David Hagen lost his sight at the age of 67 due to Glaucoma. He has now made it his mission to help those with vision loss by being on the board of a Future in Sight, a nonprofit helping those with vision loss. Read on to find out more about how he turned losing his vision into something meaningful. Original article from Sea Coast Online
HAMPTON -- David Hagen figured it was merely his age that made it harder to see in brightly lit grocery stores or pick out details in a grassy field.
A checkup with an eye doctor seven years ago revealed it was in fact a severe case of glaucoma, a condition that left him legally blind. While the change has been difficult for Hagen, 67, loss of vision brought a new chapter in his life -- working to help other visually impaired people through Future in Sight.
Hagen, a Future in Sight board member and Hampton resident, will walk in the 16th annual Walk for Sight Saturday, June 1 in Concord. Participants hope to collectively raise $100,000 to go toward the $1.7 million cost of the organization’s programs and services. Future in Sight provides vision rehabilitation and educational services throughout New Hampshire for people who are blind or visually impaired to help them live independently.
“There are thousands of people who are struggling every day with vision loss and they don’t have any place to go,” said Hagen. “I just want everyone who needs our services to be able to get our services.”
Throughout his life, Hagen was always grateful he had good eyesight. He started wearing reading glasses as he got older, but distance was never a problem. He always had what he called fantastic vision.
“That’s why all of a sudden I realized I didn’t anymore,” said Hagen. “It came on pretty quick.”
It was suddenly difficult to see inside stores as their florescent lights are often hard on the eyes of those with vision problems. He said he recalled wondering why he couldn’t see well as he perused the grocery store aisles.
Depth perception, peripheral and distance also became a struggle seemingly overnight. He recalled struggling to find his dog’s droppings in the grass, his target suddenly lost in a sea of green. Indoors, he began feeling like the room was full of smoke but found no one else was seeing the same vision-blurring fog.
“I thought, ‘Wow, something must be going on,’” said Hagen, who decided to make an eye appointment at the vision center inside Walmart on Route 1 in Portsmouth. He was surprised to learn his problem would take more than a pair of prescription glasses when the doctor told him he had advanced glaucoma, causing high pressure in his eyes.
“He checked it a couple more times and said, ‘It’s pretty serious. We have a serious situation here,’” said Hagen. Despite laser surgery in both eyes and taking multiple medications, he was declared legally blind within six months.
“The specialist told me that I had pretty much gone beyond the point of no return,” said Hagen. “They could slow it down -- the vision loss -- but they couldn’t stop it.”
The news left Hagen scared for his future. Losing his ability to joy ride in his car and other activities was difficult to accept, but he said worst was thinking about what blindness meant for his place in the world.
"Just being in darkness, being a burden to people, being a burden to my family,” he said. “You take all of that for granted, then you realize, ‘I might lose all of that.’”
Today, Hagen takes four eye drops each day to prevent further damage to his eyes. Doctors say surgery could potentially worsen his eyes that are now fragile, so he has ruled that out.
He has difficulty reading letters on signs and during television programs like the news, including large print. To get around, Hagen feels uncomfortable asking people for rides unless they are already heading where he wants to go as he does not want to bother them. He still does activities like mowing the lawn, though he sometimes gets confused as to whether he has mowed the same strip of grass three or four times.
Working with Future in Sight, he said, is a part of what gets him through the tough times emotionally. The group helped 3,400 individuals and families in 2018, and Hagen said he tries to use relationships with the people he meets through Future in Sight to fuel his positivity.
“It’s really a blessing,” Hagen said of Future in Sight. “It’s kind of one of the things that makes me almost see the bright side.”
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