Beating Blindness

Beating Blindness combines an inspiring memoir with a set of practicaltips that with help any blind person achieve a happy and successful life. In hismemoir Dan Pukstas traces his confrontation with retinitis pigmentosa ,fromearly childhood to his professional retirement and beyond. Episodes whereDan is playing youth baseball, traversing down a mountain as a blind skier,racing somewhat blindly down a college football field, and most significantly,having his life saved 3 times by his wife Nancy are both thrilling and engaging. This is not the tale of a victim but rather the story of an individual who sawgrowing visual affliction as a challenge and not a call to surrender. Most ofall, Dan s account of his encounter with his deteriorating eyesight providesa model for how his three basic principles of a positive attitude, courage,and creativity led him to have a happy and successful life. Once Dan has shown the reader through the incidents in the memoir thathe did indeed beat blindness, he goes on to offer a number of specific andpractical methods that any visually challenged or blind person can use tomake his life much better. Sometimes, Dan s suggestions are quite concrete;at other times he encourages the reader to take on a new attitude and toapproach problems from and more productive point of view. Dan s positiveattitude and sense of humor are always standing by to offer encouragementand to stimulate a can-do spirit. Staying safe, getting organized, maintaininggood relationships with others, and continually pressing forward always getthe attention they deserve. Not to be excluded from Dan s list of suggestionsare the many ways that he has found to have fun and entertain himself. ForDan, fun And blindness are not mutually exclusive. In short, while blind readers will find Dan s battle with blindness and theweapons he used to defeat it to be exciting and useful, all readers of thisbook will experience joy in witnessing how another human being did notsuccumb to the problems caused by a serious disability but instead turnthe troubles and limitations of the disability upside down so that they didnot become the substance of a human defeat but instead the source of agreat personal victory.