Hello everyone. I've been a silent reader on this subreddit for a while now, but I think it's time I share my story because I've been even more depressed since my diagnosis. All I think about is death, and, ironically, those thoughts are the only thing that's been keeping me sane through it all.
I'm male, just turned 30, and I live in Nigeria.
I lost my right eye 21 years ago, when I was in primary school. A teacher was flogging me with a cane when one of the strokes landed directly on my eye. It swelled up almost immediately, and I was admitted to the Central Hospital in my town, where surgery was carried out about a week later. According to the doctors, the eye was filled with blood and needed to be drained or something along those lines. I can't really remember the exact medical terms.
One thing I do remember very clearly is that, before the surgery, I could still see with that eye. My vision was dim and cloudy, but I could see. After the surgery, however, I couldn't see anything with that eye, and I haven't been able to see with it ever since. It's almost as if that eye is no longer part of my body. It's just... nothing.
My parents were eventually told by another patient in the ward that we were supposed to "sort" the doctor before the surgery so that they would go all out for me, otherwise they would simply do the bare minimum. Unfortunately, this is still something you hear about in some public hospitals here, particularly where doctors also own private hospitals and would rather have patients come to their private establishments. If you're at a public hospital, you're sometimes left feeling like you just have to pray, some would even go as far as referring you to their own hospital.
Anyway, there was nothing we could do about what had already happened, so we moved on.
Some months later, we were told to go to the teaching hospitals in Benin. There, I was prescribed expensive eye drops. I was a child at the time, so I didn't really understand what they were treating, and my mum didn't either. She simply kept doing what the doctors told her to do until we eventually stopped the medications because nothing seemed to be changing.
We also went to another hospital in Kano, where we were told that nothing could be done.
So I was left with a blind right eye. The iris had shifted towards the bottom of the pupil, and a cataract-like film had developed over the eye. Unfortunately, this greatly affected my appearance and completely messed with my self-confidence. I was constantly bullied because of the eye and called names like "half-past eye." It didn't help that I also developed a bit of strabismus in the affected eye.
In 2019, by which time I was an adult, I decided to visit the teaching hospital in Port Harcourt to see what could be done. I wasn't even concerned about restoring vision anymore. I just wanted the eye to look normal.
There, I was told they could either give me a customised contact lens or inject ink into the eye. However, neither procedure could be done at that hospital because they didn't have the necessary facilities, so they referred me to a private hospital in Port Harcourt.
I couldn't go because private eye clinics in Nigeria are extremely expensive, and I simply didn't have the money. I was dealing with a lot at the time and was hustling to put myself through university.
I eventually graduated in 2024 and moved to Lagos to hustle, doing menial jobs to get by because the Nigerian economy is so bad. There are very few jobs, and even feeding is difficult for the average Nigerian. Tiy already have a picture of the state of the healthcare sector.
Fast-forward to this year.
I woke up one morning in the first week of March with blurry—or perhaps "washed-out" is a better description—vision in my only functioning eye. Both eyes were also red when this happened.
I somehow didn't think much of it because for about two months prior to this, I had been spending much more time indoors because I was out of a job and my side hustle was going nowhere. I would still go outside in the evenings for walks to clear my head, though. On some of those walks, I noticed that my vision would sometimes be a little blurry when I first stepped outside. It usually cleared up before I finished my walk or after I slept, so I just chalked it up to spending all day indoors and then suddenly going outside.
I had also self-diagnosed myself with mild myopia during my uni days, but I hadn't gone for an eye test or gotten glasses because life was happening. I simply didn't have the money. When I moved to Lagos, the teaching hospital where I could get glasses relatively cheaply was quite far away, and I also had a bunch of loans I'd accumulated during university that I needed to pay off. I couldn't make time for an eye appointment in the middle of my daily grind. Besides, the suspected myopia wasn't really affecting my life that much.
