Sitting in classes during my first year of high school in 1971 I realised that everyone else could see the blackboard, except me. Heaven knows how long my eyesight had been growing weaker because like many things it just seemed normal to me. I guess one day I just got wise to the fact that I was asking “what is that word on the third line, towards the right” and no one else was.

We must have gone to the family doctor, as a referral was required to see an eye specialist. At that stage of life, things happen around you, and little attention is paid. Perhaps my brain has decided to block out some memories.  At the time it didn’t seem fateful, just another visit to the family doctor and no doubt a quick read of the eye chart in his office. Optometrists were unknown in those days, and glasses were always obtained through an eye specialist; at least in our rural area.

John Lennon had made little round glasses the fashion of the time, so the social embarrassment connected with glasses had disappeared in our peer group and there was almost a suck in of jealousy when I appeared with my little gold framed glasses. Not round, but oval shaped to suit my face. I was almost too cool for school!

Everyone had to try my glasses on. I sat pretty proudly at my desk those first few weeks, making a show of taking my glasses out when board work was involved. I didn’t need them to read my textbooks at that stage, just for distance work, but sometimes I kept them on just to maintain the image.

It wasn’t long before eye spectacles started to appear on the bridges of many classmates’ noses. Whether there was a real need or a promoted need as dedicated followers of fashion, history will never know, but the eye specialists in Toowoomba must have wondered what was happening to the eye sight of the teenagers in the Valley. Or they might have, after they had put in the order to upgrade their BMW cars and added another wing to their homes. Maybe it was proof proper that inbreeding doesn’t work after all, a theory that must have been promoted in the Valley where more than one couple were related!

At the time of my first eye examination, the doctor discovered a small growth in my right eye. It was very small, and didn’t appear to be serious enough to warrant immediate treatment, but the regular appointments were set up for three months, then six months and then an annual visit. One extra result was that I did start to pay attention to my doctor visits though! I knew exactly when the next visit was due.

The growth remained dormant throughout the years, though the eye’s vision grew weaker. I also started to have a little pain when I put too much strain on it. Last minute cramming for examinations always brought me undone, though I never learnt from that. Who does as a teenager? It was time for fashion, boys, sleepovers and all types of girlie adventures with friends. It was the time that I found friends that I have to this day.

I didn’t think deeply about my eye issue over these years, except when it annoyed me, and when I said my prayers at night. I was still a good little catholic girl who said her prayers every night at this stage, and one of my nightly requests was that the growth in my eye would not spring to life. I knew better than to ask for it to miraculously disappear, though I imagine that was probably the ulterior motive of my prayers. That and the hope that the latest love of my life would notice me in the school halls!

Once or twice I was forced to wear a patch over my eye to rest it. One of these times was during the period that my closest friend had been diagnosed with scoliosis and was clad in a neck to thigh plaster cast for several months. We sat together in most classes and one day our male English teacher asked first whether I had bumped into her and ended up with a sore eye, and then commented that we looked like a hospital ward instead of a classroom!

The status quo remained until my eighteenth year. An annual visit resulted in the news that the growth had grown, and grown quite a bit. In fact the doctor said, “It’s got away from us.” I don’t know which “us” he was referring to as he was my only medical practitioner.

Maybe he meant God and himself, for I was still making my daily prayer. I was playing my part, but it appears that the tumour, God and the doctor were playing another game.

And now the rules of that game were about to change.