How to see like A Blind Girl
Curious? Do you want to see what I don’t see?
To fully understand your moment of blindness, let’s look at the diagnosis.
According to Mayo Clinic, optic neuritis (ON) “occurs when swelling (inflammation) damages the optic nerve — a bundle of nerve fibers that transmit visual information” from the eye to the brain. Simply put, your wiring has short circuited. The problem is, the optic nerves are so small, science hasn’t reached the skill level to work with those particular teeny tiny wires yet. The only treatment I know of for ON is massive doses of strong IV steroids. The first round of these steroids will make you throw up in the clinic parking lot.
With this diagnosis, here’s what you are facing…probably.
Can optic neuritis be cured? Brigham and Women’s Hospital website says, ON “gradually begins to improve between 1–3 months. Most people with optic neuritis generally recover 20/20 (normal) visual acuity.”
Brigham and Women’s Hospital goes on to say that, in most adult cases, ON affects only one eye.
Why settle for most cases?! Let’s examine YOUR particular ON.
For once, the internet failed in blasting my screen with doom and gloom while researching this article. I had to go through several websites all focusing on how temporary of a problem ON is before I found a guy willing to spill the worst case scenario. As an overachiever, this is where your diagnosis falls. That guy’s name is My-MS.org. In a back alley he admits long-term severe vision loss occurs in about 20% of patients with about 3% experiencing complete blindness.
My-MS.org friend has a buddy with him who is happy to expand on this statistic. Cleveland Clinic told me ON is really just a one eye issue. Only 1 in 10 people will experience ON in both eyes.
Look around! Smile! Accept your trophy!
Congrats! During this experience of walking in my cute ballet flats and practicing with my white stick, YOU are that 1 out of 10. ON attacked both of your eyes. The steroids did nothing to slow down the progression of your lost sight.
Personally, I thank you. Thank you for joining me on the doorstep of the 3% club — the 3% of people diagnosed with ON who pulled the short stick and wind up completely in the dark. I have been standing here for quite a while. I’m not worried: I can do this. I would just like to put it off for a while longer. Perhaps, I still have just enough sight left to not have to accept membership into the complete black yet.
After all of that, do you want to see what I see?
Are you sure? Okay, then, here goes.
1. What do you learn in kindergarten? Read all directions before beginning.
2. Close your right eye and keep it closed. It is useless to you. If your kid was a pirate last Halloween, borrow her eye patch. Wear it for this exercise.
3. Remember when old tvs would go to black and white static if the picture went out? Picture that static but in an ugly light camel color and black. If you are too young to know what I am talking about, look up Poltergeist from 1982.
4. As a kid, did you close your eyes and push on them (gently!) until you started seeing fireworks behind your eyelids. Close your left eye and, without too much pressure, press on your eyeball until you start seeing fireworks. I would like to repeat: not too much pressure! I am not responsible for your loss of an eyeball.
5. Okay, bring it all together. Are you picturing camel and black colored static from an old tv? Do you have fireworks exploding under the lid of your closed left eye?
6. Open your left eye only — remember your right eye doesn’t work. There you go, for those few brilliant seconds while picturing static and having the fireworks explode in your vision, imagine looking through both of those distractions to see washed out color blobs on the other side.
7. Can you see the table in front of you? What’s going on outside the window? Where is your pen?
One Last look before you leave.
How much were you able to see in those precious few seconds you experienced and which, for me, make up every waking moment of every day. This experiment only allows you to experience my blindness for the briefest of seconds but, in that time, there is so much to not see. After your eyes clear and normal sight returns, look at the spot you were looking at when there was static and fireworks flashing. Think about it. Then you can go back to staring at your screen. You can drive your kids to the store.
You can review the sticky note your spouse left you on the bathroom mirror. Life will go back to, well, your life.
