I don’t feel comfortable doing that now because I can’t see properly, plus the traffic in Atlanta is horrible. I used to enjoy long drives across the country. I didn’t just lose an eye – I lost the old me and the things I could do. I got dressed up and left flowers on the side of the road where the accident happened. After nine months of speaking to my therapist and flicking between “Why did this happen to me?” and total denial, she suggested I could have a “funeral” for the old Hannah, as a form of closure. Now I love one-eyed Hannah, I’m so much stronger. I’ve gone through all the stages of grief now and I hate to think I said that about myself. When I had a look in the mirror afterwards, all I thought was, “You look like a freak.” After the surgery they had stitched my eye shut to let it heal for two months. I don’t think it really hit me until October. The next day, they pieced my eyelids back together, and I had more surgery to remove the eye itself. The doctors said it was a complete accident, but all I could think about was that if I hadn’t been wearing my sunglasses, none of this would have happened. It had been completely deflated by the glass, which had severed my optic nerve and caused my sinus cavity to collapse – that has caused chronic migraines, and any time the weather changes now I can feel it in my face. James broke the news that my right eye was gone. I just kept thinking, “If I lose my eye, I’ll learn to live with it, please help me,” over and over again. I was in the most excruciating pain I’ve ever been in. They warned me that if they found glass in my brain, which would need to be removed, I might wake up from the operation and not remember anything. The scariest moment was when they thought there might be glass in my brain – there was so much glass in the eye socket that they worried it might have travelled further back. They had to fly in emergency surgeons because the damage to the eye was so bad. I was quickly taken to hospital, and James joined me. From what I could make out, the top lid of my right eye was split in two.Ī stranger came to my rescue and helped call my family. My left eye was fine, but my right eye was covered in blood and I had glass shards stuck in my face. Smoke was coming out of the airbags and I was too distracted to notice I was bleeding, until I caught sight of myself in the rearview mirror. I was in so much shock I could barely feel pain. My dog was terrified and I tried to calm him as I grappled with what had just happened. I was thrown forward and my face slammed into the airbag, which had inflated on impact, shattering my sunglasses. I was only five minutes from his house and driving at 25 miles an hour when a car pulled out of a sidestreet in front of me.
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