Introduction

date created: 17.04.2024

On 28 Feb 2024, Dr. Leung performed a squint surgery on my right eye to correct the misalignment of my eyes (Strabismus). This misalignment resulted in double vision, which I’ve adapted to overtime. I first started seeing double images when I was just 18 years old. It was a consequence of a traumatic brain injury (TBI), occuring on 23 August 2014. Back in 2014, the ophthalmologist told me “There is nothing they could do” and that I just “need to live with it.” At the time, he prescribed me prisms that could help to align the eyes most of the time. Yet, they were nowhere near strong enough to help all the time.

As I mentioned, I have learned to adapt to this misalignment. If I tilt my head to the left, I can converge the images. Yet, whenever I ran or walked, everything would jog up and down. At first, it made me feel nauseous. I needed to take many naps. I could no longer catch a ball, which meant that I could no longer play ball-sports such as netball – something I was good at. Instead, I switched to triathlons: swimming, cycling, and running. In years to follow, the motion started to feel good.

In January 2023, I went to the optometrist in Corrimal to get a new pair of glasses with the prescribed prism. The optometrist examined my eyes and asked if I was interested in fixing this misalignment. In shock, I responded “yes of course! But I was told that there was nothing they could do.” The optometrist wrote me a referral to Dr Harry Leung at Southern Ophthalmology.

Around April 2023, I met Dr Leung and he diagnosed my issue. He was keen to operate on me, but I was so nervous about the procedure. I kept thinking “It’s my eyes that they’re touching.” Also, the risk of going blind scared the hell out of me! Since writing my thesis, I have been exhibiting many problems. Firstly, my neck has become very tight from having to tilt my head to cure the double vision. I was getting constant migraines and my eyes were always so tired that I struggled so much with day-to-day life. Therefore, I booked in the surgery.

The surgery was mostly successful. I do not have to wear prisms to correct my double vision anymore. Most of the time, I see one image. However, on occasion, especially when I am tired, I see double images. Sometimes the images are side-by-side and other times, they are so far apart that I can tell which image is the real one.

Before this surgery, I was paddling every morning around 7 am at North Wollongong Beach. For the past few months, I have not been going down to North Wollongong Beach at 7 am, as I was banned from swimming after my eye surgery. On Monday morning when I turned up at North Wollongong beach, a friend approached me and handed me a book titled Fix my Gaze. The friend who leant me this book, Harry, is an academic in psychology at the University of Wollongong. I have got to know him over the past three years as he swims every morning, departing from North Wollongong Beach.

This book was a great read. I recommend to anyone who is interested in brain plasticity. It spoke of a woman “Stereo Sue” according to Oliver Sacks, who could not see in 3D (stereopsis). This lack of depth perception was caused by an early Strabismus (cross-eyed vision). Susan Barry spoke of the 3 surgeries that she underwent as an infant to correct her eye-alignment, but still did not correct the lack of stereopsis.

For years and years, she was told that there is nothing that can be done. That if she didn’t develop stereopsis as a child (usually at 4 months old), then she never would. When she was in her late 40’s, she went to see a behavioural optometrist. She saw this optometrist every week for 1 year. She was given exercises for the eyes and then one day, she saw objects “pop” out at her. She concluded that forming new neural connections is possible as an adult and that the brain is constantly making new connections.

Yesterday, I saw my ophthalmologist, Dr Leung for a 6-week follow up appointment. He examined the eyes and noted that the eye had healed, but I still saw double vision. He said that to correct it further, we will need to operate on the left eye. He asked if I was interested. However, I politely declined and said “I would prefer to wait a while.”

From what I read in Fixing my gaze, I thought “is it possible for me to do simple exercises to rewire the alignment of my eyes?” I immediately contacted a behavioural optometrist in the Illawarra.

I then started to ask more questions about my eyesight. For one, I knew that it was related to the brain injury that I acquired ten years prior. I wanted to know the degree to which it had resulted in a change in the wiring of my neurons. I asked similar questions about 10 years ago. However, at the time, I failed to comprehend many things that I read.

Months following the traumatic brain injury (TBI), doctors and psychologists told me that I should take the year off to recover. I didn’t agree with them. There was no way that I was wasting a whole year feeling sorry for myself! For a while I thought that keeping myself busy really helped my recovery. I mean look at me now, I have submitted a PhD in chemistry. Yet, I never really researched the topic. My mindset was that I didn’t really want to know. I only wanted to move on with my life.

The time between the TBI and starting university was 7 months. During this time, I graduated from year 12, unfortunately missing my HSC exams (as I could not coordinate my hands to write). I watched many documentaries and read many non-fiction science books. I grew curious of the world, while also being so self-conscious about my intelligence. I didn’t want to believe that I was stupid.

The first semester of university began in March of 2015. I picked an array of subjects including chemistry, biology, and psychology. I loved all of it! Particularly, I found psychology and neuropsychology so interesting. I became very fond of Oliver Sacks. He wrote many books, in particular “The man who mistook his wife for a hat.” I read all the recommended books from our psych lectures.

Across six subjects, I ended up getting mostly credits. My highest mark was in psychology (76%), followed by math (74%) and chemistry (70%). My memory was not the best and I struggled to retain information, which is why I ended up dropping biology.

When deciding on a major, I realised that my university life would be difficult with a major in psychology – because everyone wants to do it. Math became too hard and out of my logic. However, I grew to become more and more interested in chemistry. I never looked back, until now.

With the great steps I’ve taken with my learning, I now feel confident to go out into the world of literature and find the answers that I am looking for. A whole section dedicated to biology is boring. Therefore, this project that I have decided to take on is dedicated to the Chemistry of a Brain injury. I will start by talking about components of the brain and how brain chemistries respond to injury. I will relate all the chemistry to my challenges and experiences.