#BlindTok Podcasts

Torbet, from Fire Fighting medic to Guide Dog user: #BlindTok E:15

Murray Elbourn (Host) & Tammy Jackson (Co-Host), — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 22:01:27 -0300

In Episode 15 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson close out Season 1 alongside Torbit, a former firefighter from Virginia who found the BlindTok community while learning to live with retinitis pigmentosa. His story runs from the firehouse he'd dreamed about since he was sixteen to the exam chair where one doctor delivered life-altering news with all the warmth of a parking ticket. What comes after is the part worth showing up for: the slow, stubborn, deeply human work of building a life that vision loss could not erase.

Expect real talk about acceptance arriving in stages, the freedom of a white cane and a very good yellow Lab, and all the careers and possibilities people are wrongly told are off the table. Expect plenty of laughs too, from firefighter flirting to a guide dog reveal worthy of a delivery room. Three people who refuse to shrink trade survival strategies, take a few friendly shots at each other, and land on a question that outlasts the episode: when life deals you a hand you didn't ask for, how are you going to play it?

You can also stream this podcast on other platforms:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1YX309dTSqdK3yuR5yrDEj?si=bcba7e7545614ef5
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blindtok-podcasts/id1896888033
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/c8ac6bf4-9d3c-4fd0-afee-21d53483b734/blindtok-podcasts

Other Resources
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murrayaelbourn/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@murrayamerability?_r=1&_t=ZP-97LlF79lgCN
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murray-elbourn-69576543?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Amerability Website: https: https://www.amerability.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Amerability

About Amerability:
Amerability was born from a simple but powerful idea: that blind and low vision individuals deserve more than support — they deserve the tools, mentorship, and real-world experiences to build lives on their own terms. Founded by CEO Murray Elbourn, a legally blind leader with more than 25 years of executive experience in disability sports and workforce development across two continents, Amerability combines lived experience with professional expertise to create programs that don't just prepare participants for the world — they prove the world is already theirs to conquer. Murray's journey from captaining Australia's national goalball team and leading Disability Sports Australia as CEO to founding Amerability in the United States gave him a firsthand understanding of what blind and low vision individuals truly need to succeed: not sympathy, but strategy, structure, and someone who has walked the path before them. That philosophy is woven into everything Amerability does, from the way programs are designed to the mentors who deliver them, ensuring that every participant is met with high expectations, practical guidance, and the unwavering belief that their goals are within reach.

My Blue Skies Journey: #BlindTok E:14

Murray Elbourn (Host) Tammy Jackson (Co-Host) & Mark Slavin — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 17:43:47 -0300

n Episode 14 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson welcome Mark Slavin, the relentlessly upbeat creator behind BlindTok's Mr. Blue Skies. Mark's eyesight started slipping at twelve, but a tidy nearsightedness label sent everyone home happy and kept the real story buried for years. He caught footballs by sound, played every sport his school had, and trusted his body to quietly cover for him, right up until it couldn't. When the real diagnosis finally arrived, delivered with roughly the warmth of a parking ticket, he made a call plenty of us would understand: nobody was ever going to know. What follows is a long stretch of denial, a cure hunt that carried him much further than he ever expected, and a wake-up call you don't get to ignore twice.
From there it becomes a story about clawing back up, about the one thing that can haul you out of the dark at your lowest point, and about building a life out of music, mentorship, and good vibes shared a minute at a time. But the three of them go where most positivity accounts won't: the bad days, the grief that keeps no schedule, and the small wounds that sneak in from even the people who love you most. Expect a refreshingly honest take on faith, a neighbor who had no idea canes work indoors, and one disarmingly simple answer for anyone offering to fix Mark's eyes. It is funny, it is real, and it lands on something worth hearing more than once: you are never in this alone.

You can also stream this podcast on other platforms:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7I70Od8DprNx5nZXpJTyNM
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-blue-skies-journey-blindtok-e-14/id1896888033?i=1000773461316

Other Resources
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murrayaelbourn/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@murrayamerability?_r=1&_t=ZP-97LlF79lgCN
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/murray-elbourn-69576543?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Amerability Website: https: https://www.amerability.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Amerability

An Extension of Me: #BlindTok E:13

Murray Elbourn (Host), Tammy,Jackson (Co-Host) & Joe (Guest) — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:02:51 -0300

In Episode 13 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourn and Tammy Jackson welcome their first-ever international guest, Joe, joining from across the pond after a friendly squabble over whether a well-traveled American could fairly claim the title first. Joe takes the gang back to an inherited eye condition that showed up early and moved fast, a year-long misdiagnosis that landed harder on her family than on her, and the odd limbo of being a teenager stuck between the print world and the Braille world while fitting neatly into neither. There is real warmth and plenty of humour here, sitting right alongside a stretch so low that many listeners will recognise it from their own story.

