A big defining moment happened when I was about two years old, sitting in the front seat of the car, next to my dad. I remember we had parked the car as my mum rushed out to run some errands. My dad pointed to a cartoon on a van passing by, and I started screaming as I couldn’t see it.
And when he called out to my mum when he saw her, I screamed even more as I couldn’t see her, asking him where she was.
That’s when my parents realised something was not so right.
When I started learning to read and write in nursery, I would put my face very close to the paper, and my teachers would pull me back. They told me I was too close.
We went for my first eye-doctor appointment when I was five, and that’s when we were told that I had some sort of macular degeneration condition. The doctor couldn’t say what specific eye condition it was because they had to see the nature of the progression.
I continued seeing the doctor, and about two years later, I was diagnosed with cone rod dystrophy. We learnt that the condition is a progressive one.
My mum didn’t know how to tell me that I was eventually going to go blind, or that I was going to lose my vision as I got older. I only remember her taking me to McDonald’s and getting me a Happy Meal, and I was happy with that. I wasn’t very bothered with the diagnosis then.
FINDING OUT ABOUT GUIDE DOGS: “I WAS SO FASCINATED”
I really love dogs, and I was about 11 when I found out about guide dogs. There was a show on TV about them, and I remember watching the guide dog helping the handler up the stairs. I was partially sighted then.