Which of the five senses do you value most of all?

Traditionally, humans have five senses and for the purpose of this article, I'm only referencing those five.

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Over the weekend, I played golf. I ended up in emergency. Now normal golfers may complain of a sore shoulder after a dodgy swing, sprain an ankle searching for a stray ball in the rough or suffer severe heatstroke after too much sun and not enough water. But not me. No, no... On the third hole, after a pretty damn good tee shot, I... well, I don't actually know what I did. I was walking along and then my eye was agony. I couldn't blink, I couldn't hold it open, it watered and it was agreed that I soon resembled a severely sleep-deprived panda after a night with the wolf pack from The Hangover...


Long story short, it turns out I somehow scratched my cornea. I've never felt such unbearable pain and discomfort. I say discomfort because I could not open my eyes. On the way home from the hospital, my boyfriend bought me a McFlurry - a delicious, caramel and choc bicky McFlurry with gooey goodness and creamy yumminess... but I digress! I couldn't eat the damn thing because I couldn't see if I was dripping food all over the couch. I could only guess where the cup was and finding my own mouth wasn't much easier!

We curled up on the couch to watch football. I don't know about my boyfriend, but for me, that's one of my favourite parts of my week - watching the Liverpool match. Have you ever tried to 'listen' to a football match? I love football but listening to a football match is about as fun as sitting in on a 13 year old sleepover when the topic has turned to Justin Bieber. My dad argues that he 'listened' to Liverpool win the European Cup back in the 60s - but as he himself admits, the commentator on the radio was concious that his listeners could not see so made necessary adjustments.

I got up to go to bed and blindly made my way towards the hallway. My poor boyfriend quickly got up to frog-march me to the bedroom. I'm not sure if this was to save my poor struggling self or to stop me putting my hands all over his wall. But I felt bad when he had to do things for me. I currently wear braces so have to brush my teeth a lot. Putting toothpaste on my toothbrush is not fun when you're blind.

The doctor told me in order for my eye to get better I was not allowed to read, watch TV, look at a computer screen or drive. Do you know what is left to do when you take those things off the table? Not a lot. I 'listened' to a documentary on nuclear submarines. I tell you, hearing about how impressively huge a submarine is does not equal seeing it. Not even close.

Now I wasn't even blind. Other than the pain, my vision was only slightly blurry in the bad eye and my other eye perfectly fine and functional (once the pain I felt when in a state of permanent wink subsided). I enjoy watching DVD's with only subtitles on, I watched most of the 2010 World Cup in silence at 4am and could communicate by reading. I would miss smell and taste but really, life would go on. Touch would be a really difficult one to lose but I'm not entirely sure it's even possible to lose your sense of touch, is it? But after those few days, I have decided one thing. The one sense I could never live without is sight.

So I ask:

Please leave a comment below!

Miss SAMawdsley xx


PS: I want to tell the cutest story about my boyfriend! He drove me to the hospital late on Saturday night, all prepared to sit with me for hours. My eyes were closed for obvious reasons and the following conversation took place.
Him: "OK, we're here. Where do I go?"
Me: "You're looking for the signs that say 'emergency'. Park near there because we're going to emergency."
Him: "Emergency? Sam, your eye is sore, you aren't dying!!!"