Beating Blindness combines an inspiring memoir with a set of practical
tips that with help any blind person achieve a happy and successful life. In his
memoir Dan Pukstas traces his confrontation with retinitis pigmentosa ,from
early childhood to his professional retirement and beyond. Episodes where
Dan 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 saw
growing visual affliction as a challenge and not a call to surrender. Most of
all, Dan's account of his encounter with his deteriorating eyesight provides
a 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 that
he did indeed beat blindness, he goes on to offer a number of specific and
practical methods that any visually challenged or blind person can use to
make 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 to
approach problems from and more productive point of view. Dan's positive
attitude and sense of humor are always standing by to offer encouragement
and to stimulate a "can-do" spirit. Staying safe, getting organized, maintaining
good relationships with others, and continually pressing forward always get
the attention they deserve. Not to be excluded from Dan's list of suggestions
are the many ways that he has found to have fun and entertain himself. For
Dan, fun And blindness are not mutually exclusive.
In short, while blind readers will find Dan's battle with blindness and the
weapons he used to defeat it to be exciting and useful, all readers of this
book will experience joy in witnessing how another human being did not
succumb to the problems caused by a serious disability but instead turn
the troubles and limitations of the disability upside down so that they did
not become the substance of a human defeat but instead the source of a
great personal victory.
