It honestly feels that things have always been this way and, even though I have only just passed my second anniversary of being registered Sight Impaired, so much has happened that I often forget what life was like before. I promise you this piece won’t be about what a voyage of discovery I’ve been on since going blind and how it’s the best thing to happen to me – I haven’t and it hasn’t – but I am often surprised at how my family and I have worked together to minimise the impact.

Like I said, the 20^th May was the 2^nd anniversary of when I became registered Sight Impaired which isn’t as straightforward as it may appear. This is because the qualifying criteria changes depending on the type of condition you have. For example, if you have full field of vision, then your visual acuity (or how much you can see) has to be between 6/60 and 3/60 meaning you can read at 3 metres what someone with typical sight can read at 60 metres. As I have a more restricted field of vision due to the macular degeneration, the criteria for me is lower at 6/24. In May of 2021, my stats were 6/48 in my left eye and 6/96 in my right meaning that I was eligible to join the Sight Impaired club.

It’s very difficult to put into words what it means to discover the condition you only found out about a few years previously had now progressed to the point of being registered disabled. I felt that I coped with the news relatively well but it becme obvious to me and those closest to me that, although the wheels weren’t falling off, there was definitely at least one loose wheel nut. Little things like becoming quicker to temper when one of the kids did something or simply going in on myself and not talking about things as much. Once it became more obvious, I took the step to reach out to the support team at Macular Society and spend a few weeks talking to one of their counsellors. During this period, she helped me to put into perspective what was going on and to develop strategies to best overcome the challenges that lay ahead.

I cannot underestimate how vital this support was not only to put the wheel nuts back on, but also to keep checking to make sure they remained tight. This was especially important when, only 7 months later, I was back in the consultant’s office to find out that my visual acuity had dropped so far that it was no longer possible to track it in numbers, instead it was two simple words – counting fingers.

Now I’m not going to lie and tell you this was a walk in the park and the news slipped off my shoulders quicker than if they were covered in Teflon – it really didn’t and there were times over the coming months when I kept drifting towards a very dark place. But, thanks to the strategies I had learned during those counselling sessions and encouragement and support from my nearest and dearest things slowly became easier to adapt to. At this point, one other event that helped me to keep focus was the ongoing assessment for a potential guide dog. This process really made me aware of the need to push away from the temptation to fold into myself and shut the world out.

At the start of the process, my focus was on the changes a dog would make to my life – I could go out more, feel more confident and push the negative thoughts away – but I soon learned this wasn’t necessarily the right viewpoint. You see, the risk of not being able to get out of that mindset is so great there is a big chance all the extensive training that goes into preparing a guide dog could be for nought so, with this in mind, I had to prove that my current mobility level would warrant a dog.

It’s funny how it can take no time at all to fall to your lowest point but it can take so long to climb back up again, if you ever can. For me, it was easy to allow Kath to do all the running around (after all, it’s so much quicker for her to pop to the shop in the car than me to walk there so why not let her). As well as the negative impact this had on me, it put unnecessary pressure on her to do this one thing on top of work, the school run, cooking and cleaning so it really was unsustainable for us both and I don’t want to imagine what irrecoverable damage this mental fog could have done to our relationship. It took months for me to regularly get back out, starting with the run to the shop for a pint of milk or the odd school pick up and then easing into going further afield to get some dog treats from the local pet shop or pick up the odd supplies from the village hardware store. The most difficult change was going back to the office regularly which is a long commute involving many train connections and is mentally and physically draining but nonetheless necessary for some much needed social interaction.

I used to do these walks during the many lockdowns after a full day’s work and it felt great to be getting back out there, albeit at times quite cumbersome with the cane. I started to see the cane for the essential tool for my freedom rather than the necessary evil I used to refer to it as. It was about this time that I started to realise how versatile these canes are and began investigating different tips and materials, eventually settling on a hooked tip on aluminium shaft for off-road walking and a lightweight graphite cane with jumbo ball tip for everyday use. I also came up with names for them all – Tim, Hank, Mike and Daisy – after all, they are essential to my independence so why not treat them as such.

With this renewed independence came a belief that I really could lead the same life I used to, I just needed to be a bit more creative with how I went about things such as planning routes before leaving home and giving advance notice to make sure the necessary support was in place. Not to say it was all plain sailing, I remember a trip to Scotland last summer which took almost twice as long as it should have because of severe problems on the West Coast Mainline on one of the hottest days of the year. But this is the kind of thing that could happen to anybody, it was just how to overcome the added complication of navigating an unfamiliar Preston railway station without being able to read any information boards.

These incidents aside, the boost I felt inside of achieving something I doubted I would again alone was akin to how I felt after passing my driving test all those years ago. These last 2 years really have been a rollercoaster of emotion with the highs of being accepted on the waiting list for a dog interspersed with the lows of becoming registered blind. But with all this in mind, I feel like I’m ready for the next adventure, whether that be with white cane or (you never know) harness in hand.

On that note, it’s time to get ready for another trip to the office tomorrow so I’ll say goodbye for now.

Chris, the Blind Man with a Backpack