Sudden Double Vision is Scary and A Major Challenge for an Artist

Double vision is another setback but I’m not giving up. I’m figuring out how to deal with it.

Well life has thrown another curve ball. Not only am I still on hold, almost a year later, like tens of thousands of other souls waiting for routine surgery that will make my life a little easier, but over Christmas I woke up to severe double vision. It certainly creates a challenge when you love painting.  The world I see is now very higgledy piggledy!

I’m very grateful to our National Health Service. They are overwhelmed in the middle of the pandemic but still managed to see me. While I’m waiting scans and more tests, they have given me a prism lens that helps to bring the two images back into one. It’s ok for sitting at a desk working but does weird things if I stand at an easel to paint or walk around. For walking around, I need an eye patch. For driving though, sadly my little car will have to stay parked up. Driving is out of the question.

The last few weeks have been challenging while I get used to a new way of seeing things but hope deeply that it is temporary and that in time, the eye nerve will heal. I won’t know until all the tests are complete and the doctors know why it has happened, but I’m not going to speculate. I am going to hope!

I can still paint, but I’ll paint smaller at my desk for now. Small is good, so let’s see how it goes. I’m still getting used to new hand eye co-ordination which has raised a few laughs when I go to pick something up and grab an empty space!

Talking of small, my annual painted postcard size art donation to the global Twitter Art Exhibit has been received. This year it is in Cheltenham, UK to be held in May for the charity Leukaemia and Intensive Chemotherapy. I may have had a setback, but I am not giving up!