Wairarapa’s locally owned community newspaper
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2018
INSIDE: Living with Par kinson’s P18-19
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Running a full marathon blind Living with Blindness
Emily Ireland
T
ackling a full marathon for the first time can be a huge
challenge. But imagine doing it blind. This Sunday, Carterton’s Peter Jones will be doing just that. He was born with the progressive and gradual eye disease retinitis pigmentosa, affecting one in 4500 people globally. He’ll be taking on the 42km challenge over the Auckland Harbour Bridge with his daughter as his guide. “The aim will be to finish it and survive,” Peter said. Peter’s vision loss journey began at the age of 13 when he was diagnosed. “I’ve known since I was 13 that there was a chance I would go fully blind. “No expert can tell you how that is going to progress. “Ultimately, I’m the expert of my own eye disorder and what I see.” These days, Peter’s
vision is limited to a very narrow field of fogged sight in predominantly grey-scale. He is able to identify contrast only in well-lit situations. He demonstrated his vision impairment by moving his hand across from his peripheral to directly in front of his face. “I can see a little bit of movement from my hand way out in my peripheral. “Then as I move my hand closer, it is completely gone, completely gone, until I get almost front on and I see a little finger again. “I also get some colour from way out too, but there is no colour anymore in
front of me. He said he would walk down a street and see a flash of cour in his peripheral – “it might be a bright flower”. “I’ll turn, and it will just be a dirty white or another tone of grey.” Peter’s older sister has the same eye disease. Both her two children, and Peter’s daughter are unaffected. “How it has affected me is that it has had a very profound effect on my employment over the years.” Peter worked in dairy
farming for 14 years. He has also been a fencer, and worked at JNL, giving up fulltime work in 2015. His wife works fulltime and supports both of them. “When you stop work, you have more spare time and more energy.” That’s when Peter began tandem cycling with cycling enthusiast Rod Sutherland, joining him in the local multisports biathlon.
On ya bike
Peter is a pretty keen cyclist. Having given up his drivers licence in 2000
because of his vision loss, he used to ride his bike to work. “What’s really nice with tandem cycling is you can get on the back and then just go flat out. “As you lose your sight, everything slows down – everything you do is slow. “Everything takes longer, and it’s frustrating. “To get on the bike and not have to think about anything but pedalling as fast as you can go – I just love that – that feeling of getting some speed.” Continued on page 4
Peter Jones, Carterton. PHOTO/EMILY IRELAND