Losing My Eyesight but Not Losing My Mind

I have not blogged in quite some time. Thanks to Multiple Sclerosis,( the unwanted guest that resides in my body like a violent animal with an ax to grind). I lost my eyesight in my right eye. It was probably one of the most confusing things I have ever endured.

I felt so lost at first. I knew that blindness was a possibility. Partial blindness for sure, And now I was smack dead face to face with something that I heard about but never imagined I would endure. It's funny. SO many things can happen in  our lives. So many things are possible, And even though we can hear about them and think about them, we never imagine that it could be us.

Death,loss, blindness, disability,homelesness....all these things happen to someone else. Not because we are to good for the bad things but because we are just lucky. We are just so lucky that we feel like that luck shields us from all the millions of things that go wrong to other people. I think I felt shielded for awhile. I think that no matter how sick I felt at times. I just knew I would not lose my sight. I felt like it was so possible that it was impossible. I mean after all, I have enough to deal with.

Well, honey I was wrong. First I felt the pain behind my eye, Then the double vision. Then the shadowing, Then I realized that that film over my eye was getting thicker and I was not able to wipe it away. When the doctor first told me that I had lost my sight in the right eye. I giggled. Not because it was funny, I giggled because I immediately reminded myself that I thought I was shielded from this very thing.

The nurse handed me some eye drops, an eye patch, and patted me on the shoulder. :Hopefully it's only temporary," she said as she walked away. I watched her walking out the room and I briefly wondered what she was naive about. What did she think she was shielded from? My husband held my hand and told me to just relax. I tried to but I honestly was a mess inside.I had gone from thinking it couldn't be me to wondering what was going to happen next!!!!!

The days that followed were pretty blurry (Lol). I look back now and remember just trying to be okay with the whole thing. My kids were great. They enjoyed the eye patch tremendously. My mind wandered though. I had to ask myself, "what if I lose my sight altogether?" That became a question I fought with daily. With every headache, itch, pain behind the eye, I was prepared to be totally blind.

I think we have to be willing to admit to ourselves how truly clueless we are when it comes to possibilities. We like to believe the bad isn't possible but when it happens we believe the good is impossible. The truth is we are human and that makes anything possible in our lives. That doesn't mean we have to live a life of fear  but we do have to live a life of honesty to ourselves. Things are going to happen that we can not control. Will we always be prepared,...no. But we have to be able to deal with whatever happens without losing our minds or freaking out. In that moment of shock and pain and fear I had to find some calm. I had to take time to tell myself, "you knew this could happen, and you know you can get through it."

It is actually just a pep talk. But for me it was the pep talk that kept me sane. There was a 10 minute block in there where I felt I may lose my mind. I gained back 50 percent of my vision. And they say it may not get any better, My faith disagrees. I believe that I will eventually have all my sight back. However, in the mean time I will remove that shield that says "it couldn't happen to me." Because I know that it can. And I will replace it with a vow that "if it happens, whatever happens, I will handle it, I will get through it."

It's amazing how losing your sight, partial or complete can allow you to see so much more than 20/20 vision ever did. I am pretty sure in this journey of mine I will meet up with many more unsavory characters related to multiple sclerosis. I will come across other illness. I will run into people that mean me harm or just do not like me for whatever reason. And I will remember that anything is possible in this life. But no matter what comes my way I am capable of winning. Without having to lose anything especially my mind.

Blessings

#losteyesight #eyepain #ms #chronicillness