By Hannah Sammut
I’ve had two brushes with mortality that I can distinctly remember thus far in my life, instances where one realizes that they are, in fact, just fragile beings whose rug of safety and stability can be abruptly pulled out from under us.
The first was a nosebleed precariously close to a group of sharks while scuba diving off the coast of Venezuela at 80 feet, the other when I was told at the age of 19 that I would be partially blind for the rest of my life.
I think that young people, myself included, have the inevitable “it can’t happen to me” complex, where the odds of one suffering some life-altering circumstance just seems too minute and therefore these events remain out of sight and out of mind. And, when the also inevitable life-altering circumstance does occur, because we live in an unpredictable world with enough disorder to go around for everyone, it allows us to reflect on these circumstances and our ability to overcome them.
For me, it was finding humor in my situation as a coping mechanism. While it may seem bizarre, laughing at my attempts (in vain) to control a situation so utterly out of my control was the only way I felt better about my situation. I saw my friends and family breathe a bit easier when they saw me add humor to my journey. I was going to be OK, losing my sight wouldn’t kill me, so I found it easy to laugh at the irony of becoming so fixated on a problem that provides no solution.
I’d been relatively healthy for most of my life, (save a horrific bout of waterborne illness after drinking some tainted tap water in a cabin in the Poconos) and it wasn’t until I woke up one day to a seeing black spot in my right eye that my life had been subsequently thrown into chaos. I waited some weeks for it to pass, as many ailments do, but it didn’t, and so my two-year journey of trying to get to the root of why I couldn’t see began.
The symptoms added up. The small black spot had grown into a grey nothingness, my peripheral vision waned, and I began to suffer blinding headaches that would render me in a state I named “concussion mode”. The only remedy was to lie in a dark bedroom for hours, hoping the searing fire in my brain spared me some relief. I was growing increasingly frustrated. It seemed as I hoped, prayed even (something I seldom do) that some sort of answer or magic remedy would be procured, I was being told otherwise. Specialists would shake their heads woefully and couldn’t provide a diagnosis. With every IV drip, hospital visit, brain scan, and spinal tap, I felt my control over my own body lessen. It wasn’t fair, I would keep telling myself, that something so innately mine, my sight, be taken from me without any rhyme or reason.
The path to medication to control my extreme sensitivity to light was just as turbulent as the path towards figuring out why I lost my sight in the first place. But I learned a vital coping mechanism then—comedy. I’ll admit, I don’t consider myself an incredibly funny person, but who couldn’t laugh at the ridiculousness of waking up one day and suddenly not being able see? And while it was terrifying being on a medication for five months that resulted in acute memory loss as a side effect, laughing at how utterly out of control I was of my reality was the only way to preserve my sanity.
I would comment on how I would feel like a spooked horse if my roommates approached me from my blind spot. I’d giggle at my inability to remember the faces of friends and family members. The most hysterical of all—being a journalist with memory loss. Describe the scene of the crime, the victim, or even who I had previously interviewed—I couldn’t. My 15th specialist, a world-renowned neuro-ophthalmologist who was certain that she would give me the final diagnosis I yearned to hear, just shook her head and said that the only clinical answer she could give me was, “sometimes people just lose their sight” and it would never be restored. I could only roar with laughter.
But all kidding aside, it was this experience that distinctly reminded me of the way the universe works sometimes; how things fall apart when we least expect it. There’s something to note about our ability to persevere too, that the way we adapt to things taken away from us can be just as significant as the event that caused it. I realized I wasn’t alone in my situation; I found that 23 million American adults from the ages of 18 through 64 suffer significant vision loss as well. That’s a lot of people, and yet it doesn’t make the individual struggle to adapt to one’s condition and receive accommodations any easier. Let’s face it, we live in a world designed for people who can see. However, I hope, in some time, to be an advocate for those who haven’t had access to a supportive network of health professionals and peers like I did.
As cliché as it sounds, I do think I try to take in my visual world more than I did when could fully see. As I grieved the loss of my sight I came to realize I may eventually lose it in full— so I may as well enjoy it as much as I can. I learned to listen to what made me feel lucky that I could see; the flicker in my soul when I visit an art gallery of old masters, the laughter of a friend when I join them for coffee, the pride my family feels when they read my work, or the catch in my breath when the sun reflects off of the Manhattan skyline from my native New Jersey shores. That’s the beauty I find in my experience and others, the way we seem to invite that comfortable rug to be placed under our feet again. We adapt. We survive.
Hannah Sammut 