— Hazel Sears-Morris does all her chores and furthers her education

HAZEL Sears-Morris remembers the exact day she became blind: Thursday, December 9, 1982 while she was at the Buxton Health Centre for a routine check-up, solely because she was five months pregnant.

Sitting down with the Guyana Chronicle, Hazel was open enough to tell the newspaper of how her life changed in just one moment and of how she adjusted to her new disability to create a well-functioning life for herself.
“I remember I was five months pregnant and I went to the Buxton Health Centre and I was waiting there to be attended to. I started to see blurred but, in the meanwhile, my whole body was feeling hot. So I went to the receptionist and asked her for a glass of water,” she began.

The nurse, disregarding Hazel’s request, asked her to take her seat as she was very busy and would attend to her shortly.
However, what happened next caused the nurse and many others to drop everything to attend to the pregnant woman.

“When I went back to sit down, there is where the sight went. Completely, like when you switch a light off. At that time, everybody put tools down and they were testing my pressure and they were trying to see what was the cause at that time and …they took me to Georgetown hospital,” she recounted

“At that moment I was crying, I was crying all the time,” Hazel said, adding that health care in the 1980s was nothing like it is today.
After she was taken to the Georgetown hospital by a medic, Hazel underwent several forms of tests as the doctors grappled to come up with a diagnosis for her sudden blindness.
“At that time in 1982, I don’t think people were fully aware about what glaucoma is and what are the causes of glaucoma like how they’re taking it seriously now. Because I didn’t have any symptoms, I didn’t know that I had glaucoma until I went totally blind and went to the Georgetown Hospital.

“They were saying that the baby was feeding on the optic nerve and when the baby is born the sight will return. When that didn’t happen, then they came up with the fact that I had glaucoma,” she explained.

MIXED EMOTIONS
After long hours in the delivery room, many mothers gave way to their emotions at the sight of their new baby but, for Hazel who now could not see, it was a completely different experience with a mixture of emotions.
“I couldn’t see anything. I have never seen the baby. She’s in her thirties now and I’ve never seen her but I remember knowing her from her forehead. She has a little high forehead,” Hazel chuckled, adding:

“[One time] when one of the nurses came to my bed with two babies and they gave me the first one, when I take the baby and I felt it and I said, ‘No, this is not my baby’. So when she put the second one in my hand I said, ‘Yes, this is my baby and it was a big thing [as persons asked] how I knew. So I explained to them it was by her forehead.”
Hazel said raising a child while being blind was not easy, but at the time she had help from her sister, mother and, later on, a cousin.

She now has two children, both of whom, she says, have perfect sight.
Last April, Hazel graduated from a two-year computer course at the Open Doors Centre of National Vocational Training while, currently a member of the Guyana Society for the Blind, she is studying for the Caribbean Education Examination (CSEC) subjects, Office Administration and Social Studies.

Last Tuesday, she told this newspaper that she was presented with a laptop computer by the Ministry of Social Protection which will assist her in her studies and day-to-day communication.
Like the average housewife, Hazel cleans, washes, goes to the shop, takes trips locally and internationally and makes her favourites: black cake, metem, ochro and corilla.
However, things were not always easy for the woman. There were times when Hazel was affected by a number of experiences and some of the negative things people would say.

“I remember one time I was at Stabroek Market… it was me and a friend; we were going there to do some grocery shopping and I jammed a stand and the woman created a session, wanted to fight. But [later on] I think she was ashamed because she didn’t realize that I wasn’t seeing,” she recounted.

Telling of another occasion, Hazel said: “Sometimes when you going down the road you might hear people make some negative comments, ‘Why you don’t stay home?’. There was a time when things used to get under my skin but as you grow older you know how to cope with situations.”
She says the experiences do not occur as much as before, as persons are becoming much more helpful and added that her experience with God as a Seventh-Day Adventist is one which continues to strengthen her.

GOD FIRST
“I believe that there is a God. God doesn’t allow bad things to happen; it is the devil that causes these things to happen. Why I put God in front of everything is because I am here and when I call upon God and ask Him for anything, it might not happen the same time but I get answers,” she said.

Finally, leaving words of encouragement to many others out there, Hazel said:
“What I would like to say to my colleagues who are blind or visually impaired is: accept your disability first and then you will deal with the rest. Life is not easy where ever you go, but you have to make the best out of it and just go about and fix the things that you can fix and leave the rest for God.”