My new eye patch arrived last week. Yep version three. Third time lucky, right? After twenty years of living with the aftermath of my stroke and almost two years of battling eye issues, I had dared to hope that this would finally be the solution that made things easier. No more nightly Glad-wrap ritual. No more fiddling and adjusting and improvising just to protect my eye.
But as it turns out, this third design has only exposed even more problems.
To get the patch to stay on, I need to glue it to my face. And that first night, trying to put a cotton bud into the tiny glue container when I’m already quite unco, was a nightmare! Basically, the cotton bud tipped, glue spilled everywhere, and the whole thing slid straight down the sink. A stick mess.
I reluctantly contacted the team, hoping for some sort of quick solution to apply the glue at night. But even before any new suggestions came back, I woke the next morning and knew deep down that it wasn’t going to work.
This isn’t just a design flaw. It’s the process again revealing how many gaps exist between what I actually need and what’s being created for me.
The hardest part was that I feel guilty, again, at the thought of telling my eye doctor that this solution isn’t working either. Sure, a glue holder might stop the nightly mess. But what about the morning aftermath? The glue doesn’t just peel off. I wake with half-dried PVA glue stuck to my face, pulling at my skin, leaving me feeling helpless until my support worker can come and clean it all off.
Either I go back to the tedious Glad-wrap routine, or I do nothing and risk my cornea dying again.
I had genuinely believed this eye patch would be a game-changer. I imagined relief. I imagined less stress. I imagined something going right. Instead, this whole experience has left me feeling defeated and worn down. When you keep trying to make life easier, and each attempt makes everything harder, it takes a toll.
And it isn’t just the eye patch. My botox injections make my neck so unstable that my balance has been all over the place. Two more stitches were taken out of my eye recently, which means I’m back on antibiotics. Every corner I turn seems to hold another setback.
I’ve been trying so hard to become less reliant on other people. Ironically, every solution that’s meant to increase my independence seems to push me further into needing help. These aren’t small inconveniences. These are daily, exhausting, emotional challenges that feel like they’re piling up faster than I can even begin to process them.
There’s no positive spins for this moment. But honestly, I think that’s okay.
Sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes acknowledging that is the only thing that feels real. When everything you’re trying isn’t working, despite your best effort, your perseverance, your resilience, I’ve learnt that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s okay to feel tired. It’s okay to admit that you’re not okay.
I’m still grateful for the people who support me, the ones who help to lighten the load even when the solutions themselves don’t. They’re the reason I don’t completely fall apart. But right now, I feel the weight of all of this, and I’m scared that I’m not building towards an easier future. instead, I feel I’m stuck solving problems that never seem to resolve.
But what I can do is sit with the discomfort. I don’t have to fight it or pretend it’s not there. Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up; it just means acknowledging reality without judging myself for how hard it feels.
Solutions will come. Maybe not today. Maybe not version three. But they will.
For now, I’m letting myself feel the hardness without running from it (I’m grateful that I seriously can’t literally run!)
How do you accept things going wrong in your own life?
Or how do you support someone who seems to be wading through challenge after challenge?