“Un-winged and naked, sorrow surrenders its crown to a throne called grace.”
~ Aberjhani
You may have noticed that I’ve been uncommonly quiet here on my blog this past few weeks.
Those of you who’ve known me for a while will also know that if I’m ever quiet it is always for good reason.
Today, I want to share some good and some not so good news with you, in an effort to explain this current spate of absence.
My surgery back in early September went well, despite unforeseen complications. Hooray! Good news. But then I developed a urinary tract infection which turned out to be a superbug. Bad news. I was given an avalanche of drugs, and finally, finally, we were able to eradicate the infection. Good news. But in the process of eradicating the bug my vision was affected. Bad news.
I am currently suffering from a condition known as ocular toxicity. Small crystals have formed in my right eye, causing vision loss and double vision. It’s a rare side effect of the drug I was taking that was necessary to beat the superbug. The effects are usually permanent.
My left eye has already been hammered by Lyme disease, so my vision from that eye is not great. With all of the drugs I’ve been taking recently my optic nerve has become inflamed again so until two days ago I couldn’t see out of that eye at all either – a situation that began before I contracted the superbug. It may also have been damaged by the drug. I won’t know for a few more days.
Scary stuff.
When you suddenly can’t see properly, everything changes.
I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I have sobbed myself to sleep each night and been in the darkest of spaces this last little while. It seemed so cruel to have this to deal with, after everything else that has been my latest round of health battles. As a writer, to be unable to read or put words on the page has been an agony.
Each day I wake up hoping for improvement, only to find my world a blur. I can see shapes and colour but nothing has definition. My world is two-dimensional and rather terrifying. Overnight I have become clumsy and tentative. Dependent. Smaller, somehow.
But my left eye has cleared a little in the past forty-eight hours.
From experience I know that there is room for further improvement, and already I am coping a bit better with my new situation. I now have limited vision from my left eye, and using corrective glasses and vision impairment settings on my phone and computer I have managed to gain a little more independence. I can read large font for brief periods before I get a headache and end up exhausted from the effort. I’m cheered enormously by this latest development though. I expect to be able to read and write for short periods each day and with some creative thinking I should be able to get around most of these current hurdles and adapt to the vision loss.
My ability to see energy and auras hasn’t changed at all, thank goodness. If anything, my senses have become more acute.
I also have my fingers crossed that both eyes will improve over time, and I have a great team looking into all of this with me.
So, this is a turn of events I didn’t anticipate.
It’s one that has caused me many tears, and a great deal of distress.
But ultimately, no matter what happens to us, we find a way to cope and move on. I’ll be okay. Things will improve or I will learn to cope better with what is, and meanwhile I will keep asking for help and counting my many blessings. I’ll innovate in order to create. I’ll overcome, and where I can’t I’ll do my best to sit in a state of grace with it all.
My husband put it all into perspective for me. Would I rather have dodgy eyes and be alive, or be dead with perfect eyesight?
I’m doing my best to get up and running again. Sorry that all I’ve spoken about here on my blog lately has been health updates. I hope to bring you something far more interesting very soon. Thanks for your patience, and for your support. It means the world to me.
All my love, Nicole xx
PS: How cool is this Unicorn Eye Patch! It’s on my latest wish list 🙂