Then the turning points arrive, and Joe's energy lifts right off the page, from the guide dog harness that finally made her feel unstoppable to a career spent meeting newly diagnosed patients on their hardest day and pointing them somewhere better. Expect spirited talk about masking, self-advocacy and a recent clash over her guide dog that lit a fire she has no plans to put out, plus a gloriously free glide across an empty ice rink, a partner forever shoving a phone at full brightness into her face, and Tammy and Murray swapping notes on cruises, nervous spouses and shocking luck at the baseball. By the end, Joe's take on sight loss, that it is not the end of the road but a different way of travelling it, lands with the quiet force of someone who is only just getting started.

A Tomorrow Problem: #BlindTok E:12

Murray Elbourn (Host) & Tammy Jackson (Co-Host) — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 01:21:40 -0300

In Episode 12 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourn and Tammy Jackson sit down with Anna for one of the most candid journeys the show has hosted, beginning with a diagnosis nobody saw coming. Picture a fourteen-year-old soccer player who wears glasses only for the projector, until a routine eye appointment refuses to add up, no matter how many lenses get flipped in front of her. What followed was a Stargardt's diagnosis, a dad doing late-night research on a pre-TikTok internet that served up nothing but doom, and a teenager who decided this was firmly a tomorrow problem. Anna walks through years of quiet denial, a personal classroom TV monitor she insists was just a perk of being a gifted student, and parents who landed somewhere between bubble wrap and a plane ticket to Europe.

College comes next, with accommodations, a marketing degree, and a leap into the high-stakes world of corporate consulting, where the question of when, or whether, to tell an employer about vision loss gets very real. Anna shares the kind of first-day-on-the-job moment that makes your whole body cringe, the Mac versus Windows reckoning so many people hit the second they leave school, and the bigger question of what changes when you stop hiding and start asking for what you need. Murray and Tammy fold in genuinely useful ground too, from vocational rehabilitation agencies that quietly cover tuition and equipment to the assistive tech worth learning before you need it. There is laughter throughout, including a sideways-shirt situation the hosts are openly inviting you to roast. It is a story about denial, independence, and what it really costs, and gives back, to finally say the thing out loud.

From the Mound to Here: #BlindTok E:11

Amerability — Fri, 29 May 2026 17:56:18 -0300

In Episode 11 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson sit down with special guest [Janelle's last name], a former collegiate softball pitcher and occupational therapist living with Stargardt's disease, for a conversation that moves between heartbreak and hard-won clarity in a way that only this community seems to pull off. Janelle takes the hosts back to the moment everything changed: a routine eye appointment, six yellow spots on her retinas, a diagnosis delivered at speed, and a drive home that ended with Google and a whole lot of fear. She walks through the four months that took her from 20/40 vision to legally blind, a well-intentioned trip to Arizona that made things significantly worse thanks to a treatment she had no reason to question, and the surreal experience of returning to her college campus for senior year knowing she couldn't drive anymore and figuring out, one neighbor at a time, how to keep going anyway.

What makes this episode land isn't just the story, it's the way Janelle tells it, with a warmth and self-awareness that makes even the toughest moments feel like something you can sit with. She talks about laying in center field staring at clouds, quietly counting down the sights she wasn't ready to lose, balancing a psychology degree with therapy sessions about fears she hadn't yet lived through, and eventually building a life that includes a husband of 14 years who tried to sell her on the word "chauffeur" and somehow got away with it. From the softball diamond to occupational therapy school to running five businesses, Janelle's story is a portrait of a person who kept making decisions under uncertainty and figuring out the rest on the fly, which turns out to be exactly what blindness and low vision sometimes demand.

Moving the Couch Closer: #BlindTok E:10

Amerability — Sat, 23 May 2026 03:11:28 -0300

In Episode 10 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson welcome Joey [LAST NAME — unconfirmed], the show's first male guest, who happily jokes about finally evening out a panel that had left him pleasantly outnumbered. Joey takes us back to the early signs he couldn't yet explain, a high school stretch when the textbooks quietly slipped out of focus, and a driving test that asked far more of him than anyone in the room realized. When the diagnosis finally landed, it arrived in words no teenager wants to hear, and Joey speaks with disarming honesty about the anger that came next and the long season where giving up felt easier than holding on.

The heart of the episode lives in what carried him forward, from a best friend who quietly nudged the couch closer to the big screen to the slow, humbling practice of asking for help. Murray and Tammy fold in their own chapters too, weighing small town isolation against the independence a bigger city can hand back, and tracing the tender, complicated choices parents make when a condition might pass to a child. There's a golf cart, an electric scooter, a young son who reaches for his dad's hand at every crossing, and a real, hard won sense that the road ahead, with the technology now arriving, may be brighter than any of them once let themselves believe.

