In Episode 11 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson sit down with special guest [Janelle's last name], a former collegiate softball pitcher and occupational therapist living with Stargardt's disease, for a conversation that moves between heartbreak and hard-won clarity in a way that only this community seems to pull off. Janelle takes the hosts back to the moment everything changed: a routine eye appointment, six yellow spots on her retinas, a diagnosis delivered at speed, and a drive home that ended with Google and a whole lot of fear. She walks through the four months that took her from 20/40 vision to legally blind, a well-intentioned trip to Arizona that made things significantly worse thanks to a treatment she had no reason to question, and the surreal experience of returning to her college campus for senior year knowing she couldn't drive anymore and figuring out, one neighbor at a time, how to keep going anyway.

What makes this episode land isn't just the story, it's the way Janelle tells it, with a warmth and self-awareness that makes even the toughest moments feel like something you can sit with. She talks about laying in center field staring at clouds, quietly counting down the sights she wasn't ready to lose, balancing a psychology degree with therapy sessions about fears she hadn't yet lived through, and eventually building a life that includes a husband of 14 years who tried to sell her on the word "chauffeur" and somehow got away with it. From the softball diamond to occupational therapy school to running five businesses, Janelle's story is a portrait of a person who kept making decisions under uncertainty and figuring out the rest on the fly, which turns out to be exactly what blindness and low vision sometimes demand.

Other Resources
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Amerability Website: https: https://www.amerability.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Amerability

About Amerability:
Amerability was born from a simple but powerful idea: that blind and low vision individuals deserve more than support — they deserve the tools, mentorship, and real-world experiences to build lives on their own terms. Founded by CEO Murray Elbourn, a legally blind leader with more than 25 years of executive experience in disability sports and workforce development across two continents, Amerability combines lived experience with professional expertise to create programs that don't just prepare participants for the world — they prove the world is already theirs to conquer. Murray's journey from captaining Australia's national goalball team and leading Disability Sports Australia as CEO to founding Amerability in the United States gave him a firsthand understanding of what blind and low vision individuals truly need to succeed: not sympathy, but strategy, structure, and someone who has walked the path before them. That philosophy is woven into everything Amerability does, from the way programs are designed to the mentors who deliver them, ensuring that every participant is met with high expectations, practical guidance, and the unwavering belief that their goals are within reach.