Hi, lovelies!
So, I've mentioned in a few previous videos that I can't see out of one eye.
I know!
Deaf, disabled, and vision impaired.
It's like the gods were playing bingo.
But I don't think I've ever really sat down and talked about it.
Talked about what happened,
how I feel about it,
how I generally cope with it in day-to-day life
and so I thought I would make a video about that.
Firstly, I should say, that I tend to sort of automatically say, "I have one eye."
So I'll be like, "I only have one eye, so you can't blame me for that."
That's not true, I do have two eyes; this is my eye.
It's a normal...normal eye. I was born with it.
Weirdly enough, the eye itself can see.
I just can't see.
I've just realised how many times I said "it" there.
I tend to objectify parts of my body that aren't working very well and that I have no control over.
I think it's quite good.
Not only for your mental health, but also for making things the butt of a joke.
It's good for that.
I mostly only [?] say "one eye" when I am trying to get out of trouble for having done something stupid
because no one can argue with that.
"I've got one eye"
Mic drop!
I don't ever say blind or visually impaired, either
(Said eye is weeping.)
(For fun.) [?]
because I'm not--I'm not blind.
I have--I just have a blind eye. I am blind in one eye
and I'm not visually impaired, technically, because I have an eye that can see perfectly well.
In fact, in a competition of who saw the furthest sign away, if I was playing with my wife, I would win
hands-down, every single time
top of the leader board
in a category of two.
However,
the story of how I lost the sight in this eye is rather interesting, I suppose.
So, buckle in.
So, I was nineteen. I'd just been in a BBC3 show
called 'Britain's Missing Top Model'
and I was finally, finally about to complete my A-Levels after three years of being just ill and bedbound
and in hospital, and it sucked.
But, you know, I was riding high. I was probably higher than I had been for many years
feeling good about myself.
But I kind of--I kept getting these weird little headaches, like tiny...
They were as if there were explosions in my brain and then they'd trail off
(the pain) and maybe it would be hours or days.
[Small explosive noise trailing off]
They made me very forgetful, which is also why I'm struggling to remember exactly what happened
at that time.
Exactly what was going on. What time of year it was. [?]
I don't know.
Because I'd had a lumbar puncture, and then all of the fluid in my spinal column drained out.
Drained into my body, actually, so it's like a massive bruise.
Your brain is a living sponge, and when you dehydrate a living sponge, when you then put fluid back into it
it's not necessarily going to re-saturate the way that you hope it would
and some little bits of it might be dead, and they might never come back.
I remember that night so clearly, though, and I don't know whether it was the pain that just made it crystalise
in my mind, or whether I would have remembered it anyway.
I was snuggled in bed, where I spent most of my time.
Funnily enough, actually, this bed.
Yes, I brought my childhood bed to my marital home.
It's the first thing I ever purchased with my debit card.
Most kids buy sweets; I bought an antique bed.
So it was late, it was dark. I had my little bedside light on
and I felt my body start to tense.
I knew another one of these little explosion headaches was about to happen
and it just felt...different.
It felt--it felt worse; it felt like something terrible was about to happen.
So I knocked over my bedside alarm, because I had a special alarm that goes off when you knock it over
and I screamed for my parents, and then I just--and then the pain hit, and I just kept screaming
and screaming and screaming and screaming
and it felt like someone had forced a hot poker right the way through the back of my head and out of my eye.
And I was clawing at my eye, trying to--basically just to tear my eye out, because it hurt so much
and I thought if it was out of my head, it would hurt less.
I'm screaming; I'm trying to claw it out; my dad's holding me down -
I mean, seriously, like knees on hands trying to nail me down so I could stop doing it -
and then...it goes black.
Like an old film catching flame.
That's it.
There's no more vision in my eye and my face goes slack on this side
and I lose all the feeling in it.
And I...I think I just passed out
and then I cried
and cried, cried, cried.
So it took a while before my face could move again and I still can't feel it, but my sight didn't change.
So, of course, all of the doctors had to run all of the tests.
You know, they did--they did everything.
There were brain scans, and they stuck a needle in there, and they put some dye in my eye
and they couldn't work it out, because my eye reacts to light; it moves along with this one.
Like...but only until--only until my right eye can't see any more
over my nose.
And then I get a bit confused.
It's a perfect, working eye.
It's an excellent specimen. I could donate it.
It just doesn't focus unless the other eye is also open.
Oh, and it just can't see.
It's just darkness.
Eventually, they stuck a lot of electrodes on my head and did a VEP
Visual Evoked Potential test
which measures how information gets into your eye, goes through the optic nerve, and then up to your brain
and it showed that my eye was registering everything.
It could see, but then it just didn't give any information to my brain.
The pathway was so damaged that nothing was really getting through
and it felt amazing to get this test result
because at this point, the doctors didn't really... They weren't that helpful.
They didn't seem to believe me very much.
You know, they did their usual, "Oh, this isn't my speciality."
Like, oh, it can't be real if it's not a problem caused by YOUR speciality.
"Er, it's not my speciality, so...sorry."
"I don't care that it's not your speciality. I am a human being. I am afraid, please be nice to me."
"No."
Probably to start with, I didn't deal with losing my sight - or deal well - no, I just didn't deal.
I tend to - if something is upsetting me - I will put it in a little box, leave it there, and then I carry on regardless.
