Dad’s belt damaged my eye at six, treatment delay left me blind — FUOYE student

Twenty-year-old Esther Oriyomi tells GRACE EDEMA how she lost her left eye as a child after she was injured while being flogged by her father with a belt, and how her parents failed to seek proper medical treatment early enough to prevent the experience she currently faces.

I’m from Ondo State. Ondo is my hometown. I’m currently 20 years old. I’m a student of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, in Ekiti State. I’m in 100-level in the Department of English and Literary Studies, Faculty of Arts.

I reside in Lagos. My mum is late, but my dad is still alive. I have four siblings, and I’m the second-born and also the second daughter.

You were narrating an issue about your eye on TikTok. What really happened?

I was about six years old when it happened. It was around December 23, during the Christmas period. My dad got back from work early that morning. My mum was in the house with her friends, and I was in the parlour with some other children. We were playing, and the noise disturbed my dad.

So, he got up and came to warn us to stop playing because it was disturbing his sleep. We stopped for a while. I didn’t join them to play anymore, but the others kept playing. By the time my dad came outside again, he just turned to me directly and flogged me with a belt. In the process, the iron part of the belt hit my left eye, and it started bleeding.

At first, we used an ice pack to contain the bleeding and reduce the swelling. After some time, we went to see a doctor, though not an eye specialist. The doctor gave me prescriptions for eye drops, pain relievers, and other medications, which I used.

After a while, I started feeling better. It took me about two months to recover, and for some time, I didn’t notice anything going wrong.

Then, after about six to eight months, I started having blurry vision. My teacher started complaining to my mum that I wasn’t writing correctly. Whenever she gave me assignments, I would write something entirely different in my notebook. So, my mum had to come to the school.

What happened after your teachers noticed you were having difficulty seeing properly?

They looked for a place for me to sit at the front of the class. My mum spoke with the head teacher. I don’t know exactly what they discussed, but after that, I started sitting at the front, and the teacher began monitoring me closely.

After a while, my vision became worse and unbalanced. One eye was okay, but the other eye was not. So, I complained to my parents that I was not seeing clearly. Most times when they sent me on errands, I would trip, fall, or hit things. Things were just going wrong.

I kept complaining, and they said they would take me to see an eye specialist or an optician, but that never happened until I got into JSS1, when it became very bad. By then, I had already developed strabismus, and it was becoming very obvious.

When did your parents finally take the condition seriously?

They took it very seriously when the strabismus became obvious. We went to the first eye clinic, but I was misdiagnosed. They diagnosed me wrongly and told me they could not operate on me until I turned 14.

They prescribed glasses for me, and I used them until I got to SS1. My mum later noticed that the eye was not improving, so she became very worried.

What happened when your condition did not improve?

I attended Federal Government College, Idoani, in Ondo State. By the time I got to SS1, my mum had to take me out of school temporarily. I came down to Lagos, and we went to a completely different eye clinic.

That was when we realised that the first clinic had given me a wrong diagnosis. From there, we started proper follow-up treatment. We were referred to two different eye clinics and underwent several eye tests to determine the underlying cause. The doctors kept asking why I didn’t come earlier because, according to them, the condition had already become very serious.

Were you eventually scheduled for surgery?

Yes, I was scheduled for surgery at the time, but I eventually did not go through with it. I honestly don’t know why, but the reason was known to my parents. My mum is late now, so I can’t even ask her about it anymore. But in the end, I did not go for the surgery.

After that period passed, I went back to school. I returned in SS3, graduated, and everything continued normally for a while. But long before my mum died, she said she could not continue sitting down and watching my eye get worse. She took me to another eye clinic, and from there, we were referred to another clinic in Ikeja.

They carried out some tests there, and the doctor, who was an ophthalmologist and surgeon, told us that there was nothing much he could do because the condition had lasted too long. He said we should have attended to it much earlier. He also explained that even surgery would only have a 50-50 chance of success.

What was your mother’s reaction to that?

My mum pleaded with them to do anything at all they could do to help me. But the ophthalmologist said he was sorry and that there was really nothing he could do. So, we went back home. About a year later, my mum passed away.

What year was that, and how old were you then?

That was in 2023. I was 17 years old when she passed.

Sorry about that. What happened after your mother passed away?

The year after that, I started experiencing severe headaches and serious pains in my left eye, the same eye where the trauma had happened. It became so bad that I could not sleep at night. I could not read or do anything at all comfortably because the headaches were persistent. So, I had to go back to check my eyes again.

Which hospital did you visit at that point?

The eye clinic I first went to in Agbara, Ogun State, referred me to another specialist hospital. I went there with the referral letter, and the specialists attended to me. I think I went there for three consecutive days. On the last day, I met with the surgeon there and also the specialist who attended to me on the first day I arrived.

They called me in after checking the results of the eye scan I did. They told me they were sorry, but they could not go ahead with the surgery because there was no assurance that I would regain sight in my left eye. According to them, carrying out the surgery might just end up being a waste of money.

They also told me to come back for a follow-up in six months because there is an 80 per cent chance that the retinal detachment could spread from the left eye to the right eye. I left the hospital with that diagnosis, and since then, I’ve just been managing myself with painkillers for the headaches up till this moment.

Are you saying the pain and headaches have continued?

What steps has he taken concerning your condition?

I don’t really know. Maybe he has taken some personal steps, but he has not really taken any that I can clearly see.

Are you still living with him?