Hana’s Story – Received 25 January, 2009

Hi,
I am fifteen years old and I have been diagnosed with Stargardts disease only a couple of days ago.

I started having problems with my eyes when I was thirteen years old and I found I was unable to read properly, see the board, my vision used to be blurry at times. I was very slow at reading and taking things in and I used to suffer from horrible headaches around the eye area.

My glasses were not helping me at all!

It was only severn months ago I went back to D&A complaining about my glasses that they had not given me a strong enough lense. They could not work out what the problem was so I was transferred to Moorfields in Northwick Park. I only received the letter two days ago explaining what my problem is.

I have found it so difficult to cope as I am currently taking my gcse’s at heathfield school. It upsets me as I am also a drama student and when I am reading I read the wrong things and miss out words, lines and even big chunks. I find it so difficult to focus my eyes on the words and eventually it goes blurry and I get bad headaches because of the pressue. Students laugh at me because they think I am stupid and cannot read. They roll their eyes at me and even during my drama lessons I get shouted out by my peers because I am reading far too slowly but they don’t understand that it’s not my fault and I really try. I am finding it really hard to come to terms with this and I feel like blaming it on my parents. I dread drama lessons as I get teased about not being able to read right. I feel like nobody understands me not even my teachers and I feel like I am different and I just want to me normal like everyone else. I’ve been crying so much about it and I don’t know whether anyone can really help me because I nead help.

Hana from Harrow
My email is: hana27@hotmail.co.uk.