Sight

Someone commented recently that I hadn’t posted for a long time. It wasn’t for lack of things to say; more because I’ve been struggling with my eyesight.

The last post was made just after our holiday in north Norfolk. During that holiday, I came out of a shop into a sunny October day – pale blue sky, low sun – and something flashed in my eye. I thought at the time it was the sun reflected off a car windscreen or mirror, but it was intense – more like a flashlight shone directly into my eye from close range. I could see a bright spot right in the centre of my vision. That’s happened before when I’ve caught a flash of sunlight, but this was different. This didn’t fade away.

I’ve had worsening short sight all my life, and worn spectacles since I was nine. I got my first migraine at eleven, when I lost half the sight in one eye for an afternoon. Then I had that weird spot on my retina (that thankfully cleared up) – and the possible retinal tear that panicked my optician into sending me to Moorfields as an emergency (false alarm, thankfully) – and the cataracts that went from slight to operable within two years. I have had enough sight scares to have a fair idea of how fragile the line between seeing and blindness can be.

The cataract operations were terrifying, but they gave me near-perfect sight and freed me from my specs – apart from reading specs, which half the time are on my nose and the other half the time are set down somewhere so safe that I cannot find them. I’ve had almost five years enjoying – really, seriously enjoying – being able to see clearly all the time. The thought of losing sight in one eye was horrible.

I spent a couple of weeks suffering headaches if I tried to read or write for any length of time. The word I was looking at directly vanished into a blank spot, leaving the rest of the text clear around it – a kind of literary hide and seek. Look at a word and it’s gone. Exactly like the worst of my migraines.

The optometrist was amazing. She examined my eye very carefully and said that one eye had just undergone the natural process of vitreous separation, that it had completed without any perceptible problems and that the retina had probably caught very slightly and been ‘twanged’. She advised taking no action other than returning immediately if I noticed any worsening of symptoms. That was fine by me, as I’m a coward about eye operations.

Fingers crossed as I write this, but my sight seems to be fine now. I still have that clear post-cataract vision; the missing text came back within a fortnight and is still visible. I’m starting to believe I can keep this clear sight for at least a few more years yet, and lifting my head up to see what’s ahead for me.