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brucebrown.com
For 43 years, Mike May lived fearlessly as a blind man. Then he was offered During the next few months, he set out to explore the world anew. He gazed at flowers, watched old home movies and played catch with his kids. He requested the window seat during flights to soak in the miniature landscapes below, and he visited many of his favorite places, such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Lake Tahoe. When he first stood atop a mountain at Kirkwood and gazed across the horizon, he was speechless. “It was hard to get ahold of the fact that I was ‘in touch’ with something that was miles away. It was a strange feeling, too, to see the slopes and trees that were so familiar to me in my mind and yet I hadn’t literally seen them,” he says. Yet his first attempt at skiing by sight was disastrous. He could identify dark shapes but couldn’t determine whether they were actual skiers or simply shadows cast by skiers, the ski lift or bumps in the snow. After a few tries and numerous falls, he gave up, discouraged and exhausted. Experiences like these convinced May that something was seriously wrong with his vision. Why did a rectangular box look just like a rectangular piece of paper? Why did stairs look like a series of stripes? Why were faces impossible to identify—even the faces of family members and friends? May underwent a battery of tests, which confirmed what he had suspected: The new eye was functioning fine, but his brain was not processing certain types of information. “Mike lost his sight at a time when his brain was still quite plastic and he was still learning to interpret the visual world,” explains Ione Fine, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington, who led the team researching May’s vision problems. “So when the lights went out, his neurons recolonized to process auditory and tactile information, which is what he needed to function as a blind person. When we looked at Mike’s MRI, the part of the brain used for vision responded very differently than a normal person’s. It was clear he’d never be able to fully use vision the way [people with sight] do.” Although May was deflated, he refused to give up. “I knew there had to be a way to do this that no one had thought of. So I started thinking of the options available to me. And I realized the more I could build up a catalog of information and situations, the faster I would be able to see,” he says. May was best at identifying objects that were familiar, so the more he could memorize characteristics of these objects or situations, the better he would be able to perceive what he was seeing. And by integrating certain tools he’d developed as a blind person, he could make that perception even more reliable. “Let’s say I’m at the airport looking for a restroom,” he explains. “I know to look for a square, blue plaque next to a door—so I’m using my vision. But then I might confirm that by using smells and sounds and by reading the Braille on the sign to make sure it’s the right room.” With years of practice, May’s method has paid off by allowing him to process visual information faster. On the other hand, he has learned that in some areas, the old methods still work better. He uses Braille or speech output technology (where text is read aloud to him via a synthesizer) to read. When he skis, he “detunes” his vision and relies more on a guide to help him identify obstacles. And he typically brings his guide dog or a cane if he’s walking through unfamiliar territory. Some tasks, like driving, will never be a possibility for May. But in other cases, it has simply taken a bit of experimentation for him to find the best way to see the world. For example, he recently discovered he could watch his son’s baseball games better through the zoom lens of a camera, so he now videotapes all of the games. Those who know him best say May hasn’t changed a bit since his surgery seven years ago. “I think Mike’s core values have remained absolutely unchanged since his surgery,” says May’s longtime friend Bryan Bashin. “He is just as intrepid with sight as before, just as curious, and he continues to seek out new adventures as always.” Jennifer, May’s wife of nearly 20 years and the mother of his sons, Wyndham, 13, and Carson, 15, agrees: “It never ceases to amaze me how Mike wakes up positive every morning. Every day is a new possibility to him.” Perhaps what has kept May grounded during the ups and downs of regaining vision is his perspective that sight was never meant to be his salvation but simply another adventure to be experienced and absorbed. As he once told an audience, “I didn’t do [the surgery] to see. I did it to see what seeing was.” He still believes that is the meaning behind his story. “If you’re just sitting at home afraid to try things, you’re guaranteed to avoid hardships,” May says. “But if you’re really going for it, you will definitely encounter these things. You’re going to have bumps and bruises, but with that comes opportunity.” advertisement
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