Post #98 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Scrapbooking Our Memories, One Story at a Time
Memoir Vignette
Occasionally, we receive a compelling story from one of our readers. The topic doesn’t fit any of our contests and the author would just like to share her story.
Today we are publishing one of these memoir stories.
NEARLY LOSING IT
Sylvia Downes
I have always considered myself one of the fortunate ones. I was born into a country where most people have a roof over their heads, enough to eat, free health and education and a life expectancy of seventy plus. I considered myself a strong, capable (smug?) woman well able to cope with whatever life threw my way. Then something happened that made me realise that I was not as strong as I thought.
I was forty-seven and already severely short-sighted when I began to notice a significant deterioration in my sight. And that is when I was wearing my glasses, you understand. Without them I could barely navigate my way across a room. Naturally I made an appointment to see my optician. None of the prescriptions he came up improved the one I already had, so he suggested I go to my doctor.
My GP told me that I should see an eye consultant. After examining my eyes the consultant told me that they were fine – apart from myopia.
Six months later my eyesight had deteriorated further. At that time I was a peripatetic primary music specialist/advisor. My job was to travel from school to school demonstrating the teaching of class music to non-specialist teachers. I also ran music courses and taught at a Saturday morning music school.
Fortunately I had a fund of memorised songs and musical games at my disposal so I soldiered on, taking some comfort in the fact that my improvisational skills on the piano were improving by leaps and bounds. Although I could no longer read road signs, I continued to drive from school to school. After all no one had told me not to.
Teaching, especially demonstrating a skill, really focuses the mind. When you are doing it, that’s all you think about. There’s no time to consider anything but the music, the children and the teacher you are trying to inspire. I was good at my job and loved doing it. Through those difficult days, teaching music kept me going.
Nevertheless, day by day the problems multiplied. I had to take large print books out of the library to be able to read. I had to move my chair closer to the set to watch the television. Trying to set the temperature on the cooker was a nightmare, as was reading a recipe or making out the signs in a supermarket. I didn’t realise how lucky I was.
I went back to my GP again. He agreed to make an appointment for me at the local eye clinic in Cambridge. I disliked the consultant on sight. He was pompous, patronising and self-satisfied. Lolling back in his chair and fixing his gaze at a point six inches above my head he informed me that there was nothing wrong with my eyes.
More months passed and the fog in which I was now walking (and driving) thickened by the day. I knew that I shouldn’t be at the wheel but I needed to drive to do my job. And without my job I felt I might go insane. I went back to my GP yet again and asked him if there had been any feedback from the consultant in Cambridge.
“He thinks the problem is menopausal.” Then:
“I’ll make you an appointment at an eye hospital in London.”
Six weeks later I was examined by a specialist at a London eye hospital.
After he had completed the examination, the consultant explained sympathetically that in his opinion I had retina degeneration. There was no cure for this condition. Over a course of between five and ten years the likelihood was that I would go blind.
“But I drive every day,” I whimpered.
“Not any more, he replied.
I decided to continue working. Each day started with a three mile cycle ride to the nearest railway station. Leaving my bike in the cycle shed at the station I took the train to Stevenage. Awaiting me in the cycle shed at Stevenage was another machine. I used this to bike from school to school. Stevenage is a town with a network of cycle paths. By the end of two years I could navigate my way along the paths without looking.
It was miserable when it rained though and worse when there was ice and snow but I discovered how many friends I had in the town where I worked. Sometimes when I arrived at Stevenage station, I found one of the primary school heads waiting for me. “Come on,” the head would say. “I’m driving you today.”
Perhaps it was because I had such massive support my work suffered hardly at all. I continued to demonstrate class music. I conducted groups of instrumentalists at the Saturday morning music school and put on carol concerts and end-of-term shows. I even rehearsed and accompanied on the piano a performance of ‘Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat.’ All ‘by ear.’ I often made a fool of myself though. One afternoon I shouted to the fuzzy outline on the other side of the school hall: “Amanda Sprigg. It’s recorder practise. Have you got your treble?” I was addressing a dinner lady.
The thing I dreaded most was the long cycle ride in the dark from the village station to my home. One night a youth chased me shouting, “C. . . .!” Another night I skidded on a patch of ice and landed in a hedge.
Every now and again I would trail back to my optician, in the forlorn hope that a new pair of glasses might do the trick after all. On one such day my optician told me that he’d arranged for me to go the retina department of an eye hospital.
After various tests the consultant told me that retina degeneration was not the reason for my loss of sight after all. Should I be delighted that my retina was OK or upset that my condition was still undiagnosed? At this point, rather belatedly in my opinion, my guardian angel decided to lend a hand. She guided a visiting American eye surgeon my way.
The examination did not take long. After it he said one magic word: “Operable.” And then: “I’ve had other cases present like this. Because of excessive vitreous fluid, it’s not always easy to spot. She’s got cataracts in both eyes. Well advanced.”
Three weeks later a genius (as far as I was concerned) operated on my left eye and gave me a lens implant. For the first time in over two years, I saw the stars. Nine months after that he removed the cataract from my right eye.
So I’m still one of life’s lucky ones but many people are not so fortunate. Each time I visited the eye hospital, I met patients with conditions worse than mine. And the courage of those people amazed me. On my way to the hospital, in the busy London streets, on the underground, I met already blind people struggling along in the dark with only their seeing-eye dogs for support. Even during my worst days I could see and minimal sight is better than none. So, in spite of the wrong diagnosis by consultant after consultant and the angst that this caused, I have no complaints. I got my sight back after all and I can see better now than I could before the whole saga began because the implants partly corrected my short-sightedness.
That visiting American doctor gave me back more than my sight. He gave me back my life.
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