I was so young that I only remember bits and pieces of the whole experience, including the time I spent in the hospital. Obviously, it became a life-changing experience, but, until I was in my 30s, not for the best. My parents always saw me as being disabled and not capable of accomplishing much in life. As such, I was never encouraged or pushed to excel. That didn’t stop me, however; it just made the experience of doing so more of a challenge.

My toughest times were in school. Kids were just as cruel then as they are today, so I had to endure the name-calling, bullying and not being picked for sports teams. My parents never let me play team sports such as baseball or football. In high school, I was the only person (out of 22) not selected to be in a club that was voted on by fellow students. It was devastating, and I could hardly wait to get out of school and prove myself on my own.

Shortly after H.S. graduation, I took up tennis and became quite good, playing at 3.5 – 4.0 USTA level until I was well into my 40s and the “itis brothers” starting causing more bodily pain that it was worth. I certainly wasn’t a great player, but very competitive in area tournaments. My greatest pleasure was beating a very good friend who didn’t realize I was monovision. It was hilarious to hear him say, “You mean I’ve been being beaten by someone with ONE EYE?” As a tough military officer, it was hard for him to take… you know, being beaten by an inferior form of the species!

I struggled socially and didn’t date except sporatically until my mid-20s. There were plenty of full-vision guys out there, so I couldn’t imagine why a nice girl would “settle” for someone like me. That is, until I got a call one evening from a beautiful school teacher who called to ask me to take her to her school’s Christmas party.

I couldn’t believe it! Anyway, we had a great time, fell in love and have now been married for over 30 years.

There were two other major factors that changed my life and allowed me to focus on the positives that had eluded me for so much of my life. First was that I had an enucleation of my eye and was fitted with a full prosthesis that provided a much more real look and provided (limited) movement of the prosthesis.

That replaced scleral shells that I had worn up to that point. Secondly was completing a 13-week Dale Carnegie course. The combination truly opened my eyes to optimism and self-confidence that I had mostly lacked in my early years.

During the past 20 years, I have had a very joyful life, full of a fun career in the newspaper, radio and TV industry, even doing on-air TV newscasts and hosting other TV shows. I starting doing about whatever I wanted to for recreation… tennis, motorcycling (lots of it!), canoeing, camping, swimming, water skiing, jet-skiing, etc.

Parents, if you’ve gotten this far reading my story, if you take nothing else from my experience and the experience of others, it is that you MUST be a source of total encouragement to your child who has lost an eye.

Don’t you dare tell your youngster he/she can’t do something because of his vision. Fill him with hope, love and the encouragement he needs to make his life not just good, but great. Whatever his attitude is about his situation, you are his greatest influence in making his life whole.

I had an effection in my left eye in 1979 (I was 6 years old at the time) Eventually I also had my eye removed. I also went through hell with kids teasing me. My story is VERY similar to yours. I was also not permitted to play contact sports like Rugby and ball games like cricket ot squash.

I did excell at waterpolo, golf and later martial arts.

For many years I had serious self asteem issues re having 1 eye and only later in life did I accept it. As I youngster I could never look people in the eye and this just drew more attention to my eye.

I am married and have a beautiful family 4 kids (Triplets that are 5 and a older boy that is 9)
My eldest boy (also named Tony) was born with a bilateral cleft lip and pallet and I can relate with him as to what he is going through.