MY AWARD FOR OTHERS

Good evening Bloggets. Here I am whilst my Husband is making my dogs wild chasing them with his slippers, and they are running, so would I, being threatened by Hubs slipper. Haha haha. That’s enough to make the bravest beasties run!

 

I’m surprised they are even talking to him, as they had a bath, well, a shower today in the garden. There I was the hero. Hub all booted up in the cleaned dog run with a cold hose shampoo and determination  as no dog would stand and take that, Hub kept telling them they didn’t complain when they swam in the river with their Aunty Mandy the dog sitter.. He told them they must do the time as they have done the crime… I was there with hot towels at the end telling them not to ever talk to their Daddy again Hehehehehe. I dried their fur with the hair drier and groomed them, when they were totally dry; they got their brand new lovely soft beds.

 

They have been brushed three times outside today and I have cleaned the floors four times. Really, the hair?

 

Only one day for Hubs holiday now. Then he will go to a meeting on Monday in Manchester and life is back to normal.

 

Teen has had a very odd day today. He is working tomorrow.

 

My Niece and family are planning to visit, really looking forward to that Hub and I were talking about our visit to the lodge today, really it was brilliant. Sadly my Brothers best friend from schools wife died a few days ago. Awful news she was so young. Heart breaking as leaves behind five Sons. You should love those close to you more each day as you never know when it is your last day together.

 

On Monday, it will be forty years since my first visit to the former USSR.

Gosh, I feel so very old. Forty years since such cruel treatment of electric shocks 172 injections and being force fed. But all for the best for my sight. Just wish it had all been done in a different way. I was removed from my Mum for six weeks without being told what was to happen. I was sure that I was back in a home for adopted children. I waited for my birth Mother to walk through the door. I didn’t understand Russian as I was a very small child. No one spoke English in the whole six weeks I was there. I cried every day and night for my Mum, Dad and Brother. To never see them again, I never understood what crime I had committed to be punished in such a manner. Russian hospitals were not a great place to be. They were dirty and ancient with barbaric treatment of four rusty needles per day and because it was new serum, it was incredibly painful. Because I wouldn’t go voluntarily to the room where my name was being called out, the nurse with the nasty needles, used to come to me, wherever I ran she caught me and cornered me or got the fat cleaner to lie across me. Once there was a huge man in army uniform who held me in his arms with the tightest grip and another time, I was held down by two Doctors. Not because I was big, far from it, but because I was a fighter. I kicked, screamed and bit. Yes, shamefully bit, I was terrified. I was removed from my Mum and nothing was explained to me why these needles. Why I was no longer seeing my Mum. Why I had to eat the worst food on the planet and why I had to spend six weeks that as a little girl seemed like six months. There were no clocks, not that I was old enough to read the time, there were no televisions no radios no toys nothing.

 

After a few weeks I befriended a kind lady I have spoken about before I called her Mrs Kid. She would wrap me up and take me out into the hospital grounds, I hated that. Yes it was to get fresh air; the snow was over my knees. So the worst thing happened.  A man used to be there all of the time. Same man. Evil person with a sinister laugh. He would say words I didn’t understand to Mrs Kid. Looking back, I guess he was saying he would lift me from the snow, but he had different intentions. He was a very sick man and it took Mrs Kid about a week before she realised what he was doing. I remember that day; she almost murdered him on the spot. I wish she had of then other children would be safe. Of course, I knew what he was doing was wrong, but who to tell?

 

I used to plan my escape every time I went into the grounds. I saw the big black gates to freedom. But what was beyond those gates? I didn’t know and better the devil I knew.

 

My body ached with malevolent medical treatment. The nefarious nurse as I first thought of her hurt me with needles four every single day and ink like liquid being forced into my veins once a week then there was the cat dungeon. Really, it was awful. It was a cellar full of smelly cats crawling around my ankles. I was blind in there as it was so dark only lit by a couple of orange gas lamps. Then a furry creature would rub itself on my leg. I would scream as I used to think it was a rat.  That is why the cats were there, to keep things like that out. I was given electrical wires dipped in water and told to put them on my eyes. When I didn’t the Doctors got cross with me. I was so afraid of them. All these voices speaking in a tongue I had never heard before. I was too young to understand foreigners, but I soon learned. I had to grow up so quickly. This was the year I started my boarding school too. It was a very bad year for me.

 

The Russian treatment also included wearing these enormous contact lenses, like half shells. They were so big and sharp. They were attached to wires too. Thankfully I was spared the blood sucking leaches and received blood tests the normal way, but the whole experience was so bad it will never leave me.

