Blind people do not always want sympathy

My eyeballs can be quite painful at times, particularly recently after having a bout of
optic neuritis. Medical professionals aren’t really sure what causes the pain as all my
eye problems are typically painless. But then, I wouldn’t be me if I had a typical eye
disease that did as it was told.

I find my eye pain to be quite intriguing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s annoying and
impractical and distracting at times, but it’s weird. It’s never bilateral. Every single
pain feels slightly different, for a different length of time, in a slightly different part of
the eyeball,  a different intensity … sometimes it’s constant, sometimes it throbs. Being
a scientist, I quite enjoy trying to figure out what it all means (though I’m not an eye
specialist so it’s more of a fun way to pass the time while my eyes won’t let me think
about much else) .

Today I sent my best friend the following text message:
“I just had the worst pain in my right eye I think I've ever had.”
One might think an appropriate response would be,
“Oh my gosh, are you ok? Do you need anything?”

But, in fact, it is not. As annoying as my eye pain can be sometimes it’s not something
that requires sympathy, just understanding.

I could not have asked for a better response:

“That’s quite inconvenient.”