Casey Kidson
Casey Kidson is a paratriathlete living and racing with dystonia. She uses her platform to raise awareness about dystonia and is proof that limits aren’t the end.
More Than Our Story
Rob Sears
Rob Sears is a blind athlete living with choroideremia. Based in Norwich, UK, he is a content creator, sports therapist, personal trainer, and coach who advocates for accessible fitness and for people with sight loss. He proudly serves as an ambassador for Vision Norfolk, Purpl, and Outlaw Triathlon, collaborates with Retina UK, and speaks about his experiences with sight loss, performance, and resilience.
Highlights
It's something nice to give back to your (local triathlon) club and community that support you.
I have choroideremia… It's a genetic eye disease, which is very similar to retinitis pigmentosa. So my eyesight has been deteriorating, from the peripheral to the inside. So I have a small amount of sight, somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees of sight in the center. No one really knows for definite, but it's like looking through little straws. So, if you can imagine that we're in a long tunnel, and you can just see a little bit of light at the end, that's what it's like for me.
My thought process is if I'm healthy, if I eat well, if I sleep well, if I don't do drugs or don't smoke, I don't drink. If I look after myself, I'll keep what (sight) I've got for as long as I possibly can. But there's no guarantee that doing any of that stuff would make it worse. But for me personally, I just think if I live the best life I can, I've probably got the best shot possible of staying fit and healthy.
I'm not the kind of person that will just sit back and dwell on it. Life's too short. You know, I've got too many cool things to go and do to be sitting around thinking about what if I lose my sight completely, you know?
At the moment, it's like, well, if I want to go and see something, I'll do everything I can to go and see it. If I want to do something, I'll do it, because we just don't know how much time we have left.
When I was at high school, one of my PE teachers, at the first parents’ evening… said to my parents in front of me that I would never do anything in sport… I’m now almost 45, and I'm heavily involved in sport. I work in sports; I help other people in sports. I inspire people through what I do, and I love that. I'm never going to be a gold medalist at the Paralympics, but I will never stop doing what I enjoy doing, and that's me.
We (Ant and I) got together last year, and we did two races in May of that year. To date, we've done four races. Hamburg was our fifth, which unfortunately we didn't finish. Number six is in five weeks' time.
It took a few hours for me to be okay with us not finishing the race. There were a lot of people also not finishing, and we kind of stuck together and made the best of it we could.
On witnessing his wife become an Ironman:
It was incredible. It's very emotional, definitely, but it was great… You’re just so proud. You know, you’re just happy that they've got through it unscathed, you know, survived the day. They achieved what they thought they couldn't achieve, and it's great to see her go for it.
We're coming back to Hamburg. This year, it was about getting to the race and finishing it. Whereas next year we get to the race, but absolutely smash the race. So the winter is going to be head-down training. We know what we need to work on; I know what I need to work on, and I’m just going to get to it.
I went to university and did biomedical science, a Bachelor of Science degree, and it just didn't inspire me… I really enjoyed being around personal trainers, so the course that I wanted to study was a diploma in personal training, and it (included) sports massage. So I did it, and I really enjoyed it. So I thought, “Well, I can make that into a career.” So I spent the next 20 years just studying sports therapy, training, personal training, triathlon coaching, run coaching, and yeah, I love it.
(With) sports therapy, I can be hands-on. It's about what I can feel, and not what I can see, and obviously that will benefit me when I have less sight than I have now. It helps me be a better professional, because I think I can feel better than people that are using their vision to do the job that I do.
Gyms are not easy places for visually impaired and blind people. You know the dumbbells, the weights are black, the bars are black. You know, the mats are normally a black color, the benches are normally black, the weight plates, the machine. It's a lot of black, a lot of dull lights, a lot of moody lighting. You go in the Spin Studio, for example, you've got 50 bikes in a room, but it's like a nightclub, so you just get flashing lights, and it's not a great place for someone like me to be in. So I now work from home. My massage couch is behind us, and I work online, so it's great.
At the moment, I'm just enjoying being out there and helping inspire people just by doing it myself. We had a lot of messages from other partially sighted and blind people around the world that saw my video, the video that Ironman posted with me and Ant getting in the water. We had people at the race in Hamburg that contacted me and were inspired by it, and want to get into it… I just enjoy that we can have that impact on people.
