My Journey Into Blindness and the Surgery That Restored it. Elizabeth Pizzarello

Elizabeth Pizzarello was born a sighted child in the Bronx, New York. She grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Cedar Crest College, in Pennsylvania. Just weeks before graduating, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that contributed to her eventual blindness. After ten years of living blind, in 2012 Elizabeth was the beneficiary of a newly developed lens implant procedure with miraculous results. The surgery took her from a state of complete blindness to the limited use of one eye.  ​The inspiration for writing this memoir came from that moment of profound gratitude when Elizabeth experienced her newly regained sight post surgery. Elizabeth’s poem “WOW” was composed during the first month of her sight being restored. The ability to see the incredible world around her again had such a profound impact that she was compelled to write the poem in an attempt to distill the emotional magnitude of her journey. That is why the poem occupies such a prominent position at the beginning of her book. ​This book recounts moments from her story about going from life as a sighted child, through early adulthood, when she first received the devastating diagnosis of the disease that led to the gradual reduction of her sight that ended in blindness. But going blind and being blind are not the same thing, nor is going blind just about learning to live in darkness. It is Elizabeth’s desire to explain the psychological complexity of that transition as well as share the incredible twist of fate that enabled her to have a portion of her vision restored a decade later.  ​Elizabeth is working on a collection of children’s stories that embody themes of compassion, determination, resilience, and pushing past limiting beliefs based on the lessons she learned from her experience as a disabled individual.