Let's Go Back to the Beginning

In most of my blogs, I write about how I have adapted to my blindness.

How I cook, enjoy traveling, and do everyday activities are some of the topics that my subscribers have enjoyed reading. However, I have not spoken much about what my life was like before I learned to adapt to my blindness. While I do not believe I will ever completely get used to all of the hardships that blindness brings, I have made a lot of progress in the last five years.

While I normally focus on the positives, this week I want to give my readers a little insight into how I felt, what I thought, and how I lived immediately following my sight loss. 

I have no memory of the moment that I told my dad that I couldn’t see anything

but it is something that he will never forget. This occurred following a tonsillectomy. I had been discharged after my surgery, sent home, and went to sleep that night in my childhood home. My mother discovered me unresponsive early the next morning. After being rushed back to the hospital, intubated, and stabilized, I told my dad the news.

The two weeks that I spent in two different hospitals following all of this are a blur to me.

I remember small bits and pieces of interactions with nurses and visits from family and friends. The majority of this time, though, has been filled in for me by stories told by my family. According to them, I was either singing, crying out of complete shock, or trying to disconnect myself from all of the wires and tubes that were attached to me.

I do not remember a specific moment when I realized what had happened to me, and this was probably a blessing. I don’t know if I could have handled it. This realization occurred slowly, piece by piece, in the next days and weeks that followed.  

When I got home the haze of shock and medication did not wear off immediately, and I have a hard time recalling those very early days. I do remember sleeping and crying a lot, though.

My 21st birthday, which occurred a few days after I got out of the hospital, is one of my earliest semi-clear memories. Although I still cannot easily list everyone who was there, I do remember that I had to be literally woken up, dressed, and brought downstairs to my own party by some of my guests. It definitely was not the 21st birthday that everyone plans and dreams about. My family and friends did their best to make it special with cupcakes and gifts, but I, quite frankly, was not in the party mood.

Needless to say, those first few days are a haze of broken memories for me.

What do I remember most? The sofa in the living room and a portable CD player.

I spent most of my time laying on that couch, listening to audiobooks that people had generously given me. I memorized the buttons on an old, portable CD player and would only stir when I needed someone to come and find the next disc for me. While listening, I could escape from my reality into another world while I waited.

What was I waiting for? To be healed.

Because, in those early days, I thought for sure that this was temporary and that I would start to get my sight back any day. I was constantly convincing myself that I was able to see shadows or flashes of light...but I couldn’t. I prayed every night for God to let me be able to see when I woke up the next morning. Each day, I became more and more disappointed when I still woke up not being able to see.

Each day, I also became more and more frustrated as I wanted so badly to be independent but found each mundane, every day task difficult to accomplish without my sight. Picking out clothes was near impossible, I was constantly knocking things over around the house, and I felt disoriented all of the time.

In the beginning, before I really had to deal with my blindness, my friends did their best to make me feel normal. I remember being thrown around while laughing in the pool, visiting the girls in the dorms back at Berry, spending several nights with my sister at her apartment, and even going to a concert. After each outing, though, I would be dropped off back at my parents’ house or picked up by my mom and returned to my couch and portable CD player, and little by little, the reality started to set in.

I couldn’t see and nothing was going to go back to normal.

I was now 21 years old, but I felt like I was about 100.

I slept all the time, my body ached, and my head throbbed from the trauma I had endured. I visited more doctors in those first few months than I probably had in my entire life.

At the same time, I also felt like I was about five years old. My independence had been stripped away, and this was probably the hardest part of those first few weeks. I couldn’t drive, could hardly walk out of the house without getting lost in my own yard, and didn’t even know how to use the phone to call a friend.

If I wanted to call someone, I had to ask for help.

If I wanted a snack, I had to ask for help.

If I wanted to go outside on a walk, I had to ask for help.

My mom drove me everywhere, to my boyfriend’s house, to visit friends, and everywhere in between. I am so thankful that she was able to do this, but it was very hard to wrap my head around this lack of independence  in the beginning. My mom and I became very close during those first few days and weeks. We cried on each other’s shoulders, drove each other crazy, and were hardly apart for more than a few hours. When I first came home from the hospital, she even slept right outside my bedroom door on the hardwood floor in an effort to give me my space but also make sure she was there if I needed her.

My other family members were also very important to me during this time and they all supported me in their own special ways.

I will never forget when my dad would come home from work and come straight up to my room, where I was usually in bed fighting sleep. He would pick up a book and read to me, sometimes until we both fell asleep. My brother, Walt, would come home from Kennesaw, where he was working on his Master’s, and spend time just talking to me. I always enjoyed this because he wouldn’t talk about my blindness or the struggles I was facing. He knew I needed a break from all of it. We talked about his school, what was going on in the world, or what good movies were coming out. It got my mind off of all of my worries, even just for a few minutes.

My sister always did her best to get me out of the house. I remember spending several nights with her at her apartment, snuggling with her dog and just having sister time. We were also planning her wedding, so this was a good distraction as well. I leaned on my family hard in those first few weeks, and I couldn’t have made it without them. Our extended family also helped out a lot during this time. They cooked, cleaned, and did everything we needed. 

Over the next several months, the hard times would continue,

but God’s constant strength would also teach me to persevere and find blessings in my hardships. I was plagued with nightmares from the trauma that seemed to come every night. I fell down occasionally while trying to learn how to navigate the world independently and safely at the same time.

Before I learned how to use a white cane, I fell down a small step in our living room, and my mom ended up falling with me as she tried to break my fall. After this,  she attached a wiffle ball to the end of a hiking stick to fashion a home-made mobility cane which I used with reluctance.

Through it all, I continued to pray.

I prayed for healing, guidance, comfort, and the strength to make it through these difficult moments. Despite facing the disappointment of not being healed physically, I was healed spiritually as I learned to rely on God through every struggle and hardship that I faced.

He got me through every fall, every sleepless night, and every tear that I shed, and He continues to do so today. My biggest takeaway in those early days - is that I learned to surrender, to trust, and to start moving forward.