On his YouTube Channel Blind Focus:
I basically want to just help inspire as many people as I can while I'm able to do so. It started off as a channel just charting my journey with sight loss, and it's sort of starting to morph into some different things. Obviously, the sports stuff is really cool. You know, the journey with Ironman through Hamburg, you know, that's been pretty cool… Basically, it's just me being me, doing the stuff that I do, chucking out some stuff to help, inspire people, throwing out some stuff that shows people how I do what I do.
The RNBI, the Royal National Institute of Blind People. They’re the big national charity in the UK that supports partially-sighted and blind people, and their Out of Sight campaign is all about raising awareness of the fact that, to this day, there's no regulation of when people receive their vision rehabilitation training. What that means is when you go to ophthalmology in this country, you go to the eye hospital, and they tell you you've lost your sight… What should then happen is that somebody from your local council should get notification that you've been defined as severely sight-impaired… The support is for a vision rehabilitation specialist, and they will make contact, and they will teach you how to live the most independent life you can… But, unfortunately, that isn't happening for visually-impaired people in the UK. So, depending on where you live in the country, depends on what sort of vision rehabilitation you get and how long you're waiting for it.
I feel I've been fortunate to lose my sight little by little. So I've been able to get used to it. Whereas if you are sitting here now, watching this, listening to this, and you suddenly close your eyes and think about, okay, how are you going to get home if you can't see, drive a car, or ride your bike, or get on the bus?
I was an ambassador for Outlaw last year. Outlaw Triathlon is a company in the UK that do triathlons, and for them, it was me being at their triathlon and just showcasing that people with disabilities can do sport… I just like the fact that we're out there doing, you know, doing stuff that people maybe think we can't.
Vision Norfolk are the local sight loss charity for people who live in Norfolk. Norfolk is quite rural, it's on the coast, it's very spread out. So you think about London. It's all quite compact… There's good transport links, buses, tubes, trams, Uber… Norfolk is big. Some buses only run from one place to another once a day. Some places don't have train stations. There's a lot of elderly people with vision problems, so it creates problems. So Vision Norfolk supports people in Norfolk, and as I live in Norwich, it made sense for me to support the people who are supporting people around me.
(Choroideremia) has taught me to just appreciate what you have. It sounds very, very cliché, but it's not until you start losing something, you realize how precious it is. So you know, while you've got your hearing, and while you have your sight, while you have the ability to go and do things. I think, appreciate that, because when you don't have it, you'll wish that you'd appreciated it much, much more. And just not wait for anything, literally just get on and do it. If you want to do something, go and do it, because you just don't know what’s going to happen.
Rob’s message for people facing challenges:
It does get better…. Life's really, really short, and so although it feels like it's the worst it can be, it will get better… Time is very good… You know, the worst days are never lost. There's always hope… The other thing is not to be afraid to reach out for help because there's some things you shouldn't be working through by yourself, and actually reaching out and just getting someone to help is a big thing… Just sharing it and talking about it can really help.
Rob Sears
Connect with Rob on his social channels.
Vision Norfolk
For 220 years, Vision Norfolk has been a lifeline for thousands of people across Norfolk, supporting people with vision impairment in our communities to lead more fulfilling, independent lives.
Purpl
Purpl is the UK’s first discount platform built by disabled people, for disabled people. They make saving money fairer, simpler, and more accessible, with handpicked deals, exclusive discounts, and trusted advice that puts your needs first.
Outlaw Triathlon
Outlaw Triathlon is one of the UK’s premier long-distance triathlon series, renowned for delivering professionally organized, athlete-focused events in spectacular locations. Outlaw welcomes everyone from first-time triathletes to elite competitors with the same supportive, inclusive atmosphere.
Retina UK
Retina UK is a charity supporting people affected by inherited sight loss and investing in medical research to help make their challenges a thing of the past.
Royal National Institute of Blind People
RNIB, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, is the UK’s leading sight loss charity. We offer practical and emotional support to blind and partially sighted people, their families and carers. We raise awareness of the experiences of blind and partially sighted people and campaign for change to make our society more accessible for all. We want to change our world so there are no barriers to people with sight loss.
Daniel
Daniel is an extremely curious person, a wealth of random knowledge and facts. Extremely passionate about a vast array of interests ranging from health to history, science to athletics, everything culinary and the list goes on. Trust us, you would want to be on his team for Trivial Pursuit.
Daniel is also years into his battle with brain cancer. He experienced a seizure while on a Zoom call at work in late 2020 and quite literally, his life changed within minutes. After his operation he started to talk about his story but had always known it was more than just him. From then, More Than Our Story became a PROJECT that has evolved into the starting point it is today.
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