Introduction of the Blind Kitten

First things first, let's start with a bit of background and some interesting things to know about the Blind Kitten, and this blog. Not really in that order, though.

** WARNING ** This blog is liable to contain some topics of an adult nature, you have been warned.

I plan to discuss pretty much everything. Kink, sexuality, kittens, being a kitten, spirituality, humour, and anything else that races through my ADD mind. Ooh, look, a butterfly.

So. I'm 35, live in Nova Scotia, and am a blind chick that identifies as a feline sort. I'm about as active within my BDSM community as it is possible to be, love steampunk, make fun of myself all the time, read too much (via audiobook) and share more information about myself than most want to know.

So, why am I blind? Everyone wants to know, but no one is willing to ask. Below is a copy of a post I put on my Fetlife acount:
I've decided to share this with my friends, chiefly because many have asked, and I've gotten the impression that many more wonder about it, but are scared they'll give offense if they ask.

I don't mind discussing my blindness; it isn't the central aspect of who I am, but it was likely the heaviest influence in shaping my personality. I don't want pity nor praise, however, neither, I think, are called for. It is what it is, and I am who I am. But I don't mind sharing it. The first bit is obviously stuff I know only because I was told.

Shortly after my birth, just a few days after I was brought home from the hospital, I became very sick. It turned out to be an infected umbilical cord. While this had no direct impact on my sight, it took the doctors over a week to figure out what was wrong with me, to the point that I nearly didn't make it. This was in the 70's, and for reasons I've never understood, they did a *lot* of X-raying of my tiny self to try and work it out. I mention this only because my father adamently maintains that this had a negative impact on my sight.

At any rate, they did eventually work it out, and I was saved and returned home. But a few months later, while my father was holding me, he noticed something wrong with my eyes... my pupils were split. I don't entirely understand what caused this, but surgery had to be done to open my pupils fully. As a result, they remain constantly dilated to this day. That's why I see light so well now.

This surgery led to cataracts forming, and a few other initial problems. However, at the age of 4, I was diagnosed with glaucoma, which is very rare in children, as it usually affects the elderly. Glaucoma is essentially a buildup of pressure in the eye, because the fluid that usually moves/drains... doesn't. It puts pressure on the optic nerve and other delicate structures, and if not treated, will damage those structures beyond repair.

From that point until I was in fourth grade, my glaucoma was wildly out of control. I spent anywhere from one to four months in hospital each year, having surgery after surgery and was on constant eyedrops. By the time I was six or seven, I had lost all the sight in my right eye. I don't remember what it is like to see from both eyes per se. The only reason that I can remember seeing out of that eye is because they used to put a patch over the left in an attempt to make me use the right more, so it would grow stronger (obviously, it failed). I remember running around outside with an 19 month older sister who was cranky because our mother was forcing her to stay with me in case I had a problem.

However, the sight in my left was pretty good, relatively speaking. With coke bottle glasses, I had 20/80 vision. Almost good enough to drive.

After fourth grade, things stabilized. Until I was sixteen, though I was on constant eyedrops and at least monthly trips to the eye doctor, there were no more surgeries or hospital stays. The last surgery had apparently worked.

Or it did until that eye got infected. I suppose this may have been inevitable. The structure that was letting the fluid drain also left a hole into the inner eye structure. Not one you could see, but big enough for bacteria to enter.
The infection was bad enough that I woke up one morning with slightly blurred vision, and went to bed unable to see a thing. We'd gone to emergency (it was a holiday when this happened), but the doctor wasn't very worried. We saw the same doctor again the next morning... and this time, he was very worried. We'd moved from Halifax to Charlottetown when I was fifteen... said doctor had me on the next plane from the island to Halifax, as Charlottetown didn't have the facilities to treat me.

The infection was cleared up, and my vision restored, but less than a week after I returned home, the pressure in that eye skyrocketed out of control... the infection had destroyed what was keeping the pressure down.

I spent the next six months in and out of the hospital. More in than out. Surgery after surgery was tried. Finally, after nine failures (two of which had temporarily blinded me... one due to a small hemorrhage that let blood into my eye, the other due to a detached corroid), the doctor tried something new. He used a technique that was still very new and quasi-experimental. It involved inserting a small tube in my eye.

