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So I lost my sight in 2012.
Actually it started on October 1st, I can tell you the exact day.
I was a TV producer, I was living in Crystal Palace.
I was married to my husband Ed and we have two very little children and I'd just taken
the summer off to spend it with the children because I was freelancing I decided that was
enough, I needed some time off.
And my illness hit me like a train crash.
Overnight I lost my sight, and I also lost all sense and feeling in my hands and feet
so I was unable to walk and I couldn't feed myself, I couldn't do anything for myself.
So after an illness like that which is a very severe one - in fact it is called a
catastrophic episode - and it is a really good description because it is a horrendous experience
and it goes on quite a long time.
There was a period where I slid into this recovery period, and then I found myself at
home unable to see very much around me.
My vision did come back but it came back very very slowly and initially all I could see
was black and white lines, I saw no faces which was devastating for me not to be able
to see my children's faces.
Over time - literally week by week - more vision would come back and it would come back
in layers.
It doesn't all pop back which is what perhaps people think might happen.
It comes back very slowly, so one day I'd have a little bit more contrast and then another
day I'd see white just a little bit more clearly.
Then I'd get more acuity, so things would get sharper and I started to log and record
this visual journey so that I could measure it and I could see how much of my vision was
returning.
And then it started to get very weird when colour started to come back.
Now colour again crept back into my life, I used to say that it whispered to me around
corners because I would see something and I wouldn't know if it was red or blue I would
sense the colour.
For me as a non-scientist - I've never been particularly interested in science - but when
all these strange things happened to me I suddenly became very interested in
my own body and my own visual system.
I really wanted to understand how it worked, but more than just how it worked, actually
what was happening to it now that it had gone wrong.
So when all these strange things started to happen like sensing colour, like blues would sparkle
and fizz and spit and become this erratic thing in front of me and I'd think oh goodness
I have to find out.
I started asking a lot of questions and eventually I was put in contact with Cambridge University
and with a neuroscientist there called Dr Tristan Bekinschtein.
That pretty much blew apart this journey, that's where everything started and we've
been working on lots of projects together and I've been working with a colleague of
his Will Harrison.
Literally between us we have unraveled every layer of my visual recovery and worked out
what was what and why the things that happened happened and it has been the most incredible
experience.
It has literally opened my eyes.