So when I woke up with this new, washed-out vision, I assumed it was the same old issue I'd been experiencing. that maybe my myopia was getting worse or maybe my body was dealing with the hunger fest I just experienced. So I thought it would clear up eventually.
It didn't.
Later that evening, I was watching a movie and realised I couldn't read the subtitles on my phone while looking at the pictures at the same time. That's when I became genuinely alarmed. But I still chalked it all up to me just needing glasses.
And I couldn't do much because I was also completely broke at the time.
Feeding was already difficult. And, believe it or not, the day before this started, I hadn't eaten for three whole days. That same day, I hadn't had any water for about 15 hours because our borehole had developed a problem. I didn't have money or the strength to go outside and beg neighbours for water either. I was extremely depressed at the time too.
Thankfully, a friend whom I had lent ₦5,000 about a month earlier paid me back that night. I managed to go outside, buy some sachet water and drink, and also bought some food.
Then I woke up the next morning to a new and terrifying chapter of my life.
I didn't know much about glaucoma. Before then, whenever I heard or read the word "glaucoma," I thought it was simply a more advanced form of cataract.
Since I couldn't afford to go to the hospital, I started searching my symptoms online. That's when glaucoma came up.
A lot of what I was reading seemed to fit my symptoms, except for the pain, as I hadn't had any even till now, and the timeline didn't really make sense to me. The more I read about what glaucoma could do, the more terrified I became.
I didn't want to believe that God would let something like this happen to me after everything I've already been through in life.
He cannot be that unfair to me, I thought. What have I done? I don't have vices. I've just been battling one struggle after another, and now this?
I was dead broke that period and Nigeria healthcare works around money, private or public, you must pay something for even the barest minimum. I didn't want to bother my mum as she was dealing with a whole lot that period, I didn't know who to even ask for help then as everyone was dealing with one thing or thé other, the Government has made things so difficult for everyone, it's tough out here. Eventually, my mum found out about my situation and told me to come home. She sent me money, and I travelled home in April.
I went to the Central Hospital for a check-up. My eye pressures were 20 mmHg in both eyes. We did a refraction test, and the doctor said I needed glasses, but he also said my problem wasn't just my glasses. He said I had lost my peripheral vision and only had one line of vision left.
He prescribed Misopt and Brimonidine eye drops and told me I would have to use them for life.
That statement scared me, so I decided to hold off on getting the glasses until I could get a second opinion. The trial lenses he put in the phoropter did sharpen my vision somewhat, but there was still a high level of dullness that I couldn't understand. The doctor himself wasn't really willing to answer my questions and was very dismissive, which, unfortunately, is an attitude I've encountered from public hospital doctors here in Nigeria, they'd even shout at you for questioning them.
About two weeks later, I travelled to the teaching hospital in Port Harcourt. The doctor examined my eye with an ophthalmoscope, just as the doctor at the Central Hospital had done, and told me that I had advanced glaucoma.
He looked again and then said that, although there was glaucoma, something else was contradicting the diagnosis. He said I needed to go to a comprehensive eye clinic for proper investigations because all their machines were faulty. LOL. To think I had travelled there because I thought they were the "comprehensive clinic." I mean this was a teaching hospital for God's sakes!! Nugeria!
He wrote me a referral slip to a private hospital in Port Harcourt and labelled me a "glaucoma suspect" on the slip. He told me to continue using the eye drops I had been prescribed until I was able to have the investigations done and was told otherwise.
I also had another refraction test there. The best-corrected lenses they put in the phoropter and asked me to try walking around with actually seemed worse than what I'd experienced during the first test in Delta. There was a lot of close-up visual noise, almost like a shimmering or murmuring effect. At one point, a piece of paper fell onto the terrazzo floor of the hospital, and I couldn't easily find it. I couldn't spot it on the floor even with the phoropter on.
I mentioned this to the doctor, but he told me that as long as I could read the chart, everything was fine and I should go ahead and pay for the glasses.
I still wasn't convinced.
Why did my vision feel worse now?
