I couldn’t see that light at the end of the tunnel, literally – I couldn’t see very much at all. When I went to the eye specialist and looked at the eye chart, there were days I could make out the top letter of the chart and some days when I could not. When I looked through the pinhole, I could actually see four or five lines on the chart, which was amazing. That meant once Dr Con fixed the corneas my sight should come back. I wasn’t able read any more. I was able to read the headlines in the newspaper and if in good light manage some large print books. Unfortunately, that meant suffering with headaches for a couple of days. I listened to audio books and the radio. Peter and the girls read to me anything they thought would interest me. My family wrote anything I needed in large print, although the large print needed to be very large! I still pretended to do the housework. One of the benefits of not being able to see well was not being able to see the dirt in the house - therefore it did not exist!
When we moved there were new challenges. Going to the supermarket took a long time. I didn’t know where anything was and as it was a small independent supermarket there weren’t a lot of familiar brands on the shelves and of course it was set up very differently to the large Woolworths store I was used to. I had been shopping at the same store for years and knew where everything was so even with my lack of vision I was still able to find the items I needed. Not anymore!
I often walked down to the pub in the village to collect our mail but only on days when it was not windy, because when it was windy I was not able to hear cars coming. I stopped going for a while after the day I saw my first snake. Luckily it was on the side of the road and heard us coming and was disappearing when I saw it. I always walked with Madeline on the lead as a couple of times she had run off to investigate something and I could not see her. Luckily the day we saw the snake she was on the lead, as she was very interested in having a look.
As we got to know people they discovered that my vision was poor and they were surprised they hadn’t noticed. I was pretty good at covering it up. When we were out in public I just said hello to everybody – I had no idea who they were or if I knew them or not but people just assumed that I had seen them. I had the girls or Peter with me most of the time and they would whisper in my ear, ‘that’s so and so’ or tell me who was coming towards me, who was in the group, that sort of thing. One of the locals said to Peter.
'I’ve just heard your wife can’t see, you would never know.’
Everyone was really supportive and helpful and I appreciated it so much. I could stop bluffing which was a relief.
During the first few months after we moved I felt very isolated and did wish I was back in the suburbs of Canberra. Even though by the time we left I had had enough of catching buses at least I could catch one to work or the shops. It was also easier to get the girls to the places they needed to go and they also became very adept at catching buses. If Peter was away we could still get around independently.
I did become a lot more patient as time went on and spent a lot of time waiting in doctor’s surgeries, waiting at the shops for whoever had driven me. I went to appointments in Canberra, Bowral and Sydney. I waited in parks, coffee shops, on street corners, on benches on the street – anywhere I had to because I had amazing people driving me around and if I had to wait for them to finish whatever they were doing that’s what I did. My friends would apologise for asking me to wait but that was just how it was. I remember sitting in the eye specialist’s waiting room one day when things weren’t going well and I spilt coffee on my t-shirt and burst into tears! The little things set me off!
We were lucky when a new bus service between Canberra and the coast started so that if Peter wasn’t around the girls and I could catch the bus to Canberra on weekends and during the holidays. This was a great help and we were able to spend some time with their friends and do some shopping. If I had an eye specialist appointment we could go in to Canberra and by catching buses and taxis we could get around ok. I even did this trip by myself a couple of times and although it was certainly a challenge I did it. I knew where I had to be and organised how I would get there. They were very long days though and I was exhausted after each day out as the strain of trying to see was sometimes too much. I did have a bit of a setback with my left eye on one of these days out and spent the day shopping with the girls while in excruciating pain as a piece of lens remnant in my eye was causing a few problems. It felt like my head was going to explode and I cried all the way home on the bus that night.
The bus also came in very handy one day when a friend in Majors Creek was very ill and needed to be taken to Canberra in an ambulance. Her husband was away and her mother was on her way from Adelaide. I went with her in the ambulance and managed to find my way around the hospital and to the bus stop in the dark to catch the bus home. Peter had phoned the driver and told him I would be there and that I could not see very well and the driver assured him he would make sure I got on the bus!
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