Karen was right when she said that the leading causes of vision impairment and blindness in the United States are primarily age-related eye diseases. And as if to add salt to injury, the number of Americans at risk for age-related eye diseases is increasing as the baby-boomer generation ages.

There are many signs that signal deteriorating vision, e.g. even with your glasses or contact lens, do you have:

• difficulty recognizing faces of friends and relatives?
• difficulty doing things that require you to see well up-close, such as reading, cooking, sewing, fixing things around the house, or picking out and matching the color of your clothes?
• difficulty doing things at work or home because lights seem dimmer than they used to?
• difficulty reading street and bus signs or the names of stores?

Read about blindness and vision impairment at The Eye Digest — ouh yes, there are differences between the two! :)

Weirdgrrl blogged about her grandmother who has an eye condition called macular degeneration, and that she had, unfortunately, inherited it as well. Macular degeneration is a disease that causes progressive damage to the macular, i.e. the central part of the retina that allows us to see fine details.

Now, when the macula degenerates, people experience blurring or darkness in the center of their vision, and hence, it leads to the loss of central vision needed for activities requiring fine details such as reading, driving and recognizing faces. The words on a page may look blurred, or straight lines may look distorted. The central vision loss also impairs proficiency in performing most daily activities and can make things very difficult for people who enjoy living independent lives.

If you’re interested to read more about macular degeneration, as well as the symptoms, treatments and updates on medical research, The Eye Digest may have what you’re looking for :)

I’ve got myself a new theme, and after tweaking it for a couple of days, I’ve finally decided that this should be it for the time being. I’d still like to have the “Recent Comments” column in my footer instead of the “Blogroll” column, but I have not a single idea how to do that. So I guess I shall leave it as it is, until I’ve found someone who’s willing to help me with that *smiles*

Anyway, how do you like this new theme? It’s a little too late to ask, isn’t it, since I’ve already mentioned how I liked it, and will most probably stick with this for long :)

And I’ve just found out that the theme designer, Brian Gardner, is on a mission to walk for breast cancer. In his own words:

On August 10th of this year, I will once again lace up my shoes for the Chicago Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, and start an emotional journey that will take me 60 very long and grueling miles from Vernon Hills to downtown Chicago. This walk will be hot, this walk will be painful. There will be sweat, and there will be tears.

Now, some shocking statistics about breast cancer:

• By the time that you finish reading this, two more women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and another one just died from it.
• In fact, while I am walking those 60 miles, 110 women will die from this horrible disease.
• 110 families will lose a mother, or a daughter, or a best friend.

Check out Brian’s other WordPress themes and if you liked what you see, consider making a small donation (to donate via PayPal, you will need Brian’s email) so that he can participate in the Chicago Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, please? To participate in the event, he is required to raise a minimum of $2,200.

I don’t walk to get recognition. I don’t walk because I want people to think of me a hero. I walk so that a little girl can grow up and spend time with her mother. I walk so that a mother can watch her daughter walk down the aisle at her wedding. I walk so that I don’t have to console another friend while a part of her life was taken too soon. I walk because I am physically able to, while others are not. I walk because I have been given so much, and I want to give back as much as I can.