 

It was forty years ago I received my bravery award in London too. Brave, me? No. Not at all. I was terrified. I cried a lot and shivered in absolute pain and fear. Bravery is when someone does something voluntarily. I didn’t do the above voluntarily, believe me.

 

This treatment went on for so long, but improved over the years. I received eye injections and needles in my face too, again, not brave. I was a child and young adult. I did what I was told. Yes I saw without the pains I have now for some years, but as soon as I stopped the treatment as an adult, my sight deteriorated over the years, then overnight I went totally blind. So in the end, should I have gone to Russia? Yes, I guess so. To see my babies face. I saw him until he was one. But then the pain of knowing I will never see my Sons smile again I was robbed. If I hadn’t had that privilege, I wouldn’t have known the loss. My Husband has never seen his daughter’s faces. He gets cross with me when I express how bad it was for me to kiss my Son goodnight put him in his cot and wake up the next morning to the dark and never see the light again.

Retinitis pigmentosa is cruel; you never know when you will go blind!

 

My Mum didn’t know of the hardship I suffered in the hospital. She was forbidden from visiting me until week five of the treatment. Then she was told by an interpreter she had to sit in a room behind a glass and say nothing at all. She could look at me but if she said anything, the treatment would be over and we would go home!

 

When she first went to Russia, she took enough tablets for a month. So she went weeks without them and became very ill. I can’t explain how bad it must have been for her. She didn’t talk Russian; she was not a mixer with people and was terrified of Russia, as were most people in those days.

 

Russia was not at all like the mining village she came from. Far from it. It was a very scary place cold and you couldn’t find things like toiletries in shops. The hotels used to serve the same three meals per week. So after a few weeks the food was just unbearable. But better than what I was getting. Casha. It is like a porridge, but worse. It was fed to me as I rebuked the spoonfuls each day.

 

Was all that pain of Russia really worth it?  My parents had no life. They sacrificed so much to get me to Russia. I would do the same for my Son. If you have a child who can be helped, you will do anything.

 

 

So forty years later, where are we? Well, I am blind; I have been for sixteen years. But there is some hope now, for some sight at least, I just can’t see myself being ever able to see, but I know if I ever do, I will spend my life in shock, but will never  forget the days of blindness, though I am a stronger person now as I have learned to live in this world. I have had no choice. It’s painful; it’s cruel and so very difficult. No one knows of our struggles, but no one knows of our achievements too. If you have sight, be thankful for it as this blind world is so hard to except. I have learned to deal with it, I’m no longer terrified. I can breathe normally now. I know we can live and we live without sight or help from anyone, but how hard this life is. Everything we do is so difficult. So challenging and because of blindness, we have both suffered greatly with  depression. But we are winners as we are still alive. Cutting words from others being treat so badly by other people too is nasty, but at the end of the day, we have each other and we have pride. Pride that we can do things like banking, holidays, though they will be very difficult and not like a holiday that sighted people will experience, we can buy clothes, yes they may not be what we want, but we haven’t been arrested yet for nudity.

 

We buy our food and cook. Clean the house, climb ladders to put outside decorations up and put them back in the loft on our own. We can get extensions and new bathrooms fitted and search for painters and other kinds of professionals to do work. This life removes so much fun and gives our hearts so much pain, but at the end of the day, we are winners. We are still here and yes it would be so lovely for our lives to be easier and not treat like lepers, but sometimes kindness does shine, like when we were invited to our neighbours for New Year and welcomed like normal people, I say normal, because the majority don’t think we are, well, we may not be your normal, but we are good and kind and have compassion for others and I guess we are brave.

 

I treasure my award. I hold it sometimes and thank my parents for being so brave. My brother who also suffered because of my stupid sight loss and for the Doctors in Russia who at least tried. Unlike the rest of the world who at that time gave up.

 

I guess the Russian Doctors were very brave.

Mrs Kid was very kind and in the end brave as she died two years later after looking after me in hospital. Leaving two young daughters. She died with results of her eye condition. It wasn’t what I had, but a life ending condition.

 

Brave are the poor five boys who have just lost their Mum. I still miss mine so much. It’s been sixteen years in a few days since she died and it’s still painful life without her.

 

She was a very brave lady and I will be forever grateful towards her as she had no life because of me. I hate myself for it, though it really wasn’t my fault.

 

God bless you all.

Dedicated to Eileen Cummings