DIARY OF TO SEE AGAIN BY FIONA CUMMINGS

Wow it’s a beautiful sunny day. I’m sitting in my garden. The smells of whatever, are amazing. I just wish I could tell you what they are. Flowers or shrubs of some kind. It would be so lovely to look and see what is in my garden. The colours, the shapes of the flowers. Or, is my garden bare and I’m smelling something from someone else’s garden? Somehow, I doubt it as most people around here have those awful prickly hedging they are so dangerous but the birds seem to love it. Right now, in front of me is a bird making the most wonderful sound. Again, to look up at it and be able to see it, wow only I can dream. But I’m more than grateful because I can hear the sounds of birds. I pray one day for a cure so that everyone can see and hear. If I can’t walk, I could adjust things in my house so that there are no steps and I could come out here see the birds, flowers, butterflies and so on, even shadows I miss. You know when you see the shadow of a tree, the branches on your patio? It’s pretty. It’s art in a naturalistic kind of way. Please don’t get me wrong, to not be able to walk is so awful too. But if I were to lose the ability to see, hear or walk,  my legs would be first to go. If you can’t walk, you can still drive. But why have any kind of disability? For some it’s fine, just for me it’s not. I would love to drive my Husband after work to the beach. For us to watch the sun go down. The waves. To walk to the chip shop for something to eat. To go into a pub without worrying how to find the bar or a seat. Well, just to be able to find the door to the right building to the bar or a shop. Just to see the beauty around me. But in the meanwhile, I can hear, I can smell the fragrances and I’m alive.

 

The word on the street is, it will be at least ten years before there is a decent kind of treatment available for my eye condition.  Well time is running out, I need to be young enough to enjoy life. but in the meanwhile, I can hope we will find something earlier. I wish I could talk to those involved in research. The closest thing to helping me to get some image is the Argus II bionic plant implant. It works by taking over the role of generating electrical signals from the redundant, well, that is one word for it, retina, with an implant sending pulses down the optical nerve that the brain can learn, to interpret like vision, problem is that. It’s nothing at all like real vision.  It’s abstract.  More like flashes of light. With the implant, you can only see the flashes if you wear the glasses. Which are not attractive. You will be able to tell the difference between white and black just by contrasts. It won’t be like looking at a real colour. And you will be able to see large print. Again, just by shape not by seeing actual print. You will be able to tell the difference like where a door is. Again, by the contrast of shade. Normally where a door is if opened, it will be either darker or lighter, dependent what room you are in already or what room you are about to enter.  Take off the glasses, you are blind again. I know in London, there are human trials going on now. but I hope to hold on for the next thing which I hope will be something like an injection into the eye and bingo. Vision. Proper vision. I wouldn’t be so bothered you know if it was sight like I had when I was a young lady… as in my early twenties. OK it wasn’t enough to see to drive, or see in the evenings, but at night if I was indoors, I turned on a light. I could see crystal clear my babies face and one letter at a time. If I was given back that sight, wow. For those of you who have that amount of vision, thank your maker every day. Seeing colours, I could see them so well. Again, clear.  I just wonder if I will ever see again. People say yes, for sure. But Doctors? They say maybe enough to see the difference between night and day. Hmm.

 

I was reading about tiny robots that are being used to stick a knife etc into your eye to save sight. As a surgeon, even the slightest tremor of a hand, can have huge implications to the end result.  Stem cells and gene therapy is my dream.