|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Over the past few weeks, I have searched far and wide for something to ease the problems with my eyes. In the end, the answer turned out to be just five minutes from home.
My eyes have become one of the biggest challenges I face with PSP. They are not my only symptom, but at the moment they are certainly the one affecting my daily life the most.
As anyone who read my blog a few days ago will know, they even managed to make me feel profoundly alone while surrounded by some of the most wonderful company imaginable.
The light sensitivity has become relentless. Bright sunlight is difficult, but so too are ordinary indoor lights, computer screens and even my phone. My sister and mum even bought me a digital photo frame for my birthday. Ironically, it is currently too bright for me to enjoy, so for now it has had to be turned away.
To cope, I have spent the last month wearing dark Polaroid sunglasses. Even then, there are days when they are simply not enough. Today, for example, I wore two eye masks over my sunglasses just to walk across the road to my physiotherapist without being overwhelmed by the glare of the sun. The sunglasses have helped, but they have also left me feeling as though I am living in permanent twilight, even inside my own home.
After reading about FL-41 rose-tinted lenses, which have helped some people with migraines and photophobia, I ordered a pair from the United States. Like so many things these days, I found myself waiting… and waiting… hoping they might provide some relief. According to the courier’s tracking page, they are still somewhere in transit, with several more days to go.
Then I had one of those moments that makes you smile.
Almost as an afterthought, I mentioned the problem to a local optician. Her shop is literally five minutes from my house. For some reason, I had simply assumed she wouldn’t stock something as specialised as FL-41 lenses. I never even thought to ask.
Within ten minutes she had produced a pair of FL-41 clip-on lenses that fitted perfectly over my prism glasses. Better still, although she was closing for the day, she kindly left them on the doorstep for my wife to collect.
That’s the kind of place we live.
The prism glasses already help me focus on my computer and phone at close range. Adding the FL-41 lenses has softened the harshness of the light without plunging everything into darkness. It is only the beginning, and I am cautiously optimistic, but already they seem to be making a real difference. Living indoors no longer feels quite so much like living in a bat cave.
Sometimes progress does not come from a breakthrough on the other side of the world. Sometimes it is waiting just around the corner.
It was a timely reminder not to overlook the people and expertise close to home. We often assume the answer must be somewhere else, when in reality it is sitting quietly within our own community.
So today I simply want to say thank you to my local optician, Racheli. Thank you for taking the time to listen, for finding a practical solution so quickly, and for helping me when I probably should have asked months ago. You may never fully appreciate how much a small piece of rose-tinted plastic can mean to someone whose world has become painfully bright, but for me it represents something much bigger.
It represents hope.
The battle with my eyes is far from over. In many ways, they have become the main battlefield in my fight against PSP. But every small victory matters. Every obstacle that becomes just a little easier to manage is another step towards preserving my independence and my quality of life.
Sometimes we search the world for an answer, only to discover it has been waiting right next door all along.
P.S. It turns out pink really is the new black.
