Remarkable World Commentary Episode #76: The Cost of Vision Loss

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #76: The Cost of Vision Loss | Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-02-01-2026/ In this thought-provoking episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan reflects on "the cost of vision loss" and how it can abruptly and profoundly reshape a person's life, especially when a child loses their sight. She describes how vision loss forces children and their parents to find "workarounds" for navigating a fast-moving world, while also confronting social attitudes and the real-life barriers that can suddenly appear in everyday situations. Donna also expands the conversation to adulthood, noting how vision loss in the workplace can change how an employer and co-workers perceive the individual, and can create risks like being sidelined, limited in advancement, or even downsized. She points out that the impact ripples into healthcare and education as well, where medical professionals and educators must adapt to help people manage shifting needs, whether learning is happening in-person, virtually, or online. Donna credits a recent conversation with advocate Ian White for raising her awareness, and she hopes to continue the discussion with him in a future episode. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA invites you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, site loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello, I'm Donna and welcome to my Remarkable World commentary first podcast of On My Own for February 2026. You know, I never really gave much credence or much thought to this topic that I'm about to discuss with you, and I only did so after my podcast with the great Ian White of Toronto, terrific advocate who has worked tirelessly to ensure that persons stay connected. He was the CEO of visionaries chapter for the CCP for quite some time, and he retired or stepped back quite probably a few months ago. And he is now in moving in a different direction, but I wanted to talk about this topic for today. Based on the podcast interview that I had with Ian, and I'd like to thank him for raising my awareness, and I apologize to myself that I never really thought about this topic before. Okay, it's all about the cost of vision loss for the child who loses their vision. It means that their future has been changed dramatically and drastically, and now them and their parents will have to find workarounds, as I call it, to deal with vision loss for the parent. It's also dramatic and drastic because they now have to find ways to help their child to grow up in a world that is so fast moving, to help them navigate the landscape and to help them deal with both social and artificial attitudes as well as real life attitudes. That's what vision loss does for a parent. And in the workplace, it means that if someone has lost their vision while working, they too have to find ways to deal with their vision loss. Things will never be the same. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The employer looks at the one losing their vision differently now, for better or for worse, and their co-workers do the same. The person losing their vision in the workplace now has to find ways to cope, find ways to keep up. And they run the risk of being, you know, either downsized or being stymied at their job or being told that they can't go any further because of their loss of vision. That is the cost of vision loss. The medical community as well suffers a lot from, you know, the cost of vision loss because now and this may not be a good way of putting it, but a good way of looking at it, they too, have to work harder to ensure that their patients can deal most effectively with vision loss. This is what vision loss brings. This is what the cost of vision loss is all about. And then when we think of education, both in the classroom, virtually in the classroom, face to face, virtually and online, everything changes with vision loss, health wise, education wise, socially, everything changes with the cost of vision loss. But we don't realize it until it happens to us. And maybe there is some little thing that I, Donna, can do to start raising more awareness to the meaning of the term, the cost of vision loss. And I am hoping to have Ian White back on my podcast, Remarkable World Commentary, sometime early in the new year to continue his discussion. A very, very interesting and insightful discussion all about the cost of vision loss. I'm Donna, thanking you for coming in and listening to me. Have a great day. Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at [email protected]. Until next time.