A Temporary Loss of Vision

View from Charlotte’s Ice Cream Parlour, Monday.

To lose sight of the direction your work is going in can be part of the creative process but to literally lose your sight in one eye, even for a short period, is alarming.

I feel as if I’ve been going through a prolonged period of writer’s (and illustrator’s) block but that’s been partly because every time I sit at my desk I find myself faced with one of the necessary but time-consuming tasks that are involved in the day-to-day running of my booklet-publishing business: accounts, printing problems, fulfilling orders and keeping up with deadlines.

There’s a certain guilty pleasure in taking a break from your core work to indulge in ‘mindless’ activities but I’m now wondering if spending the whole of last Tuesday staring at my computer, trying to design an automated invoice for my book sales, might not have been such a good idea.

In the Blink of an Eye

Start of my loss of vision.

It might have been only for a minute or two but the loss of vision in my left eye was emphatic and at the time – thankfully for a brief period – I didn’t know whether the sight in that eye would be restored or not.

A week later, I’ve had a blood test and an eye-test including an OCT scan of the back of my eye. Later today I’m heading for the new Eye Centre at Pinderfields Hospital for a closer investigation.

So far, so good, and I’m hoping the results will be reassuring for me. I’m so impressed at how quickly our hard-pressed National Health Service were able to deal with my problem.

5 comments

  1. Hopefully all is well Richard and things will be sorted swiftly. In my experience, the NHS always come up to the plate. Best of luck!

    1. Thanks, Lynne, just got back and my eyes are in fine shape – or they will be as soon as I get over the effects of the eye-drops. Hopefully I’ll do as well with the heart tests etc.

  2. Richard, if you haven’t already, get you blood pressure checked. I had similar problem and it was due to high blood pressure.

    1. We’ve got one of those arm monitors, so we keep a regular check on that David and it’s usually in the optimal but I’m beginning to think that mine might go too low on odd occasions. I’ll be interested to find out what my check up at the hospital reveals later this month.

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