The next morning was a bit chilly. Although it was mid-December, it was raining heavily the whole night. The sky was overcast. No chances to see the sun.
Despite feeling the heaviness after the moving in my muscles, I woke up pretty early. I noticed it immediately. The familiar symptoms. “Oh God, no. Please let it not be true. It must be only temporary”, I thought.
It had happened to me before. It was one April evening. I went out for a gig of a very important person for me. The things weren’t good between us and I was hoping that maybe that would be the night when everything could be back to normal. I was mistaken. The attitude he had towards me. Selfish, unfair, arrogant and simply rude. That was too much for me. Something broke in my heart. I came back home and cried. I cried for hours. I think I wanted to cry out all the pain and sorrow I kept inside, all the feelings that I never shared with anyone; with him, because I didn’t want to cause him more damage to what he already had in his life… All the disappointment, heartache, anger, helplessness, silent suffering.
I went to sleep around 3 am. I was exhausted. I didn’t sleep much that night, too many thoughts were still hanging on my mind. But the following morning was like a bucket of ice on my head. When I opened my eyes I had a very strange sensation, however, I thought that it was because of all the emotions I had the previous night. I partly was right, my eyes were swollen from crying, but still something was wrong. I got scared, really scared. I recounted the words of my doctor, who told me to be cautious with anything too intensive in my life or else… Fear turned into frustration. Luckily for me, everything went back to normal after a few hours and some more sleep. I was relieved. “I will never let anyone destroy my health again!”, I thought back then. I only forgot that I, myself, can sometimes be my very own biggest enemy.
This time it didn’t get any better with time, quite the contrary. My biggest fear, the nightmare became the reality. I lost sight. I couldn’t see anything with my right eye and I couldn’t even tell how that happened. It was a very strange sensation. You wake up one day and there’s blackness instead of vision that is projected from your eye. All of a sudden. Just like that. No previous warning, no signs. One day you wake up blind.
The timing was really bad. Christmas. No doctors, nothing open. I had to wait several days to get appointed to my GP. A few more days to an ophthalmologist, another couple of days to the visit in hospital. The waiting was a nightmare. I was so afraid of hearing the diagnosis, of not knowing what happened or what would happen next, was it curable or would I stay blind for the rest of my life? “For Christ’s sake, I’m only 32, I have plans, I want to have children, normal life, is it possible when you can see only with your one eye?”, thoughts in my head. I was afraid, confused and shocked, I guess.
The visit in hospital speeded up the events. Consultations, obligatory stay in the ward, the surgeries, post-surgery treatment… My friend, a doctor, advised me go to one hospital in her city, she said it’d go much faster than the regular pathway. I opted for the latter way. For some reason I knew I had to choose another city, another hospital and trust I’d get good treatment. My intuition was right. I couldn’t have chosen better. In fact, it turned out I chose a place with the best ophthalmology unit, probably in the whole country.
– TO BE CONTINUED –
© Lusessita Kingsley 2020
Lusessita Kingsley 
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