I went blind a week before I had to hand in three essays

I had three essays due when I completely lost my eye sight last month. Over Christmas I came down with what I originally thought was an infection. One morning I woke up and my vision was blurred but not in the “oh it’s early, where are my glasses” sort of way. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t focus on anything and I struggled to keep my eyes open. Any glimpse of light badly stung my eyes and I started to develop migraines.

Me enjoying my vision

I struggled with most every day tasks and became completely reliant on my mum. She dictated readings to me in between doses of antibiotics. I listened to the audio books of set texts and my sister helped me write down notes. If I was on the Facebook squad chat, it was in a darkened room with the phone brightness turned low. The laptop screen was the worst. Even on the dimmest setting, it was too bright for my eyes to focus on text. I wore a baseball cap covering my face if I was walking around the house and if I tried watching the TV I was donning sunglasses. It was a bold look.

After I lost my eye sight

Because of the nature of Christmas – every service seems to grind to a halt – I was forced to go to the walk-in clinic and wait three hours, only for a doctor to laugh and tell me to use eye drops. Believe it or not, this was a notion I had already thought of. The next two weeks resulted in various medication being prescribed and my eye sight getting progressively worse. I was in complete panic. By the time I was referred to a hospital, the light sensitivity in my eyes rendered them useless, and I was a week away from three essay deadlines. Remembering I had three essays due was when the panic set in. I was eligible for a week’s extension but anything longer than that and I’d have to delay my graduation. Not something I was planning to do.

Plenty of jokes were thrown around at my expense. Friends wondered how I was going to be a writer if I never regained my sight. My sister suggested I should write for a Braille magazine. My cat was offered as a guide dog substitute. There were times where, for maybe an hour in the day, I’d be able to open my eyes in a room with the curtains drawn and the lights off. And I was still in my statement cap and shades.

Going outside in daylight was like walking into the fiery pits of hell. Because of this, excursions were almost exclusively reserved for hospital trips. Chaperoned at all times, I completely lost all my independence. The miracle cure came in the form of steroid drops, which helped me regain my eye sight within three hours. I had to administer them every hour, with a pupil diluting drop twice a day and an eye ointment at night. I’m off those now but I’m still taking the steroid drops once a day, something I could have done with two weeks prior. I scraped my essays together and sent them from the hospital. The final verdict was that the doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong with me – I’ve been told I’ll probably never find out.