Greetings fellow hivers and community members! It's been a long time since my last post, the longest I've ever been since first I joined Hive... I needed time there to readjust to my new life responsibilities and to establish myself toward achieving the goals I set until the end of the year. I talked a little about them in one of the last posts I made and if you want to know more you can read it here.

However, it is about time to rejoin the activity here on Hive and especially here on MED-HIVE community. Today I'm participating in the health weekly discussion that this community is proposing and with a very interesting topic to boost!

👀 If you wish to know more about the MED-HIVE weekly contest you can see all the information here 👀

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This week, we are being challenged to think about our vision health and sight, more specifically, to think how our day would about go if we were blind for 24h.

What if I was blind? Could I live the way I do right now? Would I be able to do what I love the most? Could I do my job without my sight?

These are some of the questions that immediately pooped into my head the moment I started to think about this... I'll try to answer them throughout this post.

My day typically starts with me waking up and snoozing the alarm at least 3 times before I actually get out of bed _{(note to self - yes, I'm kinda lazy in the morning 😆)} , sometime between 7:30-9 am. I usually do this with my eyes still half closed so I think up until this part, I wouldn't have problems without my sight.

Next, comes preparing some coffee mixed with almond milk _{(note to self - yes, I'm a creature of habits and I do love my coffee in the morning)} . This part might be tricky to do without my sight and I would probably depend on my boyfriend to help me with that.

I'll be honest with you dear reader, depending on others is somewhat hard for me... So I would probably try to get to the coffee machine on my own and do things alone. Probably, at some point or after I break something, I would have to admit defeat and wake my boyfriend up to help me prepare my coffee.

I would then go sit in my chill-out zone to drink my coffee, read some news or watch some financial/political analysis videos on Youtube. Now, here I might start to get some problems... You see, dear reader, I adore my chill-out spot because it's the sunniest place in the house and without my sight, I could not enjoy the blue sky, nor the clouds, and even worst I realize I could not see the cuteness of my cats every morning... _{(note to self - cmon, who can resist this? 👇)}

I could still listen to videos or use some app to read the news in a way a blind person could and that would not be a problem for me.

Afterwards, it's time to go to work and I imagine the struggles start to really affect my life. Depending on the day, I either go to the clinic I work by subway or public transportation or I go on house calls, and therefore I have to use my car. I usually go to the hospital by car as well because of time management of my working hours, but if I'm honest I could change to public transportation as well with a lot of effort.

Without my sight, it would be very hard to go from one place to another. I would lose the ability to travel independently and that, for me, is scary 😰.

Even if I managed to get to work, my job really depends on t. I need to see how a person moves, the subtle changes in one's body and posture. As a physiotherapist, I also use my hands a lot to feel the movements, joints, and muscles but my sight is a fundamental part of what I do!

If I lost my vision I would lose one of the most important parts of myself and one of the things I most love to do - my work. So, being forced to stay at home while being dependent on others would surely be a tough fact to accept.

Usually, after I go to work, I come home and have dinner with my boyfriend. He takes care of cooking dinner most days and I'm thankful to not have to go through cooking a meal while blind. I'm sure it would be very dangerous and hard to adjust. Although I also like to cook when time allows and I'm less overwhelmed by day-to-day life, it would also be hard to learn how to cook safely without my sight.

I and my boyfriend's time together are the few hours we spend from dinner time until bedtime and we both like to play video games, it's kinda our thing 💕. We, most of the time, play together a little bit after dinner and we often play co-op multiplayer games. _{(note to self - here is a picture of a castle we built on a game called Grounded 👇. Not wasted time at all 🤣)}

This is usually my time to relax and disconnect from work. It helps me quiet my mind and prevent it from overthinking or feeling guilty about the tasks I left undone _{(note to self - still working on this, with a few setbacks recently 🙃)}

Being blind would most definitely end my leisure time since if I wouldn't playing games, I would most of the time watch some TV series or films. Besides that, I like to read books and write in my diary and even that would be very hard to do as a blind person. At the very least, it would be hard to learn new ways to do that, like learning to read Braille.

At the end of the day, I realize my whole life has changed just for the "simple" fact I am without sight, a fact I take for granted _{(note to self - maybe all of us take it for granted)} .

I would be blinded to my very core, with no sense of where I am or where I want to be. Depending on others for basic daily tasks is one of my worst and biggest fears in life.

Finally, I come to think now that being out of vision would turn my nightmare into a reality and I definitely have to take better care of my eyes and vision!

That's it from me today dear reader! I guess I'm kinda relieved to see that my writing didn't change that much and I'm still making way too long posts (sorry for that but I like divergent 😆).

I acknowledge I went a bit overboard here and I believe it's a self-manifestation of my overcompensation habits 😅. At least, I'm very glad that it was in a post like this, something that made me reflect a lot on my habits and appreciate even more what I have and the fact I'm healthy.

Even though I know I have a lot of things to improve and take better care of my health overall _{(note to self - yes, health professionals do bad things too and have nasty habits)} , I know talking about it makes us realize there are simple steps we can make to be healthier. At the end of the day, our body is what enables us to be in this world and experience all the things it has to offer. We should take care of what really matters to us.

Lastly, I hope that this post and others made on the MED-HIVE community help bring health awareness across the Hive blockchain 🙏.

Thank you for your time and for staying with me until the end 🤗!

My previous health-related posts:

A guide for breathing | The importance of our diaphragm muscle

A 20-minute Pilates Class | Targeting Shoulder&Upper back | Mobility&Posture workout

MED-HIVE prompt week 1 | The Biomechanics of Pregnancy 🤰 | Part 1 - Postural changes | How it relates to my clinical practice

MED-HIVE prompt week 2 | Non-Communicable Diseases | Physical Activity - Benefits & Recommendations

MED-HIVE July Prompt | The role of physical activity on sleep health

MED-HIVE September Prompt | My history with recurrent torticollis and neck pain