the answer
Last week I gathered together my scattered strands of Hope, stuffed her into my bag along with my Kindle, my keys and my glasses, and headed to the hospital. That day, I would see my opthamologist and he would look into my eyes, right back to my optic nerve, and tell me what damage had been done, what was still ok and what could be done to improve or better live with my reduced sight.
Those strands of Hope were restless and squirming around as I clutched the bag closed, hoping to contain them as I waited. There must be something I didn’t know and I just knew that if anyone did know, this man must. Could things get better for this inwardly ambitious, but physically fatigued photographer who was just beginning to feel her feet standing firm in the field she had always always dreamed of?
I knew I would wait a very long time for this appointment, because I was requesting to see the consultant rather than a registrar or junior doctor because today I wanted to be sure that what I was told was the answer, if indeed there was one. I didn’t want to let go of the hope that there was one.
My wait was indeed long, over two hours in the waiting room, but eventually I was told “you are next.” I watched an elderly woman with a cane and thick glasses go in to the consulting room with her friend and waiting for them to come out again felt like an age. For they stood between me and my answer. Hope started jumping around like an unruly child.
Finally my time came. My distance vision tested worse than last year, but that was never the problem, and could be easily sorted with glasses anyway. That was not why I was here. My answer came quickly as my colour perception tested obviously worse than last time and by my own admission my depth perception was mostly gone and I needed to rely on those stripes they paint on steps to aid people who are visually impaired. Pressure around my eyes and headaches always came when there were too many objects/people/things to look at in a place.
“Well, loss of colour and depth perception are obvious signs of optic neuritis, but then you most likely already knew that.”
But. . . yes. . . but . . . I never had optic neuritis. I mean I did once, for a couple weeks or a month, but it went away and. . . but, I didn’t think I had that, they always said my optic nerve looked fine but. . . now it’s pale. . . I . . .is there anything I can do to make it better?
shrug, “No. Just common sense, which you are already using.”
Why was I finding this so hard to hear? Optic Neuritis, two words that have been in my consciousness for so many years, two words that are so synonymous with Multiple Sclerosis that when you say “I have MS” it is almost excepted that you continue with “and optic neuritis was my first symptom”. Why did I feel surprised? I must have thought that because it wasn’t the first symptom for me, that I must have escaped it. Why should I have escaped? What made me think that I was ‘different’? Why was I finding this hard? I have accepted MS, why not ON? Why was ON feeling more difficult than the tingling I get in my right foot or the drag that sometimes happens to my left leg or the crippling fatigue and depression that some days won’t allow me to leave the house?
I have never been afraid of a wheelchair. I have always dealt with nerve pain and electric shock sensations with an “oh well” and a grumble. But my eyes. My sight. My precious sight. My world has always been so colourful, so vivid, so full of things to see to discover, my wonder is in the scene that displays itself before me. I had hoped that the colours would come back, but now I know they will only continue to degenerate. I had hoped that it was all just temporary as the stats seem to say, that I just had to know the right things to do to make it better. But not everyone fits the stats. And whatever my problems were, they weren’t going away.
I got home from my appointment. My bag fell open on the floor and Hope ran out, unconstrained, like the unruly child she is.
What’s wrong with me? Optic Neuritis. I had already known the answer. I didn’t need the consultant opthamologist to tell me. I just needed him to make me begin to realise and accept the truth that I already knew.
There is no answer.
Tags: acceptance, ambition, answers, beauty, coping, damn, depression, doctors, doh, eyesight, fatigue, fear, future, hope, loss, MS, pain, photography, symptoms, truth, vision
February 27th, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Have been told that my comments weren’t working. So I think I may have fixed it now…? maybe.