User:Karannagrani/sandbox

Karan Nagrani is a disability advocate from Melbourne, Australia. Karan lives with Usher Syndrome, a degenerative and genetic disability that causes blindness and hearing loss. Karan has Usher syndrome type 2A, a genetic condition that causes progressive loss of sight by retinitis pigmentosa, as well as hearing loss.

Over the last few years, Karan had to leave his profession as his sight got worse and he says he had to "surrender to the cane" and accept his reliance of the mobility aid to get around.

More recently, Karan says he has also had to accept that he also needs hearing aids.

He says coming to terms to a changing disability has taken its toll on his mental health, but that he is stronger and happier now than before. And he's channelling his experiences to help others.

These are his words. And a heads up, this story includes references to suicide.

Pressure to always be happy
There's a lot of pressure on disability advocates to be mentally strong all the time.

Disability Advocate, Influencer, Mental Health Warrior, K-Pop Addict, Nominee for Blind Australian of the Year, Midsumma Community Advocate and a proud gay man. Karan Nagrani was diagnosed at 11 with Usher Syndrome, a rare degenerative and incurable condition leading to blindness, now in his thirties.

Karan has less than 3% vision remaining with no night or peripheral vision and partial hearing loss, and is on a mission to prove to the world that being blind doesn’t mean your world has to be dark.

With the tagline, Pretty Fly for a Blind Guy – Karan’s take on life as a gay man of colour with a disability and the world around us is fresh, real and extremely relatable.