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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.
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.
#BlindTok is the weekly podcast where the vision loss community finally gets to have the conversations that matter without having to explain the basics first. Hosted by Murray Elbourne, CEO of Amerability, and co-host Tammy Jackson, a healthcare professional navigating life with retinitis pigmentosa, this show brings together real stories, real struggles, and real laughs from people across the entire blindness spectrum. Every week tackles topics the community actually cares about, from social isolation and career reinvention to dating disasters, cane anxiety, family dynamics, accessible tech that actually works, and everything in between. Guests from all walks of life share the messy, unscripted truth about adjusting to vision loss, the kind of honesty that never makes it into awareness campaigns but absolutely needs to be heard.
Whether you're newly diagnosed and trying to figure out what comes next, years into your journey and navigating a rough patch, or someone who loves a person with vision loss and wants to truly understand their world, this podcast meets you where you are. Born out of the thriving #BlindTok community on TikTok, where thousands have already found connection through shared experience, this show gives those conversations the space and depth they deserve. Expect candid storytelling, practical insights, community questions, the occasional embarrassing moment that every person with vision loss will immediately relate to, and two hosts who live this life every single day and aren't afraid to talk about all of it. New episodes drop weekly because this community waited long enough for a seat at the table, and now the table is ours.