Would you believe it ?

Had a problem with a slight blur in my right eye on the evening of 9 Jan, thought no more of it. Went to bed. Got up Friday the blur was still there. Went to work assuming it would clear. Well it didn't. came home, same old, same old. Got up on Saturday 11 Jan to total darkness from my right eye. Went down to the local accident and emergency department, I was admitted to hospital immediately straight onto the ophthalmic ward where tests started immediately.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that within 48 hours of me first experiencing the blur, I went blind in my right eye. This is permanent with no hope of regaining sight in it. The care and treatment I received at the hands of the British National Health Service couldn't have been better, six days of everything from CT scans, MRI Scans, Neuro Assessments, to name just a few items, apart from my eye came away with a perfect clean bill of health. They are however unable to perform miracles. The good news from this is that there is no brain tumour or anything of that nature at all

I am now joining the ranks of the One Eyed Riders. Because I live in the UK and we ride/drive on the left my right side field of vision is the most important for me to use my lifesaver look before any manouvere, this is no more, so after a bit of trawling the internet I came across the Riderscan http://www.huntercreate.com/index.htm

When I get my confidence back I will be back riding, and once I am able to have some depth perception etc this should be of enormous aid to me.

I have ordered and received one of these units and am in the process of fitting it

I know I know I know Pictures Pictures Pictures

I will add them tomorrow hopefully. I ordered the optional sportbike mounting bracket as well because being a belt/braces/length of rope kind of guy I don't want to rely on the adhesive attachment alone, so I am modifying the optional bracket to use a couple of 5 mm bolts to make it secure. I have to drill the screen but I will be happier.

carpy

 

dude, sorry about your eye, so what exactly made you go blind? that's scary stuff, blurry vision then blind, how bout other eye bill of health?

that mirror should help some but somebody posted this skully helmet site, have to look it up but they have a 180 degree camera in back of helmet and display on visor, might save your life and if you write them your story get one early. newer cars have a blinking light in mirror for somebody in blind spot, never seen it for bike but maybe something you could adapt that could warn you if somebody on your blind side.

I'd be worried about your depth perception, especially at speeds, I'm sure they have gave you some exercises for it but my friends dad lost vision in eye from glocoma and they gave him a ping pong table to help get depth perception back.

As consolation for losing an eye do you get a cool eye patch at least? start perfecting your gaaarrrr.

 

Man, I'm so sorry to hear. What the hell happened? Your retina detach or something?

 

You seem to have a positive attitude. Good for you dude! I hope that you make the best of this situation, and sounds like you already are planning on it.

 

It appears I had a massive inflammation in my eye and it trashed the optic nerve.

The left eye is the concern now, it isn't brilliant but I have been told by the hospital that if I experience anything out of the ordinary I am to hot foot it down to them straight away.

I have to stay positive, there are friends of mine with Cancer, my problem is not life threatening, but it is life changing. It will be a learning curve but I am walking Talking etc so I will get by.

The riderscan is fitted, I will follow up with photos tomorrow

Carpy

 

Wow. Health issues are private but if just have to ask. Your choice at answering. Do you think you may have saved at least some if not all your right eye sight had you had the issue checked out immediately? Sure a hard pill to swallow if the answer is yes, but you seem to have the attitude to accept what you cannot change. Really sorry to hear about that loss.

Depth perception is very important in most things you do, but critical in driving. Take your time. Practice, practice, practice, in a safe area until you develop the skills you need to stay safe driving I know that can be accomplished. Otherwise you would not be able to keep your license in most places if you were blind in one eye.

I remember many years back, my sister's BF was blind in one eye. I think he was born that way. But from what I recall from way back, he was a very decent driver. Would he have been able to successfully drive the course that I took in my pursuit driving course? Absolutely not. But you do not need those skills to safely drive on the roadways.

Good luck.

 

Wow, sorry to hear, that's a kick in the ars. Believe it or not my dad just had the same thing happen to him two weeks ago. He started seeing a cloudy bluish fog in the top half of his vision in his right eye. He went to the eye doctor and they told him he had an eye stroke. It was caused by a plaque blockage in an artery inside his eye. That part of the eye was "killed off", no cure, no fix. Lucky for him it was not in the center so he can still see out of that eye but the top half of his view is dark. He says he does not notice as much when looking out of both eyes (because the work together). He had the CT/MRI as well and the found no other signs of stroke/plaque blockage and gave him a clean bill of health. According to the docs this kind of thing is not at all uncommon. At 68 years old my dad is an avid bow hunter and the only thing he is worried about is learning to shoot left-eyed while being right handed.

I hope you adjust well. I bet your other eye will adapt and be even better than before.

 

Really sorry to hear about that, hope you can get back to riding safely soon.

 

Very, very sorry to hear....

You do seem to be a very positive dude and I am sure you will adapt in no time..

Good luck!!

