There is a light at the end of the tunnel
By Fiona Cummings
Can you imagine your life where by you never see again? It’s
a boring thought for you if you can, see, tiresome, move on don’t read this,
why should you? Why would you?
Well just spare four minutes please of your life. In the UK
100 people start to lose their sight every day. Not everyone is born with an
eye condition. In fact, now days most people go blind for so many reasons not
linked to genetics or disease.
Your eye lids are opening and closing, but there is
something in the way of your vision. Something is blocking your light. You wave
your hand in front of your eyes, but there is nothing there, not even a shadow.
You look directly into the sky, well, what you think is that direction as when
you first go blind, to be honest, some people don’t know the difference between
the sky and the ground, you lose all ability to any sense of direction. For the
first time in your life, you have to think, where is straight forward? Which
way is left? You may have spent your life not even using the words left and
right. Now you are blind you are going to need that skill.
When eventually you learn to use the white cane, you have to
hold it in your right hand if you are right handed and left if not, but
normally it’s your right. When you move on to a guide dog, you have to have
your dog’s harness handle in your left hand. When you are learning how to get
to your new destination, you need to be taught by a mobility instructor who
will tell you to turn left or right, whilst she is walking either at your side
or behind you.
When you have your dog, you will make actions with your
hand, your right hand whilst holding your dog on your left. Your dog will work with
your hand motion as well as listen to your instruction of your direction.
Remember our dogs only go where we tell them to. There are
people out there who still believe our dogs know what it means to say take me
to the post office or the hair dressers from a couple of miles away, no, we
have to get them to a close area then we can say find whatever, but only after
they have been taught to go into that shop many times over and over again
before they are let loose with us.
But that is all in the future. First things first. How to
deal with the fact that you can’t pick out your clothes with ease. You can’t differentiate
your shoes, you bought one black pair one brown, both the same kind of shoe,
but colours before meant something. Now? What is a colour? Blind people live in
a colourless world. A world without sun and rain drops a world without the
views of pretty flowers. A world without seeing smiles. A passer-by may smile,
but how do we know? How do we get to take our children to school? Imagine now
you can’t see anything. How would you collect your child?
You can’t go and do your sport tonight in fact your pals don’t
want to bother with you. They don’t know what to say, and they don’t know how
to deal with you. It’s easier for them if they just forget you. But you don’t
forget them. It rips at your heart; you suffer from anxiety because you are
left. Family? Well, most people I know and know of have family but they visit
may be once a year at most. Out of duty. They don’t call you, as for texts, you
have just lost your sight, how do you text? How do you call people? I mean,
before you opened your phone book or you looked at the list in your phone
contacts. You can’t do that just yet. You pick up the phone, the dialling tone
is there. You want anyone to speak, even if it is a recorded message telling
you to replace the hand set and try again.
No one understands you. There is no one to talk to during
the night when you wake up after trying for ages to sleep and only get about an
hour before the cold sweat has covered you like the blankets on your bed.
What time is it? You don’t have a clue. You can’t see your watch
any more or your phone. Is it day light?
Your pets, where are they? Your hearing isn’t tuned in at
this point, so you don’t hear things like your cat coming towards you.
You still have to feed your pets as you have to feed your
children. Clothes need ironing, but first washing. White clothes? You don’t
want to wash the whites with the red towels. You have some white towels too,
but they were bought together to coordinate and compliment your bath room. How to turn on your washing machine. It’s all
screen control. Your cooker, microwave, all touch screen. Tinned food? What is
what? What is it you have in your hands that has just come from the freezer. In
fact, how to get to your freezer?
Brushing your teeth, which brush is yours? Which is the
toothpaste and which is the cream? Hair, shampoo? Shower gel? Dioderent or
shaving foam.
Cleaning products, don’t get me started on those.
Your childs school play, you do get someone to guide you to
school, but you can’t see your child, tey are smiling at you for approval, you
either have a permanent smile and look rather as if there is something wrong
with you or you look like you feel. Miserable and lost.
It’s a coffee break, all the parents are heading for a
drink. You soon learn you are the only person sitting in the hall. The person
who took you there has totally forgot you need to get back home.
Writing cheques for your child’s school? Getting to the bank
to get money out? How?
Time to sell your car.
Your pride and joy.
Stop right there please? Did you read the above? Sell your car.
Never to drive again. Imagine that?
How? Take a photograph? Really? Put it in the newspaper advertising
section. How do you sell it? You no longer can write print or type. You can’t
see your computer screen. As for your job? Forget that. No one wants a blind
Doctor, or hair dresser.
You are starting to cope and are still in shock, but you
want to look good for when your mobility instructor comes to see if you will
qualify you will be assessed. Make up? Where on earth to begin? As for your red
hair? Well, is it still red? It has been ten weeks since you had a visit to the
hair dressers. What colour is your hair now?
Well, I could go on, I seriously could write like this for
another two hours. But in short, in time, all these questions will be answered
and fifty per cent of your now fears will be resolved.
I have written before about the morning I woke up blind. I truly
believed that it was the end of the world. It was summer and there was no sun.
My curtains in my bedroom must have been closed right? Answer no.
The lights didn’t work, power cut, right?
No.
I was so disoriented. When realisation kicked in, it wasn’t
the only thing that kicked in. My stomach was wrenching. My heart was dying. My
soul had to live, my world had died. I would never be warm again. I shivered inside
and had Goosebumps on the outside. My tears were as if rusty. My lips didn’t
talk anymore. I was terrified. Because my brain was still seeing, though my
eyes were blind, I was seeing bad people constantly in front of me. They were
as real as they would be if I still had sight and someone came into my house. I
carried my baby all around my house, trying to feel with one hand where to go,
hanging onto him. My Dad was dying and
my Mum was not able to help me anymore. She lived to save my sight, now it had
gone, some months later, she too died.
It was me and my baby.
I after some weeks, tried to phone various societies to ask
for help. There was no help for me other than mobility training. Oh my, going
out? I had to learn to live first, to try to control my breathing. To cook,
clean and do all the jobs around the house as well as learn a new way of
looking after my baby. Help with all of that? No, nothing at all.
I did not want to except the fact that I had gone blind.
This was a day that was not meant to happen. But it had. So then what?
To be continued
© Fiona Cummings
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