The tenth surgery worked to lower my eye pressure. It worked so well, in fact, that the pressure dropped to zero. This was even worse than having it too high. While it was fixed with an eleventh and (for the time) final surgery, the two days of zero pressure destroyed my cornea, and over the next month or so, my sight went kaput. Worse even than it is now.

By rights, this should have broken me. Under normal circumstances, I suspect it would have. However, I had already applied to attend a summer camp for blind teenagers in Ontario that summer, and the doctor reluctantly agreed to let me go. We both knew my sight was going to worsen, but we also knew there wasn't a way to stop it. Four days after my final release from the hospital, I was on a plane to Ontario.
It was the first time I'd ever been around blind folks of my own age. Many had sight worse than me. Many had never seen. Most of my sight left while I was there, and it was the best environment I could have been in. I was having fun, in spite of things, and was definitely surrounded by people who knew exactly what I was going through.

Upon returning, we started once again consulting doctors. It was felt a cornea transplant would probably fix things, but they wanted to wait a bit, just to be sure there wasn't another way. Meanwhile, I obviously couldn't return to normal school. I couldn't read, didn't know how to use a cane, or do any number of daily activities I'd taken for granted. I spent grade 11 at the school for the blind here in Halifax, during which time they decided to go with a transplant and so put me on the waiting list. I learned to read Braille, to use a cane, to clean stuff without seeing, cook without seeing, etc. The people at the school kept expecting my breakdown, but it never came. In fact, within six months, I was better at getting around than any other student, all of whom had been doing it for years. I chalk this up to wanting to get back the independence I was used to.

Irony struck in June. In Braille, in addition to a symbol for each letter of the alphabet, there are over 250 "contractions" for common groupings of letters, as well as a myriad of rules around them. The day I was taught the final contraction was the day that I got the call that a transplant was waiting.

So, back to the hospital. They fixed my cornea. At first, there was no change. But after a few days, my vision started coming back. Let me tell you, you'd be amazed at how excited you can get at being able to see a crack in the sidewalk that you couldn't see the day before. I think the best moment was the day my mobility teacher took me to the public gardens and I realized I could once again distinguish individual leaves on the trees.
I wound up with 20/200 sight in that eye. Less than what I'd had... but do you think I minded? Hell, no.

So, I went into grade twelve. All my supposed counsellors at school tried to convince me to take a partial course load and graduate a year late... they told me I'd fail if I took a full one. I refused to listen. I had to take classes from a weird melenge of all three high school grades in a bizarre schedule that had me doing grade 11 biology the term before I did grade 10 general science. But you know what? I passed. Sure, I just barely passed a couple of classes (like Math), but... I passed, and graduated with my class.
And my vision stayed constant. I had to have occasional surgeries, yes, and my life still revolved around doctor's visits and taking eyedrops, but things were stable for another eight years.

Remember that teeny tiny tube they put in my eye back when I was sixteen? Well, when I was 24, it shifted and started scraping my cornea. Took awhile to figure out what was wrong. They snipped the tube down a bit, but the damage was done... I lost that cornea. Back I went on the waiting list.

Meanwhile, my health in other areas was utterly crappy. My life still revolved around my eyesight, and it was frustrating. This only got worse after that second transplant, because my body was rejecting it. I wound up on hourly eyedrops. I was seeing the doctor every 2 or three days. I was getting weekly injections in the eye. Nothing was working. I asked the doctor if he thought this would change... he wouldn't give me a straight answer. That made up my mind for me.

My entire life had been centered around my vision, and I was sick of it. I wasn't living, I was struggling to maintain something that kept eluding me. I made the choice... I would rather truly live, but with blindness, than continue in this weird existence of hospitals, doctors, pain and frustration. I walked away.

It took eight more years. Years in which I was finally able to turn my attention towards other health problems plaguing me, switch from using a cane to using a dog, and relearn the skills they'd taught me back at the school. This time, my health problems were solvable. They're completely cured, now. I'm healthy. I'm happy. I'm back in school, on my way to a career that I will find fulfilling. I've never been happier.

I tell people all the time that I don't mind my blindness, but don't often explain why. This, I think, should show exactly why that is. Sometimes, you have to let go of something if you're going to move on in life. It's hard as fuck... but worth it.

There'll be more insights into who I am as we go, but as far as the blind part of the Blind Kitten, that's where I've come from.