Blindin'
About sixteen years ago when I was but a fresh little thing of twenty one, I woke up one morning with "wiggly lines" in the vision in my left eye - meaning all straight edges were warped like something out of the X-Files. I went to the hospital, who took note that I am pathologically short sighted but thought no more about that, and told me I had bleeding in my retina in that eye and to basically "keep an eye on it" and that my sight would return to normal within six weeks.
It didn't. It got worse, it began to not only be wiggly but get dimmer and dimmer. Went back to them.
"Go home, it'll return to normal within another six weeks."
Went home, it didn't. Getting dimmer.
Went back - guess what they said ? Rinse, repeat ad nauseum.
Eventually after about nine months I lost all but light perception in that eye. They offered no explanation as to why it happened or why they thought it would get better by itself.

Two years later the same thing happened in my right eye - drying my hair one day and then pop ! wiggly lines and weird shit, with loss of central vision. I lived in a different part of the country then and was told at the local hospital that the sight that was gone would stay gone, and would continue to get worse, and that I should give up my drivers license and get registered partially sighted. Oh, and you can forget working (I was a bingo cashier at the time, which needed me to be able to have enough sight to recognise denominations of coins and notes at a glance) as now everything was distorted and growing dim. No explanation as to what caused it though.

A year later at another hospital in another part of a country (Southampton this time), I went to the local hospital when a huge chunk of the remaining peripheral vision in my right eye disappeared in literally a couple of seconds. Finally I saw a man who knew what the problem was - I had something called myopic macular degeneration. He rushed me into surgery to try and save my remaining vision and told me if the folks at the first hospital had done that, I would very like not be nearly completely blind as I am today. As it was, by the time someone who knew what they were talking about saw me, there was little to be done but patch up and hope for the best.

The moral of the story ? I don't know, really. I've been registered blind for ten years now. I have only light perception in my left eye and very spotty vision in the peripheral of my right, plus a host of other problems with my eyes like cataracts that go hand in hand with the condition. In no way does that meet with the original diagnoses of "It'll return to normal within six weeks" !
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Fri 12 Mar 2010, 10:46, 5 replies)

That's
a malpractice/negligence suit right there, that is.
( Kroney, Fri 12 Mar 2010, 10:52, closed)

all this malpractice.....
is insane!

but how do you work typing etc... if you're blind?
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Fri 12 Mar 2010, 10:53, closed)

A screen reader. www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/

Some of us even use talking mobile phones to text, talking microwaves, and speaking gps, too. ;)
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Mon 15 Mar 2010, 9:26, closed)

wow
magics
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Mon 15 Mar 2010, 11:46, closed)

This QOTW is really starting to give me the fear

( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 12 Mar 2010, 11:18, closed)