Hi,

I was asked to introduce myself.  My name is Steven Whatley, I'm single,
and age 35 weight..uhm, doesn't matter. :) I was born in 1965 and six
months later I was diagnosed with congenital (born with) cataracts.
So, at six months old, I had my first eye surgery.  I had four or five
more cataract surgeries up until I was four years old.

Back in late '65 cataract surgery was brand new.  All the doctor (I had a
good one) could do was to drill a hole trough the clouded lense to make a
window big enough for me to see through.  Then he had to vacuum out the
little peices.  This left behind a lot of scare tissue.  The subsequent
surgeries were to make the hole bigger and remove lense regrouth.

These surgery restored most of my vision.  I was borderline legally blind
up until last year.  But, I grew up, went to college (Texas A&M University)
and been working at NASA Johnson Space Center here in Houst, TX for the
past 11 years.

Do to the nature of those surgeries I am at a much higher risk for risk
for detached retinas and Glocoma (sp?).  In the fall of '98, I started to
notice anew vision problem. I ended up having surger where a buckle was
put in and laser treatment was done..  The surgery didn't take but slowed
the detachemnt's progress toward the macular area.  Back in Sept. 2000, I
had to have surger again but this time the gas bubble treatment and more
laser treatment was done.  Also the rest of the cataracted lense in the
left eye was removed.  It worked but my iris flattened out against my
cornea blocking the fluid drains causing eye pressure of 40 to 60.  A
second operation fixted that but the vision in my left eye has dropped to
20/400 from 20/200.

That's enough history.  I'm getting my money's worth out of this 10 posts
a day limit.  Just kidding.  Why am I here?  I'd like to know what other
folks do to make computers easier to use.  As you know already, I've asked
who the Palm PDA users are in this group, if any.  I also want to share my
experiences.

For my desktop computers I use Matrox video cards that have a desktop zoom
feature called pixelTOUCH.  I run Windows 2000 Pro. at work and at home.
I've got a Palm IIIx PDA and am looking at getting the new HandEra 330
that will be coming out soon.  I use a prgram from TealPoint Software
(http://www.tealpoint.com/) called TealMagnify to magnify the display via
a snapshot type mechanism.  I have a CCTV at work and home.  Last summer I
bough a device called Jordy from EVS (http://www.enahncedvision.com/)
which has opened a new world to me via it incredible portability.

Finally, I'm trying to get a Palm application developer interested in
writing a program that will make reading and editing text on a Palm much
easier for us vision impaired folks.  This is a nitch in the Palm field
that has yet to be filled, yet.  I'd like to see if what the demand for
such a product is which will hopefully enourage some to write the program.

I'm looking forward to reading posts in this list and giving my input.  I
promise that most of my future posts won't be this long. <grin>

Thanks,
Steven


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