0:00 [Music]
0:08 Eric wyam Mayer climbed to the top of
0:10 the highest mountain on all seven
0:13 continents Kathy nimmer is teacher of
0:15 the year in Indiana and in the top four
0:17 in the
0:18 country Tom wowski is vice president at
0:22 Comcast NBC Universal Lonnie Bedwell
0:26 kayaked the 226 miles of the Grand
0:28 Canyon Diane Barbarian is a triathlete
0:32 and Iron Man competitor now these rock
0:35 stars are at the top of their game but
0:38 they have one interesting thing in
0:39 common they're all
0:43 blind I met a blind person for the first
0:46 time 17 years
0:48 ago it was my newborn son
0:52 Michael until that point I I didn't know
0:54 any blind people I mean I I knew of
0:57 blind people so I grew up in the 70s and
0:59 ' 80s and Stevie Wonder was all over the
1:02 radio and and on TV at the award shows
1:05 and also on TV was one of my favorite
1:08 shows of all time back then was Little
1:10 House in the prairie so if you were a
1:12 fan you might remember that one episode
1:15 where the one daughter Mary woke up
1:19 completely blind the parents were
1:21 devastated I was devastated I mean it
1:25 was they they they freaked out they had
1:27 to ship her off to a School for the
1:29 Blind where she had to
1:30 live I didn't have real life role models
1:34 for blindness so all I knew about
1:37 blindness was it would be
1:40 lonely
1:41 isolating
1:44 devastating the day that our journey
1:46 into blindness began was like one of
1:48 those days when you know how in the
1:49 movies when everything's picture perfect
1:51 and then all hell breaks loose that was
1:53 my day I mean I was it was back in the
1:55 year 2000 and I was living in my brand
1:58 new mcmansion with my perfectly
2:01 manicured Green Lawn and I had the
2:03 perfect little family of mommy daddy and
2:05 bouncing baby boy swear to God we lived
2:09 in a town that was always rated the
2:11 number one place to raise a child I was
2:13 in my 20s I I still had the perfectly
2:16 shiny hair that didn't require all the
2:18 product to get that shine it was amazing
2:22 it was a perfect life
2:23 actually and then a doctor told me not
2:26 so much I was like blind
2:30 wait what he's blind come on how blind
2:35 very blind well he'll play baseball
2:39 right no oh my God will he
2:43 drive
2:44 no well what's he going to do well he'll
2:48 have to learn Braille bra and he's going
2:51 to have to walk with a white cane the
2:53 Blind King my son Christen the life you
2:58 had planned for your son is isn't going
3:00 to happen good
3:03 luck as that doctor finished talking the
3:06 feeling that had grown in the pit of my
3:08 stomach climbed its way up to my heart
3:10 and it was squeezing Tighter and Tighter
3:12 as images of the life I had planned for
3:15 my son were racing through my mind
3:17 things that I had planned since before I
3:19 even met him I mean baseball prom his
3:22 wedding MVP valedictorian summum La I
3:26 mean his dad and I were pretty talented
3:28 athletes so I figured I had the football
3:31 quarterback or the starting baseball
3:33 pitcher I mean in every scene in my mind
3:35 he he was achieving succeeding and
3:38 happy the whole scene went dark with
3:41 that one sentence from the
3:43 doctor your son is
3:46 blind but here's the
3:48 thing it would take me a
3:51 while but I would come to figure out
3:53 that those were my dreams for my son
3:56 that was the life I planned for him but
3:59 what about my
4:01 what about his dreams I mean he was just
4:03 getting started on a journey that he was
4:05 supposed to be on and and to live a life
4:07 the way he wanted to live it
4:11 h it turns out that my son has a
4:14 mutation in a gene by the name of
4:17 crb1 and this mutation causes an
4:20 inherited retinal disease called Li's
4:22 congenital amoros we we just say LCA
4:25 because it's easier and shorter so crb1
4:28 LCA attacks the two pieces of the retina
4:31 that you use to see the rods and the
4:33 cones so the rods are for your nighttime
4:36 vision and the cones are for details and
4:38 colors like you're using your cones
4:40 right now to see all the details of my
4:42 face crb1 LCA patients like my son don't
4:47 see at night and they can't see print in
4:50 a
4:51 book Michael's never seen my
4:54 smile and he actually has no idea what I
4:57 look like CB1 LCA is a rare disease that
5:01 only affects about 300 kids in the