Advocacy Through Defining Yourself: #BlindTok E:9

Amerability — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:53:58 -0300

In Episode 9 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson are joined by Delaney Walsh, an Iowa-raised athlete and occupational therapy student whose entry into the low vision world started long before her own diagnosis. What begins as a family story shifts into something far more personal: a car accident, a quiet realization, and a teenager who suddenly had to make sense of what she had been watching from the sidelines for years. Delaney walks through what it was like to lose vision in just months, why she stayed silent at first, and how the people closest to her became both her translators and her safety net.

Then come the sport stories. Volleyball, soccer, a varsity jersey that did not stay a varsity jersey for long, and a surprise athletic chapter that nobody, not even Delaney, saw coming. There is plenty here for anyone who has ever heard "but how can you do that if you cannot see," from blindfold drills and bow-and-arrow accuracy to the universal blind and low vision rule that nobody, under any circumstances, moves the furniture. Delaney also opens up about choosing a career path she had never heard of, finding mentors in unexpected places, and why the next generation of low vision rehabilitation specialists might just look a lot like her.

Disability Rights: #BlindTok E:8

Amerability — Sat, 09 May 2026 22:24:53 -0300

In Episode 8 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson sit down with Alison DeFranco, an international human rights lawyer whose journey from small-town New York to Jakarta, Mexico City, and a tiny Irish island most people have never heard of started with a question her mom asked over spring break: why are you holding that book so close? What followed was a Stargardt's diagnosis, a wildly unhelpful eye doctor with a knack for terrifying parents in the next room, and the start of a long chapter of hiding, masking, and shooting an alarming number of three-pointers along the way.

This one digs into the moments that quietly forge an advocate, from a college admissions decision that went sideways for all the wrong reasons to a New Zealand bus that talked back. Alison shares the airport adventure she swears nobody should ever recreate, the Irish ambassador who insisted she write a book with an unprintable title, and the slow shift from passing as sighted to standing fully in her own story. Funny, sharp, and quietly powerful, it's a conversation about what gets built when you stop apologizing for the way you see the world.

Discovery through Faith: #BlindTok E:7

Amerability — Sat, 02 May 2026 00:24:58 -0300

In Episode 7 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson are joined by Jessie Evans to walk through what happens when a kid knows something is wrong and the adults around her keep insisting it isn't. Jessie's story stretches across a decade of being told she was dramatic, of glasses that did absolutely nothing, and of a mom who flat-out refused to back down. The episode gets honest about the quiet damage that comes from being labeled a liar by the very people who were supposed to help, and about the slow, stubborn work of learning to trust your own gut again.

The trio also digs into the strange genius of growing up undiagnosed, where memorization becomes an art form and faking it becomes a full-time job. Sports stories arrive with all the grace of a nickname like Swiffer, choir rehearsals turn into an exercise in ditching the sheet music, and the conversation lands somewhere unexpectedly tender as Jessie talks about finding a community she didn't know was out there. Whether you've spent years masking or you're just starting to suspect you have been, this one is going to feel familiar.

From the Back of the Classroom to the Front: #BlindTok E:6

Amerability — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:39:13 -0300

In Episode 6 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson are joined by Madeline Stafford for an honest conversation about what happens when answers take years to arrive and you spend most of your life filling in the blanks yourself. Madeline walks through her road from a Utah classroom where the books were bigger than she was, through a college experience that nearly didn't happen, and into her current role as a Teacher of the Visually Impaired, with plenty of those famously beautiful red 90s glasses moments along the way. A good eye specialist makes more of a difference than most people realize, eye irritation and dilation drops are their own special kind of indignity, and the Netflix documentary Crip Camp has quietly become required viewing for anyone who hasn't caught it yet. Blind summer camps come up too, where guards come down, friendships outlast decades, and the strange comfort of finally being around people who simply get it shows up in full force. Whether you're still hunting for answers or just figuring out what advocacy looks like in practice, this one settles in close.

Career Moves You Didn't Plan For: #BlindTok E:5

Amerability — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 02:28:28 -0300

In Episode 5 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson are joined by Mandy to dig into what it really takes to build and keep a career when vision loss keeps rewriting the rules. From adapting a current role with assistive technology to walking away from a profession you fought hard to earn, this episode lays out three very different paths through the workforce and gets real about the unemployment crisis facing the blind and low vision community. The conversation pulls no punches about denial, the moment you stop pretending everything is fine, and what happens when losing your license forces you to rethink not just your commute but your entire identity.

