{"id":6292,"date":"2025-07-21T11:29:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/bibliotheek\/ive-lost-my-eye-but-the-pain-remains\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:13:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:13:30","slug":"ive-lost-my-eye-but-the-pain-remains","status":"publish","type":"library_pt","link":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/library\/personal-stories\/ive-lost-my-eye-but-the-pain-remains\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I&#8217;ve lost my eye, but the pain remains&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-post-date\"><time datetime=\"2025-07-21T11:29:00+02:00\">21 July 2025<\/time><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Tony (69)<\/strong>:<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEarly in the morning on November 9, 2022, I got up to go to the bathroom. It was still dark. I felt dizzy for a moment and then fell straight onto the countertop. The corner hit my left eye directly. Luckily, my girlfriend was home. I crawled back to bed, but my eye was bleeding heavily and I was in a lot of pain. She called 112. A short time later, I was at the hospital in Leeuwarden. The ophthalmologist said my retina had detached and that I needed surgery right away. Because of the blood, they couldn\u2019t see how bad it was. I was referred to Groningen. A week later, we were told there: everything is damaged; this won\u2019t heal.           <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a moment, I thought things might turn out all right after all, because I could still see a tiny edge of the image for just a second. But that disappeared. A few days later, the pain began. A sharp, nerve-wracking pain\u2014which, according to the doctors, wasn\u2019t even possible. I was given medication, but the side effects were severe. Eventually, I made the decision: the eye had to go. It turned black and would slowly wither away. I always wore an eye patch. After the surgery, I thought for a moment that the pain was gone. But that was because of the anesthesia. That awful nerve pain came back.          <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I received injections at the pain clinic. They only helped for a very short time. It\u2019s been two and a half years now, and I still have nerve pain. Sometimes it radiates throughout my entire head. It gets worse when I\u2019m stressed. It was driving me to despair. I got help from a psychiatrist and was prescribed medication for depression. That helps me cope better. Music has also helped me: listening to it, playing it, keeping busy with it. And, of course, my girlfriend Uilkje. She took such good care of me during that first half-year after the accident.          <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I feel a little stronger now. I\u2019m biking again, driving, and going for walks. And I always wear safety goggles when I do DIY projects. I only have one eye left, and I take good care of it. The appearance of my prosthetic eye doesn\u2019t bother me. It\u2019s the pain\u2014that\u2019s what I find hard to live with. But I\u2019m not giving up. I\u2019ll keep hoping that things will get better someday.\u201d       <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Uilkje (66)<\/strong>:<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI remember it exactly. When it happened, I immediately thought: this is really bad. White fluid and blood were coming out of Tony\u2019s eye. It looked terrible. The first six months after the accident were the hardest. Tony was very depressed. He wouldn\u2019t go to bed until 5:00 a.m. and wouldn\u2019t get up until 5:00 p.m. I literally had to drag him out of bed.       <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He had a dog, so sometimes he had to go out, but he didn&#8217;t feel like doing anything. We didn\u2019t live together. I lived in Amsterdam. But I had just stopped working, so I was able to spend a lot of time with him. Still, I was very worried. He was so gloomy. He couldn\u2019t watch TV, drive a car, or even ride along as a passenger. All activities were too stimulating for him.       <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was afraid to leave him alone. Afraid he might hurt himself. Fortunately, he got help from a psychiatrist. He was prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotics. That really helped him. He\u2019s now slowly tapering off those medications. And I\u2019m seeing the old Tony come back. Only the nerve pain is still there.       <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tony got a really nice prosthetic eye. He looks great again. And I always felt like we\u2019d get through this together. We\u2019ve been together for seven years. I\u2019m a nurse, so it felt natural to take care of him. I was glad I could do that.     <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Things are going better now. Tony is pruning the trees in the garden again. He\u2019s driving again. It\u2019s nice to see that. Right after it happened, I thought, \u201cThis will never get better.\u201d But of course, I didn\u2019t say that. We\u2019ve come out of this stronger together. And I\u2019m proud of how far he\u2019s come.\u201d       <strong><em><br \/><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tony and Uilkje have been together for about 10 years now. They don&#8217;t live together. But luckily, Uilkje was nearby when Tony took a nasty fall.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":6293,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_daextauttol_enable_tooltips":""},"library_cat":[113],"class_list":["post-6292","library_pt","type-library_pt","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","library_cat-personal-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_pt\/6292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_pt"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/library_pt"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"library_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ver-ooginoog.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/library_cat?post=6292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}