Today is world sight day and ironically mental health awareness day too. As most of you know, I was diagnosed with Stargardts 2 years ago. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done for my eye disease, no treatment and as of yet, no cure. I have in those 2 years, lost 2 lines of the eye chart in both eyes and am only just hanging on to my driving licence. Stargardts is robbing me slowly of not only my eyesight, but of my independence.
This has obviously had a massive impact on my mental health. I take steps every day to try and keep my anxiety at bay. A long daily walk, taking time out to breathe, eating properly and getting as much sleep as I can (which isn’t easy with a baby) if I don’t do these, then my vision will wander into my main focus. Blogging has been very freeing for me; it allows me to write down my thoughts and feelings and know that I am not alone in this disease.
My Stargardts is rare and incurable, but so many eye conditions aren’t, and the majority are fixable and treatable. People often ask me why I bother to tell people to get their eyes checked, when one eye test changed my whole life, but that is because I was unlucky, but so many people aren’t and the sooner a condition is detected, the sooner it can be treated and vision loss could be prevented. If someone doesn’t have to walk the path I am having to, then I will continue to urge anyone reading this to go and get their eyes checked to protect their eyesight, including your children too. I would do absolutely anything if I could to protect mine, but I can’t, so for now I will just continue wearing the biggest oversized sunglasses I can find, to protect my already failing eyes as much as I can and ask you all to get your eyes checked. Your eyesight really does matter ♥️.
6 comments
It’s a hard thing to hear, and unpleasant for the doctor to relate the diagnosis to the patient. Your sharing of ways to handle both the physical and the emotional impacts is helping and uniting many.
Thank you for reading a George 💙
Hi Katie, great blog, love your message.
Thank you so much Susan x
It was good to read your story. It’s so important to educate people about these eye conditions I have two daughters that have stargardts . They were diagnosed when they were at school, they’re now 31 and 34 years old. They never let their eye condition stop them doing what they want to do. They have extremely busy lives working in London and travelling abroad with work. They are amazing girls , I adore them
This is so great to hear ❤️ your daughters sound amazing and thank you xx