A while back I had an adventure. I lost my eyesight due to a viral infection. It’s called Bilateral Optic Neuropathy. I call it a wakeup call. My friends rallied around me. Some of my loyal readers followed my updates eagerly, and I’m pleased to give everyone another update. It’s not everyday someone you know gets blinded, so it’s gratifying to the poor slob who gets blinded to know that people are concerned. Thanx.

I went to see the good Dr. G. at St. Mike’s Golf and Country Club today. I was met by one of the Doctor’s henchwomen. She did the funky test with the cyan coloured probe that measure the internal pressure of the eyeball. That one is my favourite. She proceeded to paralyze my pupils so they could examine my retinas. I can take fuzzy vision for a few hours while the pupil dilation juice wears off. Having your eyebal probed by the cyan thing is much more disconcerting. But it’s no big deal after you’ve been probed a few dozen times though.

After all the poking and prodding, or as i like to say, “kicking the tires and checking the fluids”, Doctor G. and his understudy were both happy with my current state. They didn’t give me any concrete numbers to measure my progress, but I was very pleased to see a noticeable improvement in my colour perception. There’s a wacky scale of 1 to 17 that is used to measure degrees of colour blindness, and if I recall correctly, my original numbers were 8 out of 17 for one eye, and 12 out of 17 for the other. Not that bad really. Today I looked through the tattered colour blindness test book, and I was amazed to see that I could name the vast majority of the numbers in the field with a few minor boo boos. I had difficulty with the numeral 8 vs 6, and 1 vs 7. They use a romanesque font in the test book, so it’s an honest mistake. (If you’re slightly colourblind).

The important point to make is I don’t get baffled by colours. Red is still red. One eye has a little more orange, and the other eye has a bit more pink, when I examine something red, but the synthesis of both eyes makes for red. There’s no chromatic ambiguity for me. I used to be an avid shutterbug, and I always enjoyed looking at works of art. I still do enjoy looking at art, but my photographic pursuits have trailed off. I have a mistrust of what my eyes are actually seeing though. After today’s tests, I wonder if my problems aren’t more psychological rather than physical.

The good Doctor says the wiring and the mechanical parts of my eyes are working well considering the original trauma. Now I guess I just have to get used to the change from having excellent vision to my current state, where things aren’t perfect, but I have a reasonably well functioning set of peepers with a few occasional exceptions. An interesting question comes to mind that’ I’ve been trying to answer since I was blinded. How much do you trust your senses?