I find that I refer to myself as the ‘one eyed blogger’ frequently in conversation nowadays. I don’t do this for sympathy, but simply because it’s a pretty accurate description of who I am. I am a blogger and have been so for almost five years, and I have no sight from my right eye, and this has been for a year.
There are times where I admit calling myself one eyed creates totally the wrong picture in my head. That’s not because someone looks at me in a way which says his using his eye problem as an excuse, nor am I seeing myself with a disability, or in a pity party way, but one that would frighten the living daylights out of my grandkids.
After all the words ‘one eyed’ will make each one of us see certain image in our head. One eyed for many would immediately conjure up an image of Cyclops with a single eye in the centre of his forehead. The Cyclopes were huge monsters with frightening features which liked to eat human beings. No I don’t look like Cyclopes, I really don’t, and although I like meat, it has to be from a cow.
Mind you, again thinking of my grandkids, they’ll soon know who Mike Wazowski is. Mike is the green one-eyed monster from the Monsters Inc. the Pixar film. Maybe they’ll think I’m cool.
Anyway, I do have only one eye, of course I wasn’t born that way, but after 2 retinal detachments that’s the way things now are. I’m not happy about it, but neither will I allow it to dominate my life. As you see, which is probably better than I can, I will often try to be humorous about my situation. Making light of it, at times, is far better than beating ourselves up over what impact it’s going to have on our lives, particularly in a negative way.
What do you call a one-eyed dinosaur? Douthinkhesaraus
Ok no I don’t tell jokes about it, only because I don’t know any good ones, and even if I did my delivery would probably be terrible. But yes I do make fun of myself, particularly when I do stupid things because of my vision. Which alas I do many stupid things because of my vision frequently.
Adjusting to the loss of vision in one eye takes time and practice before you find yourself coping well with it. Even the simplest tasks initially are challenging. For me making a cup of tea, shaving, and reading were really hard. I could create a really long list but those of you with vision problems will know exactly what I mean.
Even now when I read I can only do so for about 20 minutes before developing tired achy eyes, and a headache. I then have to stop, rest for about 30 minutes before I try again. Too much reading in a day tires me out so by early evening I’m ready for bed, and I’m talking about 6 to 7pm. Not great for a blogger who works mostly on a laptop, but I get through, and do love my work so am going to keep going, no matter what.
When my sight in my right eye became nothing more than a fog, just over a year ago, nobody was there to provide any information or advice regarding the functional implications, more like limitations of losing vision in one eye. Too many do not receive information from their physician about their new partially sighted status, nor do they receive support or advice with regard to home and workplace modifications from anyone unless they’re lucky. Despite this, the vast majority of us visually impaired learn to compensate for our disability and resume their previous work and daily activities. Life probably becomes a bit trickier, you have to think twice about doing certain things, but you’ll adapt.
For me my vision isn’t great at all, as my left eye itself, now my good eye, has always had poor vision. With only the one eye I have lost approximately 30% of my peripheral vision which at times can be really awkward. I also struggle with eye strain and photosensitivity. Judging distances is a complete nightmare. This poses challenges to everyday things such as pouring a drink or shaking hands. At times it does create embarrassing and frustrating situations. If you are one of those I’ve rammed into with my trolley at a supermarket I do apologise. It is most noticeable in crowded areas where I bump into people on my blind side. At times people who I know think I’m being rude, ignoring them, but in fact I can’t make out their face.
Yet none of this makes my life difficult, nor does it restrict me in what I want to do withy my life. For sure it challenges me, but I’ve written so many times before over the years, that we each have within us the ‘never give up gene.’ Whatever life throws at us, we have the capability to persist and triumph over adversity.
The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. Meister Eckhart
I feel like breaking into song:
Blinded by the light
She got down but she never got tight
She’s gonna make it through the night
An awesome song by Manfred Mann , but my singing is worse than my joke telling.
I guess I’m lucky that the fact that I’m blind in one eye isn’t extremely apparent when you look at me. Some people notice it and ask about it but others don’t. Those people who don’t know about my vision problem after months of knowing them they find out and say something like “how come you never told me?” As I mentioned in a previous blog it’s an invisible disability.
Now I want to help people like me who are struggling to come to terms with their visual impairment. One of the things that helped me was learning about other people in the world living perfectly normal lives being one eyed. Who hasn’t heard of Sammy Davis Junior? (ok, as long as you’re over 40). If you want to chat, simply email me or connect in Twitter, I’m HealthyLife_uk.
The other thing that has helped me and others is learning to get our emotions under control, and I’ll be writing much more about this over the next few months.
What do you call a deer with no eye? I have No-eye-deer!
I hope I haven’t offended any one with today’s blog. If it has, I hope you soon come to realise that our best medicine, particularly for our mind is humour.
Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake? Leonardo da Vinci
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