I still get asked about how and why I ended up going to
Russia for eye treatment. Well it was when I was six. The media had been
following my story since I was four. My Mum was determent to do her best to
save my eyesight. She took me all over England and then abroad. Well it was
because a man saw my story in the press he wrote to my Mum with an article regarding
treatment for my eye disease in the former USSR. A two-year battle for a Visa
started and that bitter cold January we arrived in Moscow.
I have written my story so many times so for those who have
read it bear with. Smile. As we stepped
off the aeroplane, two soldiers pointed guns towards us as they did everyone in
those days. My outspoken Mum wasn’t impressed as she stopped to tell them so. I
was terrified they were going to shoot her. I’m sure as the people behind her
waiting to get down the steps were too.
A man from the British Embassy met us and took us to a
hotel. It was not a good experience. Everything was so grey. The buildings were
like nothing I have ever seen before. So
big. Red flags everywhere. Very old ladies wearing rolled down tights and headscarfs
swept the streets trying to clear the streets of snow but as fast as they
cleaned, the snow came down. By the time it reached the dirty roads and paths,
it was not as pure white as it was when it fell.
The next day, I was taken by the same man and my Mum to a
very large dirty building. Through double doors up slippy steps before going into the dark vast hall of the hospital. The floor
was crunchy from dirty boots. A woman snatched my coat from me. In those days
every large building you went into you had to leave your coat and receive a tag
to get it back.
I was taken up steps that had gaps where you could see the
lower floors through. The smell was awful. Every member of staff wore a white
coat, from the cleaner to the Doctors. A lady came for me pulling me away from
my Mum. My Mum called my name the man held her back. I was taken out of the
building along the grounds of the hospital and down into a dark cellar. Of
course, at such a young age, I wasn’t aware what even a cellar was. There were cats everywhere. I learned years
later they were to keep the mice away. I couldn’t see a thing as it was pitch
black with gas lights every now and then. I was put into a chair and handed a
long wire with wet fabric on the end. I understood their actions as they showed
me what to do. I did it and after that experience, never again. I screamed. Of
course, it was a wet electric wire.
I was taken to a ward this was after I had been saved from
the leaches that were about to be put on me to get blood. That would be my home
that seemed to me as a six-year-old child forever. But it was seven weeks. I had
no English spoken to me in that time. I had 172 painful injections and didn’t
see my Mum or hear from her until six weeks after I had been in I only know it
was six weeks by talking to my Mum years later. To me it seemed to be a
lifetime. I was sure I had been sent to the home to be adopted again. I have to
say it was pure hell. I spoke to my Mum and all she did was cry. No words. I kept
asking Mummy hen will you come for me. She never answered then the nurse
removed the phone from me. On my return to England I received an award from our
PM’s wife and it was called the Child of Courage award. I wasn’t at all brave. I
had no choice. Within weeks, I was sent to boarding school. Again, away from my
parents. I hated it. My Mum tried to get me home after a couple of years as she
learned that some people children, were going home every night. Well our head
master told my Mum I was worth too much money to him to be anything other than
a boarder. How bad is that. She kept fighting for me and at last at the age of
eleven, I got home. I was so happy as I loved the teachers I just hated the staying
over part. So best of both worlds. Sadly, that only lasted for a year and then
the school year ended we were 12 and our age had come where we had to move on.
Then sadly the closest school was going to be five hours
drive away. Because I took an exam and passed, I was to go to a very good
school. When I visited it, I loved it? Though it meant my parents wouldn’t be
able to collect me every weekend only once every six weeks. My Mum spoke about
moving closer to the area, but when the head master of that school learned
about Russia, he said he only wanted grade A, students and if I was going to
Russia twice a year no way I could attend his school. A huge mistake. So, I ended
up three hours away from home at another school. Not half as good as far as
education. I was there three years. I still continued going to Russia, as the dreaded
news was broken to us when I was six and I first visited Moscow. I would have
to attend the hospital every six months.
The treatment was free. Our Prime Minister signed an agreement
saying Fiona Cummings would receive free treatment and in return I think it was
written England would receive people who needed heart treatment/operations from
Russia.
32 visits to that hospital. My eyesight was good clear and
improved every visit I went there. But then I was an adult and decided to stop
going at the age of 21. My Mum was heartbroken. Something she got into so much
debt for and really struggled with for so long, and now I was to give it up,
but what could she do? I was well married had been for some years and I was old
enough to stop.
Why did I? I didn’t want to put my ex through the same life
as my parents. And I did wonder if what the Doctors in the UK had been saying
all the years, the treatment wasn’t doing any good, maybe they would be right?
Well they were so very wrong. For the first time in my life
my vision started to deteriorate. It got to a point and stopped for a couple of
years.
I could still see tiny print and photographs with out any
problem. I could see to walk about during the day and saw my babies face so
very clear. And then that day came.
My world crashed. My soul was kicked and my heart was ripped
out. I woke up totally blind. This couldn’t happen. Surely? It did and I died
inside. But I had to come back to life. I had a baby.
At that time my parents died. I had nothing no one. But for
my baby I at least tried to breathe through the worst pain.
I didn’t sleep. I didn’t live. I couldn’t eat. I existed for
him.
If not for my Son I wouldn’t be here now. I always say he
was my angel. I wasn’t going to have a child fearing to pass my eye disease
down to my child. As it’s hereditary, but I didn’t know anything about the
situation as I was adopted at the age of four weeks. So, no family history.
I didn’t know the time during the day. I wasn’t aware of
talking watches in those days. I couldn’t even call anyone on the phone apart
from my Mum as before I would open my phone book, no need to remember numbers. And
I knew only one person’s number in my head. My parents house. And that day was
a very difficult phone call.
© Fiona Cummings
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