Shannon Payne:  

I was born in Douglas, Wyoming. I moved around alot because my Dad worked in the oil industry. A few years after my parents divorced, my mom moved us to San Diego, CA where I went to High school and some college. At the age of 20 I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa. It's a gentic eye disease which makes black or brown spots that cover the retina of hte eye starting from the outside of the eye and moves its way to the center of th eeye. I've been slowly losing my sight since the age of eight. I have beaten the odds the eye doctor gave me and have stayed pretty stable for the last six years. I went to the Braille Institue and I learned to read and write braille, I was also a volunteer teacher for a year and a half. A year after being diagnosed, I went back to Mira Costa Community College. Spring of 2006, my mother and I moved to B...Expand for more