For my favourite article of the last 12 months, I thought I’d revamp this one about the art I’ve done since being forced out of my previous incarnation due to loss of sight through glaucoma. I’ve revamped it with some new artworks I thought you’d like to see. Perhaps the high point of the last year was being commissioned to create a piece of art for the very famous environmentalist, Dame Jane Goodall. Here she is pictured with the portrait of her very special chimpanzee, David Greybeard, who change the way we look at primate intelligence:
Anyway, let’s go back to the day my life changed…..
Imagine this…
- You passed your driving test, first time, aged 17 years and 4 months.
- You’ve been driving for 44 years.
- You’ve run your own business for 21 years and it’s necessitated you driving the length and breadth of the UK, clocking up over 20,000 miles a year.
- You’ve driven all over the world, including a few trips from the UK to Switzerland and back.
- You live in a very rural location with no facilities nearby.
- You love driving.
And then you receive the following letter in the mail:
This is the letter sent to me by the UK government’s Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency, received on 18 June, 2022 (the day AFTER they cancelled my license).
From the tone of it, you’d think I’d done something wrong that’s resulted in my precious driving license being revoked… but I haven’t.
The letter lacks any compassion (which would cost nothing). There’s no “sorry to advise you” nor any recognition of how devastating it is to receive such news. It’s a horrible letter, both in tone and content.
Around 20 years ago during a routine visit to an optician, my eye fluid pressures were found to be on the high side so I was referred to Eastbourne District General Hospital’s Eye Clinic. There it was confirmed that I’ve inherited a condition that afflicted my paternal Grandmother and both her sons – my Uncle and my Father.
I was prescribed drops to put in my eyes morning and evening and booked in for a follow-up appointment in six months.
Honestly, I didn’t think much of it. My Dad had been using drops for a while but there was no sign of any deterioration in his eyesight. And there was a bonus… after a couple of months using the drops I found I had gained luscious, long eyelashes as a result of the preservatives in them. People would actually comment on the length of my lashes. I was happy, and the twice-yearly trips to the eye hospital were only a minor inconvenience.
Glaucoma’s a funny old disease. It’s called ‘the thief of sight’ because it sneaks up on you, even while you know you have it. Sight loss is so gradual that you barely notice it happening. It’s a silent and insidious enemy that you carry around inside.
What happens (as I understand it in layman’s terms) is that the pressure of fluid within the eye elongates the shape of the eyeball that then squeezes the optical nerve to the brain. As a result of this squeezing, threads of the optical nerve die off, taking small patches of eyesight away with them bit-by-bit. Once gone, they’ll never come back.
So the standard treatment is to try and reduce the eye pressure and this is initially done by the use of drops. Later when the drops aren’t effective, you get tiny holes drilled, by laser, into your eyeball to allow the fluid to drain. Still later, if the sight loss continues, you’ll have a trabeculectomy – basically, a sort of ‘trap door’ cut into the top of the eyeball – to give the fluid another route from which to drain.
Fast-forward and I’ve had all this but the sight loss is continuing. The NHS websites states: “Glaucoma can lead to loss of vision if it’s not diagnosed and treated early.” What they don’t say is that even with such treatment, it can lead to loss of vision.
And it’s not just the vision. Driving represents freedom. Oh I know there’ll be some people reading this who might have never driven and so wouldn’t miss it, and I also take nothing away from the amazing people who were born blind and cope admirably, but when something you’ve had is taken away you feel it more acutely than if you’d never had it in the first place.
Of course, friends rally round with offers to drive me places and I’m very grateful. But as well meaning as they are, I know most would soon get fed up if I were to call them at 7pm on a Friday night when they were just settling down after work so I could pop down town for fish & chips. It’s little things like that that I now can’t do on the spur of the moment or without feeling I’m a burden on somebody.
Hub says we’ll manage and we just have to adapt to a new lifestyle and he’s right, of course. And I have a couple of exceptionally good friends who go out of their way to drive me but it doesn’t stop me getting angry and frustrated, especially when I’m standing in the cold and wet waiting for a bus that’s either late or doesn’t even turn up, which happens more often than it ought to.
And it’s not just the driving. I’ve always been a very visual person
Unlike when I was first diagnosed, I now see what’s in my future – a time when I won’t be able to do any of these things. My Dad is now almost completely blind. He’s 86. Sadly, my Consultant has always considered me young to be at such an advanced stage so I’m beating my Dad at his own game, albeit for a prize I’d rather not have.
People don’t always realize the true nature of Glaucoma. They talk about me regaining my license and suggest that there must be some treatment that can bring my sight back because “they can do wonders these days.” They’re used to seeing adverts offering vision-correcting surgery in a lunch hour and hearing about older people having routine cataract ops under local anaesthetic, returning home the same day with sight restored.
No such treatment exists for Glaucoma. It’s reported in the Review of Ophthalmology that scientists at Harvard Medical School are working on something called ‘epigenetic reprogramming.’ The thinking behind it seems to make sense since they’re focusing on the faulty genes that get passed on in this hereditary disease.
For some time, I’ve wanted a dog but Hub tells me he’s not up for “walking around with a little bag of poo.” I suggested we get a BIG dog and then he can walk around with a BIG bag of pooh! In reality, I’ll probably stick to cats – one of mine is pure black and does his best to kill me on the staircase in poor light conditions.
Meanwhile, since my enforced home confinement I’ve resurrected a love of art creation. In our downstairs cloakroom we have a couple of drawings I did when I was 17. I used to draw regularly but that hobby got shelved as “real life” took over.
I began working in watercolour before progressing to pastels, coloured pencil, charcoal and, occasionally reverting to my first love, graphite. As I love animals, I started with them and now accept commissions. I’m also revisiting graphite and human portraits. And it’s fun to add in the odd quirky experiment – like the fried egg.
I’ll continue enjoying this for as long as I can. If you’d like to see my work take a look at my website and let me know if you’d like to commission a piece, as long as I can still do it.
Who knows, perhaps the limited body of works will make them valuable one day.
NHS Glaucoma information: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/glaucoma/
Review of Ophthalmology Article: https://www.reviewofophthalmology.com/article/study-supports-reversal-of-vision-loss-from-glaucoma
Guide dogs for the blind: https://www.guidedogs.org.uk
