As the autumn leaves were turning to the colour of her hair, I regained the joyous gift of sight.
In the grand scheme of things my defective sight was a miniscule matter really; as insignificant as a toothache, a bout of gout, an ingrowing toenail or the like. But, to me, after enduring this predicament for eight whole months of this year since the first operation, and commencing with symptoms more than five years ago, on the last Friday in September of this year I was given a new lens inside my left eye to match up with the one they mended in my right eye on January 28th.
Since that first operation I have had extremely blurred vision in my right (mended) eye. So, if you have met me at any stage this year, and noticed that I was pulling a face, squinting, turning my head at a very odd angle, or discovered an inordinate number of typos in a written communication from me, it was most probably because I was trying to focus with my “good” eye and not a reaction to you as a person, or something you may have said or sent.
I was making do with the only pair of specs that I could see anything out of, and they just about allowed me to read and write and drive in daylight without hitting trees, lamp posts or pedestrians.
In the middle of the year I had a second eye operation to put right something that went wrong with the first one. They would not “mend” the left eye until they were sure the right one was as good as it was going to be.
I left the hospital on Friday last, with the regulation plastic patch taped to my eye, and had to fight through driving rain, catch a bus that I could not see the number of until it almost ran me over, and make my way to the railway station, because a lift I had organised did not answer his phone even after an hour and a half and a dozen phone calls.
I waited another hour and a half on the station and eventually got home about half past four in the afternoon.
At this point in my sorry state I was feeling very sorry for myself and a tad pissed off with my lot; I had no specs that could help at all. I had a few beers, and shared an M & S ready meal with my lovely Mary who did her best to make the best of my condition saying “You’ll be alright tomorrow when you take that patch off.”
Morning came, I bathed my poorly eye with sterilized water and unstuck the eye lids to reveal my very bloodshot eyeball.
Yes, I could see, but everything was out of focus enough for me to want to ask for my money back, if you know what I mean.
Throughout this year I have had appointments with an optician who has tried his best to make things better for me, with contact lenses, a pair of specs that matched up both eyes but gave me extreme double vision and were hopeless. But at least they worked on this morning after the op’ by popping out the left lens enabling me to now see out of my right eye. I rang the opticians mid-morning and booked in for 15.25 that afternoon. I made my way to Loughborough, had the usual eye tests, and waited while he went out of the room. He came back in gleaming, saying they had a lens in stock and they could fit it to my specs right away. Thirty minutes later, I regained one of the most joyous of gifts we have – the gift of seeing.
The picture above was taken on the following Saturday after receiving my new specs, when I went on a walk in my old home village of Radcliffe on Trent. My brother, Paul still lives there.
For the first time in half a century he and I walked along the cliffs there, down to the weir.; where we played as kids.
How I noticed the changes after all those years, as the leaves on the trees were turning to the colour of her hair… I did not and will not take for granted the joyous gift of sight…
Steve
