Well, wishes and prayers didn’t work; I couldn’t even see Mummy’s face properly when she woke me up so the morning started with tears, self-pity and breakfast, of course.
Once my older sisters had left for school we got ready for the journey to Petworth. We could have waited until Thursday when the doctor held surgery in Lurgashall but I didn’t want yet another day off school. That’s absolutely true, by the way; I loved school and hated the many times I was ill and missed days.
I usually enjoyed the mile walk to the bus stop; I grew up in a beautiful if remote part of West Sussex and walking along the lane offered a wealth of visual and aural treats. That day, however I was in no position to enjoy the sights and in no mood to listen. In an effort to boost my spirits Mummy started singing a hymn and after a bit I joined in; at least my voice still worked.
When we got to the main road I automatically did my kerb drill and then realised how futile the gesture was; I wouldn’t have known if a cattle truck was bearing down on us. I was praised for remembering though, so I felt quite proud of myself.
We didn’t have to wait long at the surgery before Doctor Bell called us in and for the first time in living memory I got to keep my clothes on. When I was asked to read the wall chart I couldn’t even see the big letter at the top, with either eye. Doctor Bell was a bit surprised and said “Really, not even the top letter?” I got terribly upset, protesting that I wasn’t fibbing.
I learned a new word that was really going to impress my school friends, ophthalmoscope but I didn’t like the instrument much; it made my eyes hurt and left me with nasty afterimages. The eye drops that the Doctor put in made things even worse and for a little while I couldn’t see anything at all.
Convinced that doctors could fix everything I asked when my eyes would get better. I should have known the answer the moment Mummy took hold of my hand and squeezed it. They weren’t going to get better and I’d have to wear glasses all the time, forever.
I went into hysterics and screamed the place down. This wasn’t fair! All the children at school were going to make fun of me and call me names like “four-eyes”. Not even the threat of a smack could calm me.
The Doctor put a model of an eye on his desk and both he and Mummy made me peer at it while he tried to explain what had gone wrong. He was at great pains to describe the squishy bits; guaranteed to get the attention of a seven year old.
When we got to the little muscles that made the lenses work he explained that those muscles had started breaking that’s why I couldn’t see properly; he didn’t know why but it could easily have been worse. The wiggly thing I’d almost seen had been tiny muscle fibres breaking off; scary!
Apparently my eyes had done in a second what usually took most of a lifetime; he’d never known it happen like that to someone my age. That didn’t make me feel special at all, it upset me even more.
Muscles could be mended, couldn’t they? I’d badly pulled a neck muscle when I was six and the doctor had come to our house and made it better so why couldn’t he do something now? He was was very sorry but that wouldn’t work with these muscles.
Because getting to Petworth was such a palaver for us the doctor phoned the optician and arranged for me to be seen as an emergency so, still weeping bitterly I was led out of the surgery.
Love
Man, I have never heard of this before. Was this something that would continue progressing or was it just a sudden one-time thing? What a terrible thing to happen to a child!
I finally got glasses at age 19 but I needed them long before that. I had memorized the eye chart so easily passed the yearly eye tests at school and thought I was really slick to do so that way. In retrospect of course, it was a foolish thing to do. I probably missed a lot of things by not seeing properly. Of course mine weren’t as bad as yours suddenly became then.
In 50 years my eyesight hasn’t actually changed very much; it went from 20/20 to utter crap and then pretty much stayed the same. I have to use reading glasses these days as well but that’s a legitimate part of being an old git.
I was never tempted to “cheat” on the test chart even though I knew the top letter was an A from school medicals. I was mostly afraid that being caught out would get me a smack from my mother.
So weird. How could this happens so fast? Really scary! When my eyesight started to deteriorate (at approx 13-14yo) it was a slow process taking a couple of years until it got stable. Since then it has more or less stayed that way.
I can easily understand why you got upset. Poor thing!
Love
Daniel
That was more or less it for me; my eyesight hasn’t changed a huge amount since then. It was a congenital defect that was just waiting to happen although if it had waited until I was in my teens I’d have probably handled it a bit better. At seven it was a serious blow to my self-esteem and very upsetting; I was the only child in my class who had to wear glasses.
Love
Malcolm
It’s an awful thing to happen to anyone, but to a kid it seems almost criminal.
And it wasn’t as if you were hit on the head by a football or anything which could have brought this on.
Or were you? Mind you – I think in such cases it’s pretty soon after the bang on the head/eyes isn’t it? So I guess that’s not what triggered it.
I think my glasses-wearing days started soon after your, heralded by many tedious visits to hospital for ‘therapy’ using strange viewers into which one peered, trying to get two images to coincide by moving handles which physically seemed to move the images and doubtless gave the woman the other side of it a reading of some sort. But I can clearly remember that sense that ‘I’d broken’ (or at least my eyes had) and that’s clearly what you went through too.
As far as I know there wasn’t a traumatic cause, if my father’s violence had done any damage like that I’d think it would have shown up by the time he left when I was four. The same applies to falling out of a hospital bed when I was three although I did hit my head pretty hard so who knows?
Thankfully I was spared the worst attentions of the hospital; it was just accepted that my eyes had gone, couldn’t be helped and glasses would take care of it.
Criminal is a good description, it’s a rotten thing to happen to a child.