The group swaps stories that range from gut-punch honest to genuinely hilarious, including some memorable encounters with parked trucks, misidentified mailboxes, and IT departments bravely confronting accessibility software for the first time. But the episode also pushes into bigger territory, exploring why young people with vision loss are struggling to find their footing in the job market, what parents and educators can do differently, and how curiosity and conversation might be the most underrated career tools out there. Whether you're mid-pivot, freshly diagnosed, or just trying to figure out how to explain your needs at work without writing a novel, this one speaks directly to you.

Creating a Blind Toolkit: #Blindtok E:4

Amerability — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:00:00 -0300

In Episode 4 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson unpack what really goes into your toolkit, and spoiler: it's way bigger than assistive technology. From AI-powered apps like Seeing AI and Microsoft Copilot to motion-sensor hallway lights, LED strips under kitchen cabinets, and the ever-reliable smart speaker that keeps chiming in uninvited, they share the creative, practical, and constantly evolving ways they navigate daily life with vision loss. They get honest about the overwhelm of keeping up with rapid tech changes, why voice technology is becoming a game-changer, and how even "supersonic hearing" deserves a spot in the toolkit. Murray also shares highlights from a week-long workshop with blind and low-vision teenagers at Microsoft, where the next generation explored what AI can do for them. Whether you're looking for new ideas or just want to feel seen, this episode is perfectly designed for you.

Anger Nobody Talks About: #Blindtok E:3

Amerability — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 03:36:43 -0300

In Episode 3 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson take on the anger that comes with vision loss, the kind that shows up after the shock wears off and the reality sets in. They get honest about the "why me" phase, the frustration of watching your body change faster than you can process it, and how easily that anger can slide into isolation and depression if you let it sit unchecked. Tammy shares how she eventually turned her anger into fuel, refusing to let her diagnosis turn her into someone she wasn't, while Murray opens up about the rage that followed his stroke and the counselling that helped him separate his identity from his vision. But this episode doesn't just sit in the hard stuff. Together they talk about building a practical toolkit to fight back, from voice-to-text and Meta glasses to the simple but terrifying act of telling the people around you what you actually need. They also dig into why the well-meaning "it's going to be okay" from sighted loved ones can sometimes make you angrier than the diagnosis itself, and why trusting people enough to educate them broadly can take enormous pressure off those awkward one-on-one moments. If you've ever been furious at your own eyes, guilty about taking it out on the people closest to you, or stuck between wanting help and hating that you need it, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are.

Blind Masking "Fake it till you make it: #BlindTok: E:2

Amerability — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 12:45:00 -0300

In Episode 2 of #BlindTok, Murray Elbourne and Tammy Jackson tackle the unspoken reality almost everyone in the vision loss community knows intimately: faking it till you make it. That exhausting daily performance of nodding along when someone points at something you can't see, agreeing with details you can't make out, and pouring every ounce of energy into appearing fine when things are anything but. They get real about the two sides of masking, the fear of being judged as less than by others and the quieter internal battle of just not wanting to feel different from everyone else. From the workplace to relationships to the simple act of being out with friends, they unpack the emotional toll of hiding your vision loss instead of living your life, why accepting it for yourself has to come before you can let anyone else in, and the powerful realization that your vision may have changed but you haven't. If you've ever smiled and nodded through something you couldn't see or spent more energy pretending than actually being present, this episode is your permission to stop performing and start being honest about what you need.

Social Isolation: #BlindTok: E:1

Murray Elbourn & Tami Jackson — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:50:19 -0300

Welcome to the very first episode of #BlindTok! Murray Elbourne and co-host Tammy Jackson are launching this podcast the only way that feels right, by diving straight into one of the biggest unspoken challenges in the vision loss community: social isolation. Tammy gets real about the depression that followed her retinitis pigmentosa diagnosis, the moment she knew her healthcare career was over after mistaking a mailbox for a deer on a dark drive home, and the sheer exhaustion of justifying your life to people who cheerfully announce they're "blind without their glasses too." The conversation also unpacks what it feels like to watch a best friend of 45 plus years lose all remaining vision from a world away, the six month battle with isolation that followed a stroke, and the fear and fatigue that quietly convince so many in the community to just stop leaving the house altogether. But this episode doesn't leave you there. Together they explore why it's okay to have a day where you can't face the world, as long as that day doesn't become your life, and why connecting with people who actually get it hits completely differently than well-meaning advice from sighted loved ones who care deeply but can't truly relate. From Tammy's small daily goals approach to climbing back out, to the honest reminder that there's no universal roadmap for adjusting to vision loss, this is a grounding, warm, and genuinely candid first episode built for and by the community it serves. If you've ever felt alone in your journey with vision loss, pull up a chair because this is your space now. Opus 4.6ExtendedClaude is AI and can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.