5:03 United States I know it's that rare both
5:07 parents have to be carriers of this to
5:09 have an affected child and each
5:11 pregnancy stands a 25% chance of an
5:15 affected baby the crb1 LCA is not
5:18 included in those prenatal uh premarital
5:21 blood screenings as you can probably
5:24 imagine I struggled with this for for
5:28 longer than I care to admit and there
5:31 was one particular morning when Michael
5:32 was 3 years
5:35 old I was stuck when I got out of bed
5:38 and and made it to the foot of my bed
5:40 where that's as far as I made it that
5:41 morning and I was stuck in fear of how
5:45 to raise a blind child well cuz I didn't
5:48 know how to do that
5:49 and if I'm being honest I was stuck in
5:52 in grief over the loss of the life I was
5:55 supposed to have you
5:57 know and I I was having one of my many
6:02 conversations with God we'll call it
6:04 that it's a full-blown tantrum one-sided
6:07 tantrum and I was getting pretty good at
6:09 them giving him the what's now on how
6:10 this really should go down you know and
6:13 I could hear Michael playing in in his
6:15 room down the hall from mine so I was
6:17 doing all this in my head you know doing
6:19 my screaming and yelling tantrum and I
6:20 was just like this is so
6:24 hard and I actually think it's mean to
6:26 do this to a kid and what did I ever do
6:29 to deserve
6:30 this and then I heard Michael making his
6:33 way down the
6:34 hallway Michael didn't walk Michael
6:38 bounced and he skipped and he glided
6:41 through every day and he made his way
6:43 into my room and stopped when he was
6:45 about a foot in front of me and he said
6:47 Mommy are you in
6:49 here yeah buddy I'm right here in front
6:53 of you on my bed and he said Mommy I
6:56 just had to come down here and tell you
6:58 isn't this the best day
7:01 ever and I was like is
7:05 it and he goes mommy um the sun is
7:10 shining and I'm playing with all my
7:12 stuff and I'm just so
7:15 happy and then he spun around and and
7:18 went back to his perfect
7:20 day and hit me like a ton of bricks I
7:22 thought he's not stuck he's not
7:25 devastated he wasn't bothered by this
7:27 blindness thing at all I I was the one
7:30 stuck and so bothered and I had such a
7:34 limited view of this that all I could
7:35 see was blindnesses devastating what I
7:37 couldn't see was right in front of me
7:39 the happiest three-year-old the happiest
7:42 kid I had ever
7:44 met things started racing through my
7:46 mind like the the pictures of of a
7:48 typical day with Michael at that point I
7:50 mean him playing out on the driveway
7:52 with that that cozy c car thing and then
7:55 him splashing around in the neighborhood
7:57 pool and and playing at the playground
7:59 always smiling always living completely
8:03 unaffected by his challenge Michael
8:06 couldn't see with his eyes but he could
8:08 experience the world with his entire
8:10 self I mean he could hear and taste and
8:13 touch and feel his way through
8:15 everything life had to offer he just
8:17 couldn't see with his eyes didn't bother
8:20 him at
8:21 all I was the one that had been blind to
8:25 the possibility of my son having an
8:27 amazing life so right then and there I I
8:31 decided to stop seeing Michael's world
8:33 as I thought it should be and instead
8:36 how Michael saw it he completely shifted
8:39 my perception of blindness at that point
8:43 and that little three-year-old taught me
8:46 to see a whole new future for him it was
8:51 amazing so who loves a curveball my life
8:54 is full of them my second baby Mitchell
9:00 was diagnosed with crb1 LCA just like
9:05 Michael this time though things were
9:08 different now I had a role model I had
9:12 Michael and he had already taught me to
9:15 see this whole thing differently and I
9:18 did I grabbed my two boys by the hands
9:22 and we jumped into the typical
9:25 overscheduled ridiculous life that
9:28 everybody else was living I mean we went
9:30 to the playground every day and we were
9:34 at the birthday parties every single one
9:36 of them and we signed up for every music
9:39 class that we could fit into our
9:41 schedule as they got older they joined
9:43 the football team and they wrestled and
9:47 went out for the soccer team too now
9:49 okay I was right there with them in all
9:52 of this guiding describing narrating all
