Thank you
@ANTJE here is the much more detailed account written in 2009 than the replies I have sent to
@Soph895
;
One evening, in my first year at King’s [College, London], I was sitting at my desk, amazingly doing some work, when I was suddenly unable to see out of my right eye. It was as if a bottle of drawing ink had been poured into the eyeball. Various ideas flooded into my imagination, almost as rapidly as the real substance into my sight. Blind panic took control. I ran down Champion Hill and across Denmark Hill, straight into the Hospital, I would guess in under sixty seconds. Arriving at Accident and Emergency, I was greeted by the ubiquitous unsympathetic gaze of a receptionist:
“What’s your problem?”
“I can’t see out of my right eye.”
“Who sent you here?”
“I did.”
“Did you contact your GP?”
“Listen, I’m an outpatient here and I’m diabetic” (magic words).
“Oh, I see, do you know your Hospital Number by any chance?”
“Yes, A*****4.”
“Fantastic. Ah, Mr Vicat. I see from your notes that retinopathy has been noted. I’ll get someone to attend to you.”
A doctor duly appeared and informed me that I had had a haemorrhage and that nothing could be done until it had cleared enough to see what damage had occurred. I was put under the care of Mr **********, a short, wire-rimmed-bepectacled man with whispy grey hair, twinkly beaming eyes and an everlasting supply of Fox’s Glacier Mints stuffed into his white coat. I found this ironic, seeing that the majority of his patients were diabetic! During one of his consultations in my second year he asked me about my life. I told him that I was living in Kensal Rise; that I cycled into King’s College in the Strand every day; that I played squash; and that I drank moderately (I’m sure he didn’t fall for this). His response was that I should stop burn-ups on the Edgeware Road, that I should avoid squash, moderate my alcohol intake, and that I should shun aerobic exercise or anything that would make me red in the face. If I did not heed his words, I would be blind by the time I reached twenty-three.
“Thank you” I said. “Do you realise that in one sentence you have ruled out
all the finer points of living?”
To say that I was depressed would be accurate, but somewhat insufficient. What was the point of carrying on in London? Was I likely to experience any of the ambitions I might entertain? Would I ever see my children? Worse still, would I ever have any? Would I ever drive and explore my country, let alone the World? How could I learn any more music? These were just some of the thoughts that spun round in my head, as though my brain had been sucked into a tumble dryer.