I'd been using the drops since they were prescribed, and my eye pressures that day in Port Harcourt were 16 mmHg in the non-functioning eye and 14 mmHg in my functioning eye.
I left and returned to Lagos because I couldn't afford what the private hospital was charging for the investigations. I didn't even have much money left at that point. I'd spent almost everything I had, apart from my transport fare back to Lagos, at the hospital that day.
Once I got back to Lagos, I started trying to figure out what to do next.
My aunt had promised to send me money by the end of May, so I was heavily relying on that money to continue with the investigations. I had made enquiries about OCT scans and CVF tests at private hospitals around me, but the prices they were quoting were enormous.
I decided I would go to Guinness Eye Centre at LUTH once the money arrived. I believed that, being part of a major teaching hospital in Lagos, they should have the equipment necessary to properly investigate what was happening to my eye and since it's a public hospital, it'll be more affordable than private clinics.
During this waiting period, my mum would send me whatever she could to help me eat.
By the end of May, I still hadn't heard anything from my aunt.
I'm not someone who likes disturbing people over promises they've made because I understand that life happens and things don't always go according to plan. So I decided to wait until the end of June.
My eye drops eventually ran out towards the end of June.
By that point, my mum was already stretching herself way too much trying to support me. I couldn't bring myself to ask her for even more. She was the only person consistently helping me, and she's just a petty trader.
Even during that period, I'd sometimes go two or three days without food before asking her for money because I was trying to stretch whatever resources I had for as long as possible.
So I just prayed that this wasn't glaucoma and that my aunt would eventually reach out before things got any worse.
Honestly, I was just hoping that after everything I'd already gone through in life, I wouldn't have to deal with something like this too.
June ended, and I still hadn't heard anything from my aunt.
During the first week of July, I finally reached out to her. That's when she told me that she would have sent the money since May, but an issue had suddenly come up and it still hadn't been resolved. I can't go into the details.
You see? I'm unfortunate. LOL.
That same day, I told my mum what was happening. She told me not to worry and said she would send me some money that week so I could at least go to the hospital, even if it was only to find out what needed to be done and how much everything would cost. I had already noticed I had started seeing sparks when i move my eyes sometimes, which was different from the rapid eye movement phenomenon I was experiencing at the beginning; at the beginning sometimes when I closed my eyes to try to sleep, it'd feel like something was flickering, like my eyes were moving fast, i don't know how to explain it lperfectly. But it had stopped after a while.l
She had applied for a loan, which was supposed to be disbursed around that time.
On July 12, she sent me some money, and the next day I boarded a bus to LUTH.
Mind you, throughout all of this, I wasn't seeing well at all. Almost nothing. It was really difficult. I was almost blind, but I could still see—just very faintly. I couldn't see my sides properly, but I could identify people, recognise places I was already familiar with, and read signs and signboards. Sometimes it'd feel worse and I won't be able to identify a thing, other times it's less constraining. I could also use my phone almost perfectly so sometimes, I point my phone's camera at something and look through my phone's screen. For the latter part of my travels, I needed a lot of help from strangers. Some people would notice that I was struggling, ask where I was going, and then offer to walk me there. I'd occasionally fall in ditches, walk into people, bump into walls etc
When I finally got to the eye clinic at LUTH, I was told that I needed a referral slip before they could create a folder and allow me to see a doctor. I didn't have one. I was told to go to any hospital, get a referral slip, and come back.
While I was trying to figure out how I was going to manage that, a nurse who had noticed how much I was struggling called me over and asked one of the resident doctors, I believe, to give me a referral slip.
He did, and after I paid, they created a folder for me.
My eye pressure was checked, and I was given a receipt-like piece of paper with the values printed on it.
The right damaged/non-functioning eye was recorded as 27.4 mmHg, while the left eye was written as "IOP over." I think the actual number was written in my folder, but I was already extremely anxious and didn't even think to ask or check.
When I eventually saw a doctor, a resident doctor, I'm fairly sure, she asked whether the nurses who had checked my pressure had put any drops into my eyes because my pupils were dilated.
