my name is Mathew Scharwte  and when I was
a child I was diagnosed with Leber's
congenital amaurosis it's a genetic
disorder that causes the retinal pigment
epithelial layer of your eye to not
recycle vitamin A and it causes the
deterioration of your photoreceptor
cells and it leads to a gradual decline
in vision as far back as I can
remember I knew that I had trouble
seeing that that other people didn't
yeah there's a lot of experiences that
you miss out
before the procedure was pretty scary
they were so nice to answer all a lot of
my questions and stuff but a mess it's
hard to know exactly what to expect is
it gonna be really painful or are you
gonna do something that mess it up I
noticed I could see blue colors better
first I kind of came back and then and
then the green and then the red I would
look around and I see things and I you
know I knew were there but I couldn't
really see them very well before well I
noticed if I was riding in a car I could
see individual trees and stuff but you
know by the side of the road we live in
a pretty visual world right I studied
computer science which has a lot to do with
math and you would be surprised how much
the study of math has to do with vision
I think people don't understand all the
little things that you use vision to do
well the way my vision is I can see a
lot better if it's something that's
bright on a black background like if I'm
using my computer I'll set up the text
to be white and the background of the
black so fireworks this is pretty
similar to that so that's really
striking when I can see those better
I've never thought that was gonna be in
a kind of medical intervention or
anything but it was you know 30 30 some
years later that is pretty
amazing news one of the best things that
I see every day in my life is my parents
