmaster. I just image searched on Google.
Omigod.
Please excuse me while I heave.
On blindness, now: I'm legally blind in one eye. I recognize that this is not the same as being completely blind, but when I close my good eye I cannot identify anything more than two feet away from me. I inherited it from my dad. So, genetics could be a cause for blindness. Some people are just born that way, like me.
It wouldn't be anything strange.
Also, maybe you could look up that American Idol contestant this year who was blind (he was recently voted off). His name was Scott MacIntyre. I think he was born that way, so further proof that it's a valid explanation.
50,003 / 50,000
Apr 15, 2009 - 16 17
Theamberkey: I'm not fully blind, I'm only blind in one eye, but I can provide limited experience. It gets really annoying when people come up to you and tap you on the shoulder (people do this to me when they come up on the wrong side of me) and you jump because you don't know they're there. You wouldn't be able to identify people unless you knew what their voice sounded like, and even then sometimes it would be hard.
This would just be for people who are blind in one eye, but: Under extreme stress, or at night after a long day, or even early in the morning, you get dizzy and you start feeling weird because of not being able to see in one eye, you feel unbalanced, sort of. It's difficult to explain. Also, your vision gets reeeeeally blurry (obviously).
Don't know if any of that helped you. I think I did a crappy job of explaining it, especially since I only know what it's like when I close my good eye. Lol.
0 / 50,000
Apr 15, 2009 - 16 49
Well, this may sound cruel, but... plain stupidity as a toddler? Gets sand in her eyes when she's very young, and keeps rubbing at their eyes until they're too scarred to see more than vague shapes. But you want fully blind, so that doesn't work.
----------"There's a sneeze in my nose!"
1,909 / 50,000
May 3, 2009 - 21 04
This might sound rather naive, but are the "milky eyes" cliche or real? If they're real, do they "come with" all types of blindness, or just blindness from certain causes?
----------~Juliette
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Henry, can you inhabit a normal plane of existence for more than three seconds at a time for just once in your life?!
209,198 / 50,000
May 4, 2009 - 12 10
I'm blind in one eye (since shortly after birth) and I don't have "milky" eyes. There are diseases of the eye--cataracts and so on--that can cause this effect, but by and large it's not an all-encompassing blind-people-have-it trait (or even -most- blind people, as far as I've experienced).
----------NaNo 2008: Untitled (Goal: 50k) (Urban Fantasy) (Typewriter)
NaNo 2008: Imperial Judge (Goal: 75k) (Dystopia)
NaNo 2008: The Whistler (Goal: 75k) (Horror)