A formidable person

Here is a story about one of my aunts who is a professor. After her daughter's birth she began to lose her sight (she was short-sighted). Firstly doctors gave her the strong eyeglasses but the problem was more important. After a few health checks in a Paris hospital, retinitif pigmentosa (a genetic incurable disease) was detected. It was really hard for her to accept this diagnostic but she had to progress in spite of it-especially because of her children. She was very anxious that they could have the same disease. All the family was examined and it was my aunt's brother who had the same diagnostic. Despite of her handicap, that was not recognized as such, she continued to teach. She asked for a small classroom to give classes and not to give way to this terrible illness.

Over the years the illness became worse. When she couldn't conceal it anymore, she told her students about it, she asked them for their assistance : to put their schoolbags under their chairs not to fall. Students had also to write only with a black ballpoint pens. My aunt got a technical assistance (a videoscope) to grade the exams. She exercised until the age of 56. But all her life she had been supported by her husband. At the very beginning her children didn't understand that their mother was sightless because she always accomplished all household chores. She began to use a white walkihg-stick and learnt the Brail alphabet only when she was retired.

But don't believe that she is inactif now. She sings in a choral group, serfs the Web via the talking enable computer, goes skiing and practices many other things.