About Us
Discovering You Have RP.
I grew up in Chicago in the 40’s. We had a nice city park a block from the apartment and I spent a lot of time there playing baseball and basketball. While on the courts, I missed a lot of passes from teammates. Sometimes the ball would hit me in the side. I didn’t see them coming. My peripheral vision was starting to deteriorate, but it was dismissed as clumsiness. Needless to say, I wasn’t the first one picked for the team.
One evening, when I was about 17, I was sitting in front of the house talking with a friend. We had been eating candy and throwing the wrappers on the ground, when my friend commented on how many there were. I responded with, what wrappers, I don’t see them. We started to check and see what else I was unable to see. I was developing night blindness. Life Goes On. I come from a very resilient family. By example, we were taught to do the best we could. My mother was the strong one and never complained about aches and pains. She once broke her toe, but she just taped it up and kept on going. Raised on a farm in the 20’s, she leaned about hard work, and passed that to her children. I don’t remember when I noticed my mother losing her sight, she didn’t talk about it. My older sister started having problems in her early 30’s. It was through my sister that we finally put a title to our condition. She was the researcher. We have RETINITIS PIGMENTOSA (RP) In my younger years, I went to study electronics and worked in that field until moving to Florida in 1967. In 1984, I entered the field of broadcasting and engineered a Christian Radio Station in north Florida. I still own and operate a number of small stations today. One day, on a fishing trip with my three sons, when I asked my youngest to walk me back to our motor home, I noticed that he was showing signs of night blindness. He was about 34 at the time. He tried to refuse the idea that he had any problem, but I insisted that he check it out. Sure enough, RP had claimed another victim. I had always hoped for a cure for RP, but every year that went by gave me less hope, at least for me. I tried to keep up with research on the condition, only to find it sadly lacking. Now my son is facing the problem. Knowing what was in store for him is how I came to the point I am now at. People with Low Vision have few choices when it comes to visual aids. Big magnifiers, talking books, talking clocks and so on. Nothing to give back lost vision. Then one day I decided that I should take on the project myself. After all, I do have a background in electronics and mechanical engineering. There is a saying, “Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention”. As a result, New Vision Eyewear was born.
Fast Forward To The Present
Father "Peter Swartz" and son "Stanley" founders of New Vision Eyewear
May this be the last generation that will suffer from the condition we call RP.
