I was elated to go to sleep in complete darkness for the first time with my brand new, new custom made silicone eye-patch. After months of disturbed sleep and the “glad-wrap process” I’d created for my eye care, the thought of total darkness and rest all night was an exciting prospect.

I fell into blissful sleep almost straight away, but quickly saw that my dream was a nightmare. Literally.

I’m terrified. I’m having a nightmare where I’m inside a small aircraft. For some reason, I have unzipped the window and stuck my head outside and my mum is desperately gripping my ankles tightly, anchoring me to safety.

I am struggling to breathe and the pressure on my face is immense!

I wake up gasping for air.

The new eye patch which has enabled me a dark, restful sleep has put unexpected pressure on my nasal airways. This pressure has resulted in a terrible nightmare of not being able to breathe.

Wide awake, I sit upright and stagger into my ensuite and peel it off. I look in the mirror and see the indentations on my nose and forehead with residue of the glue to hold it in place. Thankfully, my cornea looks fine and I feel the pressure dissipate as I take the eye patch off.

“Put up with it Em” I inwardly chant as I reapply it, despite the discomfort. My nose throbs again and the facial pressure returns.

After 10 minutes of tolerating this, I put on my bedside light and reluctantly return to my ensuite, peel it off and apply my old glad-wrap eyepatch although this lets light in, at least I can breath with it.

I return to bed feeling quite disheartened and gutted. All that skill, time and effort by the prosthetic team for it to be more uncomfortable than before.

I also feel so ungrateful at the thought of going to them with this feedback.

I know deep down that part of new innovation is the testing phase to continually refining things. It’s rarely perfect the first time. Testing and refining ultimately improve the experience and it’s effectiveness, not only for me, but others who might turn to this treatment in the future.

I also know that this patch will be a game changer for my eye care. It has been made specifically to meet my brief. However, I never envisaged facial pressure being an issue. How was I to know?

I wonder in your profession, how you can make it easier for people to provide productive, critical feedback and simultaneously grow?

Whilst new innovation is incredible, it can be so detrimental if we don’t consider the experience of the person.

When we are developing new products or resources, how we can ensure the person is educated about this testing process. In this situation I naively assumed it would meet my needs on night one. Although I know that this is not realistic, I still had such high expectations on it.

How can you enable someone to still fly high without discomfort?