SAN MARCOS, Calif. _ Imagine being a teenager, awash in the high school drama of school and sports and crushes and cell phones and everything that consumes your thoughts when the world's spring-time fresh with unwritten chapters galore.
Then consider the call Blake Steinecke and his mother, Laurie, received that changed absolutely everything.
The then-junior at San Marcos High School had noticed subtle changes in his vision during a family "stay-cation" in the Gaslamp Quarter. Test after test after test, from MRIs to a spinal tap, sorted through a litany of dark possibilities, from multiple sclerosis to a brain tumor.
When Steinecke and his mother were home over the lunch hour one day in October 2015, the phone rang. A doctor explained they had identified the mysterious culprit, a rare genetic disorder known as LHON _ Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy. No treatment. No cure.
In a blink, thoughts about video games and after-school hangouts faded. Steinecke would become legally blind. It simply was a matter of when. In less than eight months, his vision eroded from 20-15 _ better than the average person _ to 20-800.
"I remember him sitting on the couch," Laurie said. "His first line, the first words out of his mouth were, 'It could be worse. I could not be a Christian.' "
The fact Steinecke, 19, surfs with a partner who yells out the approaching waves, mountain bikes with a guide-rider who barks "JUMP" through a Bluetooth connection, refused to shy away from an AP calculus class and instead enlisted a teacher to read the tests to him, illustrates a different sense of vision.
When the USA Blind Hockey Team selected Steinecke to represent his country, competing this weekend against Canada in the second game of a series that will be played at the old home of the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, it showed a path without limits.
Labeling him blind is not how someone sees Blake Steinecke. That's not how others see him. That's not how he sees himself.
"You might not be able to change your circumstances," he said, "but you can change your attitude."
