‘Be compassionate to blind people’- Visually impaired woman urges
INGRID Fletchman is a visually impaired mother of five-three of whom are deceased. She recently celebrated her 66th birth anniversary, affirming that though the world around her is dark, she still has the will to survive.

With a fervent prayer that God would restore her sight, she also made a call for society to be more compassionate towards people who are blind or visually impaired.
Reflecting on the origin of her fate, she told the Pepperpot Magazine, “I went to sleep quite okay one night and woke up next morning unable to see. When I awoke I said my prayers, opened my eye but my sight just wasn’t there. After that, my life was never the same.”

She was rushed off to a private optician who checked her sight, did a random blood sugar test and informed her that the failure of her sight was diet related and that the nerves at the back of her eyes were bleeding and had become damaged. He urged her to cut down on her intake of sugar, fats and avoid becoming stressed out since stress triggers an amazing increase in blood-sugar-levels. She was given medication but contends that the persistent use of patent medicine might have negative spin-offs, hence she would prefer herbal medicine.

“Twelve years later and I am still not seeing,” Fletchman related, with an air of desperation this time, after not being able to easily source two particular types of leaves reputed to be good for sight problems.

She said that on another visit to the specialist, she was diagnosed as having cataract and so the specialist referred her to consultants at the Georgetown Public Hospital. Surgery was recommended and after a robust evaluation came the day when she would be prepared for cataract surgery. However, she objected to being injected under the lower eye to initiate a numbing process – she claims it is too painful a procedure.

Over time, life was becoming increasingly difficult for her, since she was no longer earning money and could no longer afford certain luxuries. Fletchman was offered humble accommodation at one of her daughters, within the young woman’s means. She accepted and eventually took up a job as a cleaner, but was forced to give it up since the mere pushing of the mop was proving difficult for her, she said.

“Through the years, I’ve gone through much. It’s like I’ve gone through a mill – crushed and grounded, and it’s getting worse, but I am not giving up,” she said. “But my aim is to get my own home where I can live comfortably and even reach out to help my daughter and grandchildren.”

She told of having acquired a plot of land from the Central Housing and Planning Authority (on the basis of her blindness), but is now required to come up with $100,000 towards the construction of a house.

And for her sustenance, she claims she has been showing up at a particular diner in the city where friends and family she’s known through the years would give her offerings (lunch and breakfast), enabling her to get back home before dark.

The Pepperpot Magazine observed that the woman who lives in Wortmanville travels alone and without a guide. Asked whether she’s not skeptical about that she responded:
“The anonymous Desiderata, found in an old Church in Baltimore’ Canada decades ago, until this day exhorts: “Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.”
For this cause, she says, her exhortation would be for persons to be kind and show love and compassion to people living in a dark world, groping to move around with only the will to survive.

Admitting that she could be exposed to risks, the woman recalled that just recently she had some notes of mixed denominations in her purse. As she was about to pay her fare to the conductor of the bus, he began hastening her. Becoming nervous, she pulled out what she perceived to be three twenty dollar notes and handed them over to him, but it turned out that she paid him three notes of a higher denomination.

Fletchman also recalls having literally developed an aversion for moving around with the use of a cane, recalling that sometime ago she stuck the cane into a metal grill, fell and broke her back. But despite these challenges, she continues to press forward in the hopes that one day she will be able to see again.