Author Kevin Turnbaugh, who lost his sight to an eye disease, stands with his guide dog, Jodi, outside his home in New Oxford last week. (THE EVENING SUN CLARE BECKER )
K evin Turnbaugh remembers the moment perfectly. He sat in a dimly lit room across from an eye specialist he had been referred to by a coworker, and clasped his hands together as he awaited the news from his recent test results.
The eye doctor took a deep breath before telling Turnbaugh news that would turn his world upside down – he was going blind.
Eighteen years ago, the New Oxford resident noticed his vision was getting worse than usual. He couldn’t totally see things in his periphery, and he occasionally would bump into trashcans and walls at work.
That’s when Turnbaugh was referred to a local eye specialist who might be able to help him figure out what was going on.
Turnbaugh went through a series of eye tests before receiving the news that he had an eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which causes retinal degeneration that progresses over time.
“The doctor told me it might be 10 years before I went totally blind,” Turnbaugh said as his voice cracked. “That was the really hard part – not just the fact that I was actually going blind, but that I had to painfully watch my vision slowly give out like that.”
Turnbaugh received news of his eye disease in 1984. By 1998, Turnbaugh said it was as if there were only two, small football-shaped cones in his eyes he could see out of. Soon after that, the small cones disappeared, and he was totally blind.
“I can’t describe to you how heart-wrenching it was to go through something like that,” Turnbaugh said. “I had to learn to live a totally different life, but I wasn’t going to let that get me down.”
Included in Turnbaugh’s new life was a specially trained black labrador named Jodi that helps guide Turnbaugh around, a job with the U.S. Army as a logistician and a specially equipped computer that helped him accomplish the goal of publishing his first two books.
Turnbaugh said in late 2010 he sat at his computer and just started writing.
“It wasn’t really that I had
Kevin Turnbaugh holds a copy of his first published book, Time Witnessing, in the study, where he is now working on a third book. (THE EVENING SUN CLARE BECKER)
always planned this book – up until then I had never really written anything in my life,” Turnbaugh said. “I just had this stuff in my heart that I needed to let loose.”
Turnbaugh’s first book, “Time Witnessing” drew from his personal experience and research with his eye disease and his research from working as a teacher at his local church. He described the book as being about the current attacks on Christians’ freedom in the U.S., and an analytical look at Christian-related history, all culminating in witnessing his personal story and viewpoint to his readers.
Writing and publishing his first book involved using a specially equipped computer.
His computer utilizes a software called JAWS made by Freedom Scientific. JAWS works
Jodi, Kevin Turnbaugh s guide dog, stands in the kitchen of the home. (THE EVENING SUN CLARE BECKER)
as screen reader software, meaning that every key Turnbaugh types, his computer reads back to him.
Turnbaugh pulls up the menu using keystrokes, and his computer reads each option he scrolls down, once he pulls up his word document, his computer will read him each key he types.After typing a paragraph, by using a keystroke command, Turnbaugh can have his computer read back what he has written.
“There’s no mouse involved when the blind use computers,” Turnbaugh said. “Cause we can’t see the arrow on the screen, so how do we know what we’re scrolling over?”
It took Turnbaugh just four short months to complete his first book. As he went through the editing and publishing process, he was already working on the next one.
Turnbaugh’s next book included some of the same themes as his last, but was centered more toward current social and political issues.
The second book, “Critical Condition” uses Turnbaugh’s Christian convictions and his common sense to analyze some pressing present day issues. The book stresses a minimalist approach to politics centered on morality and simplicity.
“I use a lot of my personal experiences and personal convictions much as I did in the first book to tackle some serious issues,” Turnbaugh said. “I think it’s important that people ponder these current issues and hear different viewpoints, and this book is a good way to do that.”
While Turnbaugh said he hasn’t quite seen the sales that he’s wanted to from his books yet, that doesn’t stop him from already getting to work on a third one.
“It’s funny because I wasn’t even really planning on writing a book and hadn’t even been much of a writer before it,” Turnbaugh said with a chuckle. “Now I just can’t seem to get enough of it.”
Turnbaugh sits at his computer in the evenings and types away as his screen#-#reader software aids him in pursuing his newfound hobby, and his quiet dog, Jodi, sits by his side.
While he doesn’t know what the future holds, he hopes it will involve some book signings and the publishing of his third book.
“I’m really happy with what I’ve done so far,” Turnbaugh said. “The fact that I had this eye disease and didn’t let it get in the way of accomplishing these things – well that makes me pretty proud.”
To contact Turnbaugh for a book signing, email kdtlkt83@embarqmail.com.
IF YOU GO
To purchase Time Witnessing:Search “Time Witnessing” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bible Gateway or Books-A-Million.
To purchase Critical Condition:Search “Critical Condition: The Lack of Common Sense in America,” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bible Gateway, or Books-A-Million.
Details on the author:Visit Turnbaugh’s personal website timewitnessing.com
To contact Turnbaugh for book signing: Email kdtlkt83@embarqmail.com