And this is kind of a good idea, because then when you go back to the little thing in the box,
you open the box and you're like, "Oh, my God, it's so scary, arghh!"
And you open it up and you're like, "Oh, wait, I'm so over that now."
"I don't care."
Although ignoring things and carrying on regardless isn't always great,
especially if it's an injury and you're walking on it.
Don't do that.
It took about a year for me to notice any change and difference in my eye.
The vision in this eye is basically black, and then it has a tiny pinprick of light
but it is so blurry that I can't read the top letter on an optician's board.
I can just about tell that there is blackness on whiteness
but that's about it. It's just a little flur--fluerry?
Fuzzy pinprick.
It's actually way more annoying than when it was black, because now, whenever I look at something I'm reading,
the space I'm actually looking at has got a tiny little fuzziness right in the dead centre.
So I end up just reading the words in front or behind of that
little blurriness.
And that takes a lot of brain power
(and attention)
Sorry, my neighbour has twins and they're outside, and they're adorable.
Losing my sight is probably the scariest thing that has ever happened to me
because it's in my--it's in my brain, so it feels very intangible
and again, it's something I can't control.
Control...kind of a big thing when there aren't many areas of your life you can control.
Even though I can't command my limbs to start working again when they stop, they're still here
and I can see them and touch them, and they're in front of me and it FEELS like something I can control
even if it is just an illusion.
Also scarier than going deaf
because that was really gradual. I didn't really notice it very much and it's not painful, just...
is.
It's also scarier than having problems with my internal organs, because I've had those all my life
and whatever.
And of course it's terrifying because I rely on my sight to fill in the gaps for things that I can't hear.
It's generally just a big--big ball of scary.
But that is my life, so...
accept and move on.
Which is why I decided to try and bash on with learning to drive.
The results of which I talked about in my Cars: Drive Me Crazy video, which...card above.
Long story short, I have to use all of my mirrors while I'm driving
because I can't turn my head, because to turn my head to the degree where I can see with my right eye
out of the back mirror, I am then taking away any---any vision that I have at the front
- any peripheral vision -
and then someone might just walk in front of my car, and that's sort of terrifying.
I think at least two of the times I failed my test (yeah, I'm driving when I do this) [?]
At least two of the times I failed my test, which is because I refused to do that fake thing,
where you fake turn just so the examiner can like you.
Instead, I just used my mirrors, and I'm perfectly fine.
Like, I've never actually hit something while I'm driving.
Actually, come to think of it, I have only failed because I live in England, and we drive on the left side of the road
and I therefore have to turn to my left
which is very unfair, and really Napoleon should have won, and we could drive on the right and
I would be able to actually look out of my back mirror.
Audio books are obviously amazing.
There are audio books for pretty much everything, nowadays.
Some with famous people reading, which is very exciting!
There are also podcasts. Podcasts make you clever
unless you listen to the ones that are not about clever things
in which case, they probably won't make you clever.
But! they will make you more informed, and that is something
There are also a range of products out there that will help you with your actual reading from a page
including those really large stationary magnifying glasses
which I think are quite a good thing.
Quite cool.
Although maybe I'd like to use an old magnifying glass, because then I would look a bit like Inspector Clouseau.
And of course you can get phones with larger keyboards; iPads have their amazing in-built accessibility features
where you can, in your settings, enlarge the text on screen
which is really handy - I do that. Mine's a lot bigger
so I can see around the stupid blurry spot.
Yes! It is much harder, strangely
(or not strangely),
doing make-up on the side of your face you cannot see from
but work with your mirror and practise .
It took me a while
to work out how to do an eyebrow on the left side of my face
because I have to be able to angle
like so
so my right eye can actually see in the mirror my left eyebrow
over my massive nose.
Basically, everything would be easier if my nose was much smaller.
Even if it's a little blurry in the centre, and there are some directors who are so choppy with their editing
that really, anything could be happening right now, and you lose the plot a little bit.
Also, the audio described service that the BBC and Channel 4 have on their catch-up programmes
and I'm pretty sure other countries have, too.
(Sorry, I don't know)
And also on television, they're excellent. I find myself reading the subtitles of the audio described,
because I find it gives you great plot points
that you might not get just from the visual, "What the hell's going on?"
Such as, "He looks at photo of dead son."
Yes! Thank you. That's who that weird little kid is!
Now I know.
Oh, my God, that was so peace and rainbows.
Laaa.
Oh, I know, I get really cheesy if you let me go.
Beauty doesn't have to just be visual.
It can be sounds, smells, tastes, touches.
Even feelings.
If you've got to a point in your slight loss where all you've got are colours and shapes, then who is to say
that that is not beautiful
just because it no longer has minuscule detail?
I am so thankful for the vision that I do have
and I'm just gonna keep on keeping on.
If it changes, I will deal.
If it magically gets better, I will be...deeply surprised
but I no longer have little mini strokes, so that's good.
Let's just be thankful for that, shall we?
Remember, you are still you, no matter what happens.
You are just as smart, just as kind, just as funny and hell, you probably now have some added black humour
to throw in there.
I hope you found this video helpful
especially you, Patricia.
Thank you for sending me such a lovely email. That was really nice to receive.
I'm quite emotional now.
I might go and have a little cry
and then fix my make-up
and then play the Sims
because...what else
would make me feel better
when my wife is at work?