She does not carry a white cane or wear sunglasses. In fact, you may not be able to tell that 42-year-old Norrizan Nahar is visually impaired.
During the day, she can only see clearly up to a distance of one to two metres. At night, she cannot discern slopes and steps, and avoids going out for fear of a bad fall.
Norrizan was born with congenital cataracts, a rare birth defect where the lens of the eye is cloudy, blocking her vision. As a child, she underwent surgeries to remove her cataracts, and wore thick and heavy glasses with a prescription of more than 1,000 degrees.
In 2010, at the age of 28, she had follow-up cataract surgery where artificial lenses were implanted. Three years later, she had a right corneal transplant, where part of her cornea was replaced with tissue from a donor.
Unfortunately, a year later, she experienced chronic rejection of the transplanted cornea, leaving Norrizan with right-eye vision impairment. She now heavily relies on her left eye to see.
Previously a porter and cleaner, she was unable to continue working. She then became a stay-at-home-mother to her six children, now aged between eight and 23, two of whom have inherited her congenital cataracts.
