‘I can’t see through my tears’: Emotional moment when Wilmington woman sees color for first time

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — It’s a video that will have you in tears watching it.

The camera was rolling when a Wilmington woman was surprised by her boyfriend with special glasses allowing her to see color for the first time.

It has caused struggles with everyday tasks like mismatching clothes and shoes.

Brooke Swanson found out she was color blind when she was in elementary school. She has a son who is also color blind.

“Ya know I see color but it’s my own version of it,” Brooke said.

The glasses are called EnChroma and enhance color saturation and vibrancy, allowing her to distinguish certain colors and deliver better detail and depth perception.

“It’s not just color that is different,” Brooke said. “It’s depth and dimension, it’s seeing the beauty of my son’s eyes, seeing his freckles and hair. It’s truly a new world that is more vibrant and more alive than I could have imagined.

Brooke said she was scared to put the glasses on, but wanted to step out of her comfort zone and post the video publicly.

“When they were given to me, I was scared to put the glasses on because I realized that either everything was about to change, or they wouldn’t work
and I would be crushed.”

After looking through the glasses, she said she wanted to go to the mountains.

Red-green color blindness affects 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women (.5%) – about 13 million in the US and 300 million worldwide.

“I don’t think that people understand what color deficiency is but you cant fault them because it’s the same reason I can’t understand what the world really looks like,” Brooke said.

The most emotional moment is when Brooke first puts on the glasses and sees a picture of her son.

“Seeing him through the glasses for the first time was almost as emotional as seeing him for the first time when he was born,”  Brooke said.

She was first told to not waste her money on the glasses, but her success story is being noticed.

“I think now that I’m seeing how much of a reaction Brooke had and a few other people also had this reaction I am going to start recommending it a little more often,” Optometrist Rasika Whitesell said.

While Brooke might view things differently now, she doesn’t want to take away from the beauty she once couldn’t see.

“I wouldn’t want this fixed forever as funny as that sounds because now I feel like I have two eyes in which I can see the world through,” Brooke said.

She encourages others with similar vision issues to look into getting these glasses.

EnChroma said it’s important to note that the glasses might not work for everyone, but typically work for 4 out of every five people with a red-green color deficiency.