I'm relieved that your back was spared too, and I hope that you don't suffer from chronic pain issues. At least not severe chronic pain, the kind that makes a person almost unable to think about anything else! I suspect that spinal issues are more likely to cause that sort of problem, but I could be wrong.
My two oldest siblings are blind from the same genetic condition that I inherited, called Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum (PXE). It causes elastic tissues within the body to mineralize abnormally, so it also causes problems like peripheral artery disease from less elastic arterial walls.
I wasn't born until our parents were in their 40's, so those siblings are 21 and 17 years older than me. Our parents were only carriers of the defective gene that causes the condition, so they knew nothing about it. They took my oldest sister to a dermatologist in the 1950's, and he correctly identified her skin blemishes as PXE. However, he assured Mom and Dad that was the extent of it! The doctor never mentioned vision loss or anything else that could happen other than minor bumps of the outer skin at some locations of the body, most of which are covered by clothing.
Just before I graduated from college, I first learned about my sister's vision problems from it! Then my brother soon thereafter. And I was affected at an earlier age than either of them, so I wasn't too many years behind when my one eye was going through neovascularization, retinal scarring and then central vision blindness.
There's also an elastic membrane behind our retinas which gets mineralized and then cracks. It's those tiny cracks -- called angioid streaks -- that causes "wet" macular degeneration from choroidal neovascularization (tiny blood vessels that grow through the cracks into the retina) at an early age for people with PXE.
I was getting shots of Avastin into my only "good eye" for several years, to prolong the vision from that eye as long as possible. My retinologist repeatedly assured me that I'd go blind regardless because my retina kept being traumatized by new blood vessel growth about once every one or two months. So Avastin would only slow down the blindness, dramatically, but that retina was still doomed. He said that my RPE (part of the retina) looked terrible from so much repeated trauma.
To avoid this post from becoming a small novel, I'll just say that there's now scar tissue BEHIND the tiny cracks within the elastic membrane which is located behind the retina. So those cracks are sealed shut now! I'm not a religious person at all, but it was highly unusual that I had scar tissue that formed at such an ideal location! And it happened after I was assaulted and robbed too! (Knocked out with a blow to the back of my head, and then punched in my only remaining good eye for extra measure! Which is something that people with PXE are constantly warned to avoid because blows to the head can more easily cause detached retinas for us!)
I have been keeping my expenses low for many years, expecting the need to survive on disability later. Never tried to buy a house either. And I quit dating years ago too. I've lived completely alone for over 21 years now, so the Covid lockdowns were a piece of cake for me!
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