Losing Well Part 1

   This is my story. Like all stories, it has a plot. The plot is driven by retinitis pigemtosa, a degenerative eye disease. This the narrative of a how a disease drove and changed me. Is still changing me. 

    I was a sickly child. I suffered from both mumps and chickenpox before the age of three. My first signs of visual impairment also occurred at this age. I ran in front of my brother on the swings and got kicked in head. Not long after that incident, my parents realized that my right eye was "lazy." 
    Amblyopia is a common childhood disease that even in the 1970's was fixed with surgery. So I went under the knife.The surgeon pulled my right eye straight and patched my left, stronger, eye. Only when they took the patch off my left eye, it had turned out as well. So I had to go under again to have my left eye fixed. The surgeries were failures and my eyes continue to be cross-eyed. 
    Six was a tough age for me.  I got my first pair of glasses. I hated wearing them and often wouldn’t. In first grade this would hurt my ability to keep up with my classmates. By the end of second grade my school had a meeting with my Mother and told her that I was mentally challenged and would never read. My Mother pointed to the IQ test the school and given me as evidence that they just couldn’t figure out how to teach me.
    Over the summer, Mom sent me to a tutor and by the end of the break I was reading above grade level. This was a pattern I’d see the rest of my academic career. I did poorly at school but would test well. I did poorly in large classes but did well with individual instruction.
    Outside of school, my family convinced me to join the swim team. I did well in the pool and by age eight my freestyle medley team went undefeated. By the time I was nine, my age group wasn’t competing until after sunset. I started developing problems. I couldn’t see the wall of the pool. I did great in practice but choked in swim meets. My confidence fell. I didn’t understand what was going on. I’d do better if there was a light on my lane but it wasn’t always lucky enough to get that worked out right. And I didn’t want to tell anyone that I couldn’t see. That was my last year of swimming.
    My family was aware that I had vision issues. My night blindness was obvious early on. Everyone just thought I had bad eyes. I had an astigmatism that kept my eyes from correcting to 20/20. Everyone thought my problems were caused by my lack of acuity and the failed eye surgeries. They were mistaken. I was starting to not trust myself to make decisions. I couldn’t figure out what the issue was. I just knew something was wrong. 

Part 2 can be found here.