 

Here's a couple of photos as promised of the Riderscan fitted

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Hope this has worked OK, wasn't too good with 2 eyes !!!

 

looks good, how's it do w/ you sitting on bike? can you estimate how close to bike a car would have to be to be obscured by your body in mirror? Id think the farther away from you it is the more visibility it would have.

 

Holly Batman :hss:
I am soooooo sorry about your eye Carpy :sad:
I am glad you are in strong spirit and a good attitude :thumbsup: I wish you well Bro and hope one day we can bring your sight back.
I am work for Alcon the world leading in Eyes care products and Surgical Equipments and I have heard from Dr here that they can fix people that were blind. PM me all the info. so I can talk to some Dr.

Cheers Mate :wave:

Scub

 

I wonder if its similar to looking out the passenger side on a car? You know, where they always have the warning on the mirror that says objects are closer than they appear.

My Mom lost sight in one of her eyes years ago. She always said the biggest issue was depth perception, but like many other things the skill improves over time.

 

Because the mirror gives me a 180 degree field of view and when I am sat on the bike I only appear right in the middle. With a glance from my left eye in my right mirror the only thing obscured by anything is visible in the outer third of the riderscan mirror.
I probably havent explained this very well. I will try and take some more photos or a video to show what I mean. There are a couple of videos on the riderscan wesite.

 

Holy shit, sorry to hear what happened & so bloody fast ! I think most of us would do the same thing & assume ( hope) that it would get better. Especially when it not something obvious like crippling pain.
I had something happen with my vision a couple of years back, my vision suddenly went weird & I got all these coloured lights appearing in the corner of my eyes. Went away, but my wife reckoned I was having a stroke or something, so after lots of bloody tests, I was told that it had something to do with migraines. Still scared the crap out of me though.

You seem to have a good attitude & I'm sure you will adapt, best of luck.

 

Very sorry to hear this... I wish you all the best going forward.
Draw strength from those around you!

 

Sorry to hear about that, my dad had a similar issue happen quite a few years ago due to his diabetes (genetics) and eventually gave up riding. He never really got too comfortable with the little depth perception he had and with his other eye giving him issues too, he ended up calling it quits. My mom's "influence" probably had a little to do with it I'm sure. He does drive still but not very often and if it gets near twilight or evening, he cannot drive at all, just safer that way. Unfortunately humans depend on two eyes for depth perception so it may take you some time to get "adjusted" but IMO don't get discouraged but don't rush getting back on the bike either, make sure you feel 100% confident before you get back on.

This may sound like a bad TV movie, but my wife actually lost hearing due to a severe blood infection and it took her a while to get comfortable with her situation as without both ears our balance is off, something to do with the "inner ear" acting as a "gimbal" of sorts. She would sometimes get dizzy and have to sit down if she was standing or walking for too long but eventually her body adjusted to the situation, but again it took some time.

I'm sure your riding group will have some suggestions and/or a support mechanism for you, good luck!

 

Carpy buddy, sorry to hear what happened . My story is 10 years out of riding ,found my bike 300 miles away, sent deposit and a week before the trip to get her, I wake up and my vision in my right I is blurry as well. I'm like shit didn't drink last WTF. Went to the doctor post stat and found out I had a stroke in my sleep in my freekin eye.They call it a retinal vein inclusion...instead of 20/20 it was 20/80. Now going on 4 years I have to get two shots in my eye every freekin 6 weeks. So have you gone to a dozen doctors and get the real low down ? it took about a week to finally figure out my situation after 8 doctors. Are you on meds now in case it happens again ? my only guard of this possibly happening again is blood thinners...which is real dangerous with any accident let alone motorcycles. I know , shit happens and like you said it could be allot worse. Here in Cali you can actually get a license with one eye and the good eye doesn't even need to be 20/20.
All I can say is hang tough, it is what it is and have a great attitude like you already have....good luck and keep us posted of any developments.

 

Have you looked into collision warning systems or similar?

It seems that more and more cars these days have a sensor built into them so that when a car (or whatever) is in your "blind spot", it flashes a warning signal on the rear view mirrors. I wonder if something like that could be fitted to a bike? I'm no electrical genius, but you'd think it be possible. Might involve some new mirrors. Or hell, as a "prototype", the wires from the side mounted sensor(s) could run up to the bike's mirrors, and then install a little red LED bulb that would illuminate any time an object was detected?

What about something audible via ear buds? Again, it would take some creativity on a system, but if the system could detect objects with "X" range, and their was a port to plug ear buds into?

My first thought was to use some sort of closed circuit TV (such as those baby monitors, or maybe even the wireless back up cameras sold at auto parts stores). Run on batteries. Wireless. Small screens at say 2.5inches, so it wouldn't take up too much space on our dash. Mount the camera pointing in the general direction that it's more difficult to see. Then just look at the monitor to know what's there?

Just throwing out ideas.

 

Oh, jeezus, one more thing to worry about !!!! :dread: