Today I went outside on my own. For the first time in ages. Four months or something like that. I don’t think I have been outside on my own since I got oil in the eyes. But today I did a little cane training on my own. Just a quick trip to Føtex around the corner. A quick and easy route. I’m pretty sureI could get there even without the cane. But if I did that then every step would be insecure. With the cane I feel much safer. I can walk faster and more securely. I know I’m not going to walk into anything. I know people can see that I’m visually impaired and they show consideration to that.

So that was good. It was nice to be able to do it without company, without a safety net. I feel a little less locked in now, I know that I can actually go out if I need or want to. It would be great if I could go to my parents’ place or to the playground on my own as well. But we’ll see how those routes go. With traffic lights and all. At least now I can go shopping. If I should want to. Although doing real shopping would recquire help from the employees at the shop. I’d rather avoid that. That situation would be hindered by my social phobia, not my near blindness. It would be very stressful and uncomfortable for me. So as long as my dad still wants to help me with my shopping then that’s what I’ll keep doing. Then I can always go with him now and then.

It’s good to not be completely lost. And my lefy eye seems to be doing a little better again. It goes up and down. But parts of it has been decent lately. On Saturday it was daylight saving time in Denmark and I was able to set the clock on my cell phone. My cell phone is often a good indicator for how my sight is doing. When it’s not going so well then I can’t read the menus at all, I can’t see what the clock says, I can’t really do anything other than making and receiving calls, which I can do without using the menus now. But when my sight is doing better then I can read my SMS messages and do things in the menus. It’s not too long ago that I had to have my brother help me update my contact list so it was more intuitive and added my dad’s new cell phone number. My dad with a cell phone, hah. I never thought I’d see the day. But it’s for my benifit, so we can always get in touch if I need it. Anyway, I wasn’t able to update the contact list myself. I think I could do it today. With some effort. It’s a little strange having to rely on my brother’s help like that. I’m used to me being the one who helps with technical things. Computers and TVs and VCRs and all that. That is something that can be hard to accept. That I’m not always able to help them like I used to. It used to be one of my good qualities, one of the places where I could actually be of use and do something nice for them. Now I am the one who might need the help.

But as I said, the left eye is doing fairly ok at the moment. I can only hope it stays that way. Then I should be able to keep blogging as well. My farewell post was somewhat premature, eh? My sight has improved since then. But as I said, it goes up and down. I can’t be sure it remains. Every morning when I wake up it is a little scary to open the eyes and see how much I can see. Especially now that there is not much sunlight anymore. It’s not until I turn on the computer and read the text here that I can really judge if it’s gotten better or worse or is about the same.

Cooking is a little easier now too. At least I can fry eggs the way I want. I have this weird thing about the squiggly bit that connects the yolk to the white in the egg. I don’t like it. I always try to remove it before eating or making eggs. So if I fry eggs then I don’t crack them on the pan. I crack them in a bowl so I can remove the squiggly thing before putting it in the pan. It can be somewhat messy and tricky to get it off without breaking the yolk. And I know it’s quite stupid. And for a while I had to accept that I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t see enough to remove it. Not without turning the fried egg into an omelette anyway. But I tried it yesterday and I could do it again. So I could get my fried eggs without squiggly bits. You have to appreciate the little victories. A little walk outside on your own. Setting the clock on your cell. Making eggs the way you like them. It may seem like awfully trivial things. But when you’re not able to do them then they suddenly become pretty big. So let’s hope things will keep improving.

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