– Also enjoys playing cricket and singing

By Telesha Ramnarine
ODDESSA Alexis Blair will never forget the morning of Friday, July 4, 2008, when it instantly seemed to her that her whole life was turned upside down. She woke up as normal, only to find that although her eyes were opened, she could not see anything.From that time to now, Oddessa has been totally blind, unaware of what caused her to end up in this dilemma and more so, if she will ever be able to regain her sight.

The screams were deafening that morning and the anxiety mounted as she and her mom, Clarice, made their way to a hospital in Georgetown from their Farm, East Bank Essequibo home.

Doctors could find nothing to explain to Oddessa what was happening to her. She received no warning signs that something was wrong with her eyes and never had any complaints.

Unable to make sense of anything, Oddessa, who was just 30-years-old at the time, resorted to despair. To make matters worse, she was eight months pregnant with her second child, Mario.

“I just woke up one morning and couldn’t see. Just like that. Just woke up and looked outside and couldn’t see anything. I had no clues. I had no eye problems whatsoever; no dark eyes, no watery eyes, nothing,” Oddessa expressed in an interview with the Chronicle recently.

In the two years that followed, Oddessa cried day and night.

“If I was sighted, I would have been working and it would’ve been work, work, and work all the time. But now, I am furthering my studies and pursuing a degree at the University of Guyana in social work. I would have never made the effort to further my studies, so I see it as a blessing.”

“My mom took me to the hospital and I kept getting referral from one hospital to the next. The last eye doctor said he suspected it was a tumor and he was sending me to do these scans. But I didn’t go through with it because it was very costly. I would have already spent a lot of money running from place to place. I don’t believe I have any tumors because those usually come with a lot of headaches and so and I wasn’t getting any. So I knew that was a waste of time.”

Oddessa later gradually came to accept the situation she found herself in.

“I realized it’s a situation I cannot change and might as well adjust myself and deal with it in a positive way.”

Oddessa decided that she was going to stop worrying and cease her visits to the doctor.

“I decided I wasn’t going to run to any doctor anymore. This is my situation and I need to move on from there. This is it. I just have to settle and move on from here. I have to accept myself for who I am.”

But the distresses were not over for Oddessa. Just when she accepted this situation and decided to move on, she would now become a victim of domestic abuse. “All the time everything was going pretty well. But after I got blind, and after a while, like he (her reputed husband) couldn’t deal with the situation. And he started to react in a negative way. Maybe it took an effect on him and that’s his way of reacting. It reached to the stage where I had to call it quits.”

A blessing in disguise

Although she faced so many difficulties initially, she has now come to view her blindness as a blessing in disguise.

She explains this way: “If I was sighted, I would have been working and it would’ve been work, work, and work all the time. But now, I am furthering my studies and pursuing a degree at the University of Guyana in social work. I would have never made the effort to further my studies, so I see it as a blessing.”

It was hard for Oddessa to accept that she was blind, but taking a positive view of this reality has helped her to cope.

“Back then, I had outer vision, but now, I would say I have inner vision. I can do as much as a sighted person can do, besides a few things like seeing to walk on the road and so. It was challenging to run errands and so at first but now I am accustomed to it. I can go places by myself. I travel with the bus from home to here (Guyana National Society for the Blind) and sometimes I use a taxi if I don’t know the place.”

Spending time at the Blind Society has also proved to be of help to Oddessa. She was initially seeking employment at this facility after experiencing problems with her reputed husband. She was told that they were not hiring but that she was welcome to join the CXC programme that they had ongoing.

“I came, wrote the five subjects they had to offer, and I came out with the second highest grade in 2013. I am now a third year UG student.”

Oddessa also plays blind cricket, loves social media and meeting new friends. She is also part of a culture group called “Vigac,” which travels from place to place to sing.

Commenting on her future, Oddessa expressed: “I would like to be one of the most dedicated social workers in the country. I promise to contribute to my country significantly and make a tremendous impact in the lives of persons. As they would say, man is made up of physical, social and mental health. So I would contribute to my country’s social health.”

She offered this sobering advice: “Take very good care of your eyes. If you see a blind or visually impaired person, or any person with a disability, and you can lend a helping hand, you can be kind enough to do so because you don’t know what the future holds. I can remember when I was sighted, if someone had told me that I would’ve been blind today, I would’ve doubted them. But situations come and you don’t know what the future holds for you. So give a helping hand to whoever you can.”

Oddessa’s mom and dad, Clarine and Alex, provide invaluable support to her, along with her 19-year-old daughter, Rockell, and caring friends.