Breaking Through Blindness
The five basic senses of the human mind are touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste, and losing even one of them is like losing a part of yourself.
But, when one is lost, the others compensate. For one man, he lost his sight, and while his other senses heightened, his drive to break through his blindness also persisted.
Meet Devin Pinckard, a 40-year-old father, teacher and counselor, but Devin has something that separates him from everyone.
17 years ago, he was diagnosed with Stargardt, one of the rarest genetic eye disorders in the world, with only 30,000 people in the U.S. affected by it. In short, the disease degenerates a person’s center of vision to where they are unable to see anything but a circle of light.
For Devin, it’s like his vision is blocked by a hand, and all he can see is the little bits of light and color in his peripheral vision.
Usually, those with Stargardt lose their vision gradually, which starts in childhood, but Devin lost his vision in what felt like an instant. While he was an undergrad, he lived his life free as a college student with his soon-to-be wife, but within a month, he was on a walking cane and unable to see anything.
But even though Devin lost his vision, he didn’t lose sight of a future where he could still be himself.
When Stargardt first hit Devin, his eyes began to swell to the point where doctors had to remove fluid from his retina.
"My eyes hurt almost all the time to the point that I felt like plucking them out with a spoon. So at first I just had my eyes closed all the time." Devin said.
His professors, dean, and advisors told him to quit his undergraduate degree and drop out of college because they thought he’d never go anywhere and he would be on welfare for the rest of his life anyway. Devin’s college also told him that they didn’t want him representing their college because they only wanted “good-quality people.”
This disease came close to forcing Devin to give up everything that made him feel free, his future career and almost his family.
Devin is blessed with his wife Heidi and two children, Cory and Molly, but neither their life nor the picture-perfect family they knew they wanted came easy. Heidi knew Devin before he lost his sight, and Devin told her that if she wanted to leave because of his disability, she could, no hard feelings. But she chose to keep fighting for their future.
After they married and started building their family, Devin and Heidi were weighed down by an immeasurable amount of loss.
While pregnant with Cory, their now 16-year-old son, she developed toxemia. Officially named preeclampsia, the pregnancy complication threatens the life of both the mother and the baby because of dangerously high blood pressure and liver and/or kidney damage.
When they found the preeclampsia in Heidi, she was immediately admitted into the hospital, and to save both her life and Cory’s unborn life, the doctors had to perform an emergency cesarean section on her three months before Cory was supposed to be born.
After having Cory, the doctors told Heidi any pregnancy thereafter was a health risk and unlikely to succeed, but she never gave up, even after facing more and more loss.
But Heidi kept pushing herself and Devin to keep trying, and by a miracle, with a new doctor and regimen of medications, she and Devin were graced with Molly, their now 6-year-old daughter.
Now that they have Cory and Molly, they don’t feel like they have to keep trying for anymore, they both feel their family is complete.
And this kept Devin’s spirit going and his drive to fight for his independence and freedom alive. For him, there are a lot of things he lost with his vision, his love for cooking being one of them. But, Devin fought for the things that were worth it. To Heidi, Devin astounds her with his method of finding ways to make things work, like how Devin is able to be behind the wheel of a car driving.
To be safe on the road, Devin uses bioptics, a telescope-like pair of glasses that allows him to see things by taking all the light from the peripheral vision and centralize it so a center of vision is artificially created.
Another thing that Devin fights to keep is being there for his family. When Cory became older, he wanted to play basketball for his school, but they didn’t have a coach, so Devin put his son before himself and coached Cory’s team.
"When Corey got older, he wanted to play basketball, but nobody was willing to coach," Devin said. "And I was pretty good basketball for a lost my eyesight."
"And so I went and coached and everybody's like, well, how's the blind guy gonna coach?"
Devin Pinckard
In practice and before games, Devin would tell his players exactly what they were going to do, have them practice specific plays, and who was going to substitute in at certain times. But when he was on the court during games, Devin would rely on his players and their parents to tell him what was going on.
Devin’s commitment to figuring out ways to do life is for his family, they inspire and push him forward. But, behind all his actions is a fear of losing his job because of his disability and being unable to provide for his family.
"I had so much fear that nobody was gonna hire me, and if I did get hired, eventually I was gonna get fired because of my disability," Devin said.
After graduating with his bachelor’s degree in finance, Devin started to look for a job, and he ended up at Horizon Human Services, what he originally thought was a computer store.
During the interview, the owners asked him questions that lined up with his degree, but what he didn't get the job he was expecting.
While he never thought that he had a place as a behavioral therapist, they offered him an ultimatum: "Do you want the job or not?"
And because he needed the job, Devin took the offer.
His managers then encouraged him to get his master’s degree, which he did, in substance abuse and professional counseling at Grand Canyon University.
With his master’s degree and experience in behavioral health, Devin kept going further and became a telehealth therapist, inspiring him to let go of his fear of losing his job and start being comfortable and exploring new avenues of careers.
Soon after gaining his newfound confidence, Devin became a part-time teacher at Big Bend Community College teaching the English language to Japanese, Ukrainian, Russian and Spanish-speaking refugees. As a teacher, cultivated a love for educating he never knew he had.
Devin loved it so much he started thinking about how he could take a career in teaching to the next level. He was told if he really wanted to do it, he would have to pursue a doctorate, so he went back to GCU and started his journey to becoming a professor.
A doctorate is a rigorous journey of research and writing, Devin never liked the idea of doing research, and he hated writing because it was a challenge for him with his disability. He had to rely a lot on adaptive devices to write do his work and run everything he did through his family and friends.
But with all the help he was getting, Devin felt like an imposter; he didn’t feel like he was good enough because he couldn’t do it on his own.
Though, with some help from the tutoring services offered by GCU, Devin was able to find his confidence.
When Devin was writing anything at the doctoral level, he often found himself intimidated because he was making it too complex in his mind. But the support he received from GCU broke down the daunting assignments into manageable steps, increasing his confidence, which ultimately was how Devin proved his worth.
Whether it was fighting for the ability to drive and coach, being resilient in building a family, or pursuing a doctorate, Devin inspired himself and accomplished things someone not held back by a disability couldn’t.
And for all of us, if something holds us back, we can break through, just like Devin has, move past the “I can’t” and “It’s too much” and look forward to a future where it is bright and filled with color and joy.
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Stargardt
Ocutech Bioptics
Preeclampsia
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