A few years
ago...well maybe more than a few...I was on a train at some daft time in the
morning on my way to San Francisco. I
hadn’t slept much the night before anxious about the trip and was a bit woozy. The carriage was almost empty and I thought no
one would mind me snoring so leant down to pull out the foot rest.
Whumph!
Something
seemed to both punch me in the arm and pull me at the same time. I pulled up my arm and held my hand up to my
face. As I watched, waiting, time became
putty and pulled into a long, sticky mess. My racing heart pumped the blood up and
through and around and a beaded red line appeared half way down my middle
finger on my right hand between the first and second joint. The beads swelled and merged and then my finger
seemed to break away from its reality, topple sideways exposing flesh. I glimpsed white within the maw of red.
Instinctively
I grabbed my finger to hold it in place and blood began to slither and drip
down my arm and into the crook of my elbow and onto the floor. It would seem
that the footrest had a sharp metal edge and had cut my finger to the bone.
Scary
eh? The pain came after the ‘whumph’ and
it was bad! And of course no one would
treat me in case of litigation. Some
kind but appalled young family handed me a couple of nappies to sop up the
blood. The steward said he couldn’t give me painkillers but he did get a doctor
who told me I needed stitches immediately and should get off in L.A. I didn’t.
I was too scared to get off in L.A. on my own with a suitcase and a hand
that didn’t work. I stayed put feeling my whole body throb with each beat of my
heart hour after hour. I made it to San Francisco
and got some first aid at the youth hostel I was booked into. It was a very clean cut and eventually it
healed even without stitches. I had a smashing time in San Francisco,
especially one I felt my finger would stay on my hand.
Why am I
sharing this? Well, I have had a vision
slip. In some ways this is just annoying, a little like having a woolly sock
slip down into your shoe at a crucial moment or being unable to find a sharp
knife when you are prepping supper. All it means is that I have to readjust as the
tunnel of sight is a smidgen smaller. I knock into things I saw just a month
ago. I walk past people previously I would have seen. I can’t use the new lap
top I was loaned because the screen is too small. Annoying but not impossible tp cope with.
Only each
time these little sight slides happen the world recedes further and the possibility
of complete sight loss shuffles up behind me and breathes a little too heavily.
Colours become milkier and dark greens, blacks, blues and browns are now impossible
to differentiate. I can’t see myself
clearly in a mirror. The outside world’s dreamy Vaseline texture closes in when
I least expect it.
So I have
been having that same ‘whumph’ sensation, similar to the one on the train and
the same as the buzzing sensation after falling out of a tree or from a horse
and waiting for breath to come back. The same wait to know the damage. The same
heart throbbing throat clutching nauseating ‘whumph’..
It will stop
I am sure and I am still far off total sight loss....at least I am pretty sure
I am. Plus and you may think I am mad
but it is, genuinely, a fascinating and in
some ways, magical experience. Am I a chrysalis
and if so what will I become? A
different kind of 'Through The Looking Glass' .
It is just that riding out the ‘whumph’ is a toughie.
Thank
goodness for Grace. And for Jenniefromtheblock, Becky, Helena and the wonderful Corsham admin
staff who regularly trip me up with tea and cake and lots of laughter.
Michelle, Me, Grace and Ali |
And then of
course there are the mad women of Springfield with whom I have made a devilish
pact to do daily torturous high intensity training sessions (called ‘Insanity’
just in case you didn’t know what you were getting). I am the fittest I have ever been in my life
and so blinking knackered that I haven’t got the energy to be scared by the ‘whumph’
Hooray!
Ready for anything! |
4 comments:
I'm so sorry about the whumph & so glad you've got Grace & your other friends to help! And just a smidge jealous of your fitness. Ok, actually a LOT jealous. Go you!
hey ther Bug and thanks! Your comments mean a great deal! I imagine we all have our whumphs right....hey ho! T xx
Hello! I found your blog last year and just checked back in - I'm so happy you've started writing it again!
Your Phd sounds incredibly interesting - I may have missed it in another post, but what did you do your Masters in?
I'm a writer and I've got RP. Internet high five (because if we did it in real life, we'd hit each other in the face).
Anyway - I'd love to pick your brains about creative writing PhDs and the like, so if you fancy it drop me an email joerizzonaudi at live.com
Joe.
Hi Joe and thnak you so much for coming back! Will email you shortly and happy to talk about the PhD. (The MA was also in Creative Wriitng.) Tanvir
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