I’ve probably blogged about this more than once, because it was a defining terror of my young life: when I was eleven, an optometrist, using that offhand exaggeration many adults use on children, told me that I was so nearsighted that I would be “blind by the time you’re thirty.”
I was the a serious, literal kid who only got glasses at the end of the second grade because she had such ironclad coping strategies for being unable to see — and though I hid it and was ashamed, I really was, and remain, severely nearsighted. So, white-knuckling in horror (clearly, not in the literal sense) I believed that optometrist, and waited for blindness, practicing blindfolded for hours, navigating my room.
I never told anyone why.
This morning, in the wee ‘sma hours, I had cause to remember.
Plucky Proverbs & Courageous Cliché
Carry
On.
Never
Surrender
Indeed, ’tis darkest before
Dawn. To
Every cloud, a silver lining –
Resolve that you’ll “keep holding on.”Light a candle; better
It than many bruises to amass.
Grit your teeth: “yes, you can”
Handle life’s lemons within your glass –
Take as truth: this too shall pass.
A retinal migraine involves optic nerves creating illusions of sight, then blindness. Waking – (possibly from low blood sugar) – out of deep sleep to a coruscating brightness in a darkened room, only to have that eye lose vision completely is — simply breath-stealing terror. I’d heard of auras relating to migraines and know that sometimes our optical nerves experience migraine without pain, so I figured I’d wait it out, not scream, and look it up when I could see again (and, I had to believe I would). To my relief, I was right; I found multiple descriptions matching my experience. (What did people do before they had the internet to help them self-diagnose and stoke the fires of incipient hypochondria?) Going tomorrow to my already-scheduled ophthalmology appointment – serendipitous blessing, that – I’m holding fast to my decision this month, to at least attempt to look on the bright side. I may only be able to deal in cliché today, but I’m getting there.
Meanwhile, enjoy the actual poem by an actual genius with actual blindness and not a bad headache:
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
So sorry to hear about everything you’ve been going through. I’d heard of migraine auras, but not the part about going temporarily blind. Terrifying to say the least. And to have to carry that fear through childhood of someday going blind. Gah! Hope the appointment went well today.