9:56 the visuals they came their way and
9:59 do you know what the blessing is in all
10:00 of that having to be with them teaching
10:04 them about the world at that level I got
10:06 to be in their world all the time where
10:08 they talked to me all the time they
10:11 shared with me all their thoughts all
10:13 their their dreams God they're ginormous
10:18 dreams and when the time came for them
10:20 to be
10:21 independent and they let go of my
10:24 hand and took that white
10:27 cane I was actually cool with that I was
10:31 because the thing I learned from Guiding
10:34 two blind kids to be independent it
10:36 showed me that that our kids are
10:39 extraordinary and they're remarkably
10:42 capable if we give them the right tools
10:46 and my guys had their tools and they
10:47 were ready to go and and little by
10:49 little I stopped regretting what I
10:51 thought they were missing and instead I
10:53 let them teach me what I was missing so
10:57 we were in Hawaii and learned how to
10:58 surf
11:00 Michael patiently learned the rhythm of
11:02 the ocean and he figured out when to
11:05 pick the right wave and ride it into
11:07 Shore and then there was
11:10 me I was awful I was awful he had to
11:14 coach me on when to ride the wave and
11:17 then we were in Colorado and had a
11:19 chance to snowmobile on this ginormous
11:21 mountain and I'm at the top thinking how
11:24 do you begin to describe the spectacular
11:26 view to them they didn't have time to
11:28 wait on me describing they were busy
11:30 talking about the changes in air
11:32 pressure and and temperature and wind
11:34 speeds I mean their view was so much
11:36 broader than mine then we had an
11:38 opportunity to be in Florida where we
11:40 were we spent time on the west coast and
11:42 the east coast and compared the two well
11:45 I'm laying there watching sunrises and
11:46 sunsets and trying to think of names of
11:48 colors to tell them they were off
11:50 comparing the the intensity of the waves
11:53 and the difference in textures of the
11:54 sand and Mitchell was all over
11:56 collecting all the different shells that
11:58 he could find I mean they had so much to
12:00 do and so much to talk about so there's
12:04 this this term in blindness called cited
12:06 guide and it refers to a sighted person
12:10 guiding a blind person through a new or
12:12 maybe a complicated space it's pretty
12:14 simple the blind person takes the elbow
12:17 or the wrist of the sighted person and
12:19 they walk together spending so many
12:22 years being the cited guide for my boys
12:25 has allowed me to stay in touch with
12:28 them really in touch with them you know
12:30 what I mean and now they're my guides
12:33 for the things that I should be seeing
12:35 in this world and one thing they're
12:38 adamant about is not to be seeing any
12:40 limits on their lives I mean they've
12:42 been on this Limitless Adventure where
12:44 they're they're thriving and they're
12:47 so
12:48 normal you know that years ago we
12:51 enrolled them in the regular public
12:53 schools in our neighborhood now they're
12:54 in middle school and high school and
12:56 they're both in the top of their class
12:59 so the Center for Disease Control
13:01 reports that there are 21 million
13:02 Americans that are considered blind or
13:04 visually impaired it makes up about 9%
13:06 of the population but get this of that
13:10 21 million nearly 70% are
13:14 unemployed nearly 70% of blind Americans
13:17 are unemployed and the kicker is it has
13:20 nothing to do with career options but
13:22 everything to do with the fact that
13:23 people think blind people just can't do
13:25 the
13:26 work wait there's more
13:30 30% of blind Americans are living below
13:32 the poverty line only 31% will get a
13:35 high school diploma or GED and only
13:38 14.4% will get a bachelor's degree or
13:41 higher and the kicker with that one is
13:43 it has nothing to do with intellect but
13:46 everything to do with a lack of
13:49 access could you imagine if only 30% of
13:53 your high school class was going to
13:55 graduate or only 14% of your college
13:58 buddies made it to the Finish Line I
14:00 mean blind people are denied access to
14:02 jobs training
14:05 education simply because we can't get
14:07 our heads around how someone can access
14:09 the world without
