Nystagmus.

They never stopped moving. They were dancing, jerking quickly back and forth like hyperactive elves on steroids. It was disturbing to watch them swinging to and fro like a pendulum on fast-forward. I watched them, I watched to whom these eyes belonged to and was filled with compassion, suddenly.

It is called Nystagmus. Congenital nystagmus refers to these involuntary jerking eye movements present from birth, often due to blindness.

Adil (*named changed to protect identity) was a patient I saw at my professor’s neurology clinic today. She had come in because of seizures, which had become more frequent because of her poor diabetic control. Though she laughed and joked with my professor, I could tell that her highly strung voice and pressured speech were filled with curiosity and a certain desperation. “Doctor doctor,” she said, “I want to ask you ah. My friend said… about my diabetes... Is it true?”

“And also ah, I want to ask you this, and this also…”

The consult was over, but she would not move. Her eyes jumped back and forth, as if desperately hunting for answers. My professor answered her every query patiently. I watched her pressing in for the answers to her endless questions, as if they were a way to fill the gap which her blindness had dug. She sat at the edge of her seat, relentlessly asking questions with her shrill, childish voice. I thought she was seventeen. I later learnt she was more than thirty.

There were many patients waiting outside, and my professor was keen to politely end the session. But as soon as she got up from her chair, she reached out her hand for mine and said, “Thank you. You're my doctor's student, right?”

The black beads in her eyes bounced back and forth like bullets.

I could not resist but ask, “Were you blind from birth, dear? How did it happen?”

“Oh,” she said, “I was born blind.”

Her elderly mother who had accompanied her answered, “She was a preterm baby, born at 7 months. The doctors said she became blind because of oxygen toxicity. It was either her brain or her eyes- they needed to get the high levels of oxygen to her brain to save her at the expense of her eyes.”

Adil interrupted her mother, explaining, “You know… I told myself, my brain is more important than my eyes, so even now, I still continue to be strong. I read Braille, I go out with friends, I help my mother with the housework…” All this time, her head hung low and her eyes continued to dart aimlessly, as if groping, searching for something.

She continued, “Do you know how I ended up in this hospital? My friend told me the eye doctors here are really good. Many years ago when I heard that, I thought there may be a chance I could see! To see!! Wow, I thought to myself, finally I could see… my mother’s face, flowers, the sky, colours… the colour RED! Wow. But then the doctor told me they could not help me, that’s when I broke down and cried… but now... now I think my brain is more important than my eyes.”

I held her hand. “Thank you for sharing.”

Later on, I asked a friend, “Why is that people born blind have such glaring nystagmus?”

“Oh, it’s because they can’t fixate their eyes, dear.”

People who are blind from birth have congenital nystagmus because their eyes are unable to see, and hence unable to fixate. Their eyes dart about aimlessly, because they cannot focus.

The blind can’t fixate their eyes.


Am I blind, too?

Of late, my eyes have been so unfocused. With the new medical programme and demands to decide on our area of specialty SOON, NOW, RIGHT NOW, my eyes have been roving, scanning the horizons for a glimpse of a glorious meadow. To and fro, back and forth they scan, but find nothing. God, what do you want me to do? Why is it nothing seems to fit? I wish I could tell you I knew what to do, that I found something I loved and knew I could do for the rest of my life. But it is not so. What I love I do not think I could do forever, and what I think I could do forever I do not love with that giddy exuberance. It is like forcing me to marry now. It’s not fair, and I’m not ready to make a decision of such gravity. My eyes are tired from searching, and I want to fall asleep. My lids are heavy. The System is making me decide, and I am afraid. Is it Ophthalmology, is it General Surgery, is it Obstetrics or is it Internal Medicine? Is it none of the above, is