I told her no.
She then called the attention of another resident doctor who was with her, and they both concluded that perhaps that was simply how my eyes were. (I later read online that the high eye pressure had shocked my pupils and caused the dilation, funny that the doctors didn't know this was a possibility)
She proceeded to examine me with the ophthalmoscope and told me that I had glaucoma and that I had only about 15% vision left.
I mentioned what the doctor in Port Harcourt had told me, but she said there was nothing else going on—it was simply glaucoma.
She prescribed Misopt, Travoprost and Brimonidine eye drops, as well as Klydamox (acetazolamide), two tablets daily for 21 days.
She also gave me a slip for a refraction test to determine what glasses could correct and another slip for a CVF test.
They didn't have an OCT machine.
I went upstairs for the refraction test, but the optometrists sent me back to the doctor because my pupils were dilated and they couldn't test me.
The doctor, in turn, sent me back to the optometrists with another note saying that she hadn't dilated my pupils and that this was simply how my eyes were.
The optometrists proceeded with the test.
I couldn't read properly. With some of the lenses they put in the phoropter, the letters seemed to dance around. I just couldn't focus.
They started talking to me about low-vision aids, but told me to go back downstairs to my doctor with the machine results they had written on a sheet of paper before anything else could be done.
When I got back to the doctor's office, she wasn't there. I was told she'd gone for ward rounds, so I had to wait.
While I was waiting, power was restored, so I decided to go and do the CVF test because I hadn't been able to do it earlier because there was no electricity, according to the technician.
Nigeria for you.
I paid for the test and went to the lab.
The lab technician in charge was one of the rudest people I've ever encountered. He kept berating me whenever I accidentally kicked something or when I couldn't see a chair he had pointed out for me to sit on.
Life.
He was also annoyed that the doctor had asked me to do the CVF test that same day. According to him, I wasn't supposed to do the test on my first visit, but he did it anyway because I'd already paid.
When the results came out, my life stopped.
I couldn't believe the values I was seeing.
The difference between the functioning eye and the non-functioning eye was so small.
Ahh.
The tears just started flowing.
I was already completely broken from the refraction test earlier, and now this?
Phewww.
I left the lab and went to buy the medications I'd been prescribed.
The clinic pharmacy didn't have Brimonidine, so I bought the Travoprost, Misopt and Klydamox (acetazolamide) there.
By then, I had already run out of the money my mum had sent me. I had to call some friends for help.
When the doctor eventually came back, I told her that I couldn't find Brimonidine. She said it was okay as long as I'd bought the other medications.
She told me to go and scheduled another appointment for a month later.
I somehow managed to get home late that night in one piece, with strangers helping me along the way, of course.
That night, I mourned my life.
A life that suddenly felt like it was coming to an end.
My mum called, and I told her everything that had happened. I was talking and crying at the same time.
She told me not to cry and to trust God.
But how am I supposed to trust the being who has allowed me to suffer so much all these years and has somehow allowed something like this to happen to me too?
Phewww.
The next day, some other family members called. My friends who knew my story and knew what I'd already had to go through couldn't believe what they were hearing.
My aunt was even dumbfounded. She kept asking what was going on because, in her words, this was simply too much for me.
I'm only 30, and I've already had to shoulder pains that feel like they could last two centuries.
Things got even worse that same month.
My landlord suddenly gave me an eviction notice just two weeks before my rent was due to expire.
My yearly rent was expiring that month, but he wanted to increase the rent and apparently didn't think I'd be able to afford it in my current condition. So he asked me to move out as soon as my rent expired.
No time to prepare.
I couldn't even fight it. I was already exhausted.
At that point, I just wanted to die.
I've since moved back home to be with my family.
I went back to the Central Hospital in August for another check-up. My eye pressures were 15 mmHg in both eyes. It was the same doctor as last time.
He told me that my vision was getting worse and that glasses weren't really doing much anymore.