Hustle & Grind ... and going blind by Trebs Thompson

Trebs Thompson is a visual artist that is going blind. Trebs has a condition called 
Macular-Telangiectasia or MacTel, She has MacTel Type 2 which affects both eyes.
 Macular Telangiectasia is a rare progressive disease that causes blood vessels around the fovea to become abnormal which over time causes loss of detail and central vision loss over time.
Even faced with visual disturbances, floaters, ocular migraines losing vision, and going blind, she still creates beautiful and inspiring images using Textured glass and found objects.
Trebs also is a farmer and runs a farm called Whimsical Farms and is a female comedian.

Transcript

Scrambled Eggs & Ham Podcast

Episode Title: Farming, Blindness, and The Brown Collar Comedy Tour with Trebs Thompson

Host: Bill Clark

Guest: Trebs Thompson

[Intro music fades in and out]

Bill Clark:

Good morning, listeners and internet family. My name is Bill Clark, and I’m the host of the Scrambled Eggs & Ham podcast. Today, I want to tell you a little bit about this show. Scrambled Eggs & Ham is an interview podcast focused on the reinvention of lives—specifically how life-changing illnesses have reshaped, inspired, and even transformed people’s lives in surprising ways.

Each interviewee, whether they’ve had a stroke, a neurological disorder, or something else entirely, shares how their condition became a catalyst for personal growth and creativity.

This morning, our guest is Trebs Thompson. Trebs is an incredible visual artist, and she’s currently working on a new project. Trebs, is it a memoir or fiction—or a little of both?

Trebs Thompson:

It’s basically a memoir. I started it as a collection of essays, kind of poking humorous fun at all the things I didn’t know when I took up farming. But over the years, it’s morphed into something a lot deeper.

Bill:

Wow. I definitely want to hear more about that. But first, Trebs, you’re living with a condition called MACTEL. Can you tell us what that is?

Trebs:

Sure. It stands for Macular Telangiectasia—technically “Perseveria Macular P. Mandatasia.” It’s a rare eye disease that destroys the blood vessels feeding your eyes. They swell and burst, causing bleeding and macular degeneration, which leads to vision loss.

Bill:

Wow. I’m really sorry to hear that. And I also saw you have a GoFundMe page—this is for Sporty Dave?

Trebs:

Yes. Sporty Dave and I were partners years ago. We lived together for a while—great guy, but we weren’t great at living together, so we stayed close friends instead. Recently, he’d been very ill. He was on dialysis at home, had several health challenges… and he just passed away.

Bill:

I’m really sorry to hear that.

Trebs:

Thank you. I knew something was wrong—I couldn’t reach him, and we had plans. Eventually, a friend of his went to check on him, and that’s when we found out. He’s left behind an 18-year-old son, and it’s been hard. The GoFundMe is to help support him now.

Bill:

Yeah, I really hope it helps ease some of that burden.

Let’s shift gears a bit. I’m the scrambled egg, and you’re the ham today. So let’s talk about this memoir. What’s it called?

Trebs:

It’s called The Brown Collar Comedy Tour. There’s a joke right on the cover. Like I said, I started it years ago as a comedy—funny stories about learning to farm. But then life happened. Divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, losing three grandparents, getting cancer, and then my best friend passed away. Life just… stopped being funny.

When I sat down to write, it kept circling the same unresolved pain. I ended up shelving it until I went to a women’s retreat for a friend’s birthday. Her cousin, a journalist and writer, invited me to her writer’s group. That group supported me as I finally finished the book.

But to do that, I had to sit down and tell the hard parts: going blind, all the loss, my dad being diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The book still has plenty of laughs, but it’s really about resilience. Surviving.

Bill:

Yes. I especially liked the part you sent me—the one about the neighbors and their judgments over your leaves in the driveway?

Trebs:

[Laughs] Yes! We had moved into this upscale, deed-restricted community. Beautiful place—but it was clear from day one that we didn’t fit in. They were obsessed with manicured lawns, paint chips for your house color… all of that. It was a real culture shock.

Leaving that community is where my farming journey began—on September 11, 2001, of all days. That was the day we were moving in.

Bill:

9/11? Wow.

Trebs:

Yeah. No planes in the sky. Everything was shut down. My ex-husband’s mother worked near the World Trade Center—she was usually late to work, and we couldn’t reach her that day. I was terrified. It was such a surreal time to be starting a new life on a farm, and I knew nothing about farming.

Bill:

That’s incredible. Would you be willing to read a chapter from your book?

Trebs:

Sure. Do you want to pick one, or should I?

Bill:

Pick the one you like best.

Let me know if you want to add timestamps or post this as a downloadable file, or if you’d like help editing the next section where Trebs reads from her book!