14:12 sight a former president of the national
14:14 Federation of the blind said this the
14:16 future of cited children depends on a
14:18 proper education the future of America's
14:21 blind children is no different is no
14:25 different I learned that my guys are not
14:29 not different they just see things
14:31 differently and quite frankly it tends
14:33 to make them way more efficient than the
14:35 rest of us I mean the things people rely
14:38 on my blind kids for now it's it's
14:41 insane so take this my guys are
14:45 legendary in our neighborhood because
14:48 they can hear that ice cream truck
14:49 coming way before the rest of
14:53 us there it's like Michael and matro
14:55 always like wait for it wait for it come
14:57 on SED people catch up to us catch up to
15:00 us so thank God technology finally
15:03 caught up to them and closed a ton of
15:05 gaps in the classroom for us so take a
15:07 look at this this is called the Apex
15:09 Braille note and it's about the size of
15:11 an iPad sort of my guys can read and
15:14 write and Braille with this and the best
15:17 part is it hooks up to a regular printer
15:19 so they can print out their work for
15:21 their cited teachers to see it but
15:23 they're moving even faster than that now
15:24 they just email all their stuff directly
15:27 to their teachers who get it they access
15:29 the internet with this they you stick a
15:31 jump drive in the side and they can read
15:33 all of their books and textbooks in
15:35 Braille yeah it's so cool I mean it was
15:37 such a game Cher for us and it isn't
15:39 just this I mean computers cell phones
15:42 even cable TV they're all being
15:45 redesigned so that the Blind and cited
15:47 can use the same product and get the
15:50 same access it's amazing I mean take it
15:53 from me a mom of three thriving kids
15:56 that things are finally changing in the
15:58 world of the blind
15:59 and got ahead of myself let me back up
16:02 for a second I had a third
16:05 child
16:07 sorry I had a third child and and when
16:11 Carissa was born I didn't need a doctor
16:14 to tell me I saw her
16:17 eyes and I saw her eyes recognize that I
16:20 was her
16:22 mom it was a look my boys never
16:27 had Carissa can see but she has a unique
16:31 advantage that's even more convenient
16:34 than
16:35 sight by the time Carissa was born we
16:38 were nearly 5 years into accessibility I
16:41 mean she walked with her brothers on the
16:43 bridges that we spent years building
16:46 inclusion and access they were words
16:48 that she didn't need to learn she lived
16:50 them since
16:52 birth I had two blind kids and then I
16:55 gave birth to this little sighted person
16:58 that would automat atically include
17:01 adapt for and
17:03 embrace
17:05 everyone it's a gift that I'm finding so
17:08 few people have but everyone that meets
17:10 Karissa sees
17:12 it Carissa's grown up watching her Blind
17:15 Brothers go to school play sports get
17:18 elected to student council get in
17:20 trouble but she enjoys way too
17:23 much and she's watched them succeed and
17:27 fail just like the rest of of us
17:30 blindness it's in the background at our
17:33 house and it's in the background of the
17:35 homes and lives and careers of people
17:37 living without
17:39 sight so take a look at these kids and
17:42 um what do you think they all have in
17:44 common they're all baseball players
17:47 right these were regular teams in our
17:50 regular
17:51 town and my guys wanted in Michael and
17:54 Mitchell were the only blind kids to
17:56 take the
17:57 field Michael let led the team in
18:00 RBIs Mitchell was his team's fastest
18:03 base
18:04 runner they both were voted as
18:07 allars they both were on teams that went
18:09 to the
18:11 championship and they both
18:15 won when I gave birth to my kids I
18:18 expected
18:20 success achievement and above all else
18:24 happiness for all three of them now I
18:26 initially saw blindness as a barrier to
18:29 all of my dreams but once I had a change
18:32 in perception my eyes were open and man
18:35 I saw their successes their achievements
18:38 and every
18:40 day their
18:43 happiness a change in perception can
18:45 happen for all of us at any point in
18:48 time I highly recommend it sooner than
18:52 later thank you
18:58 [Applause]
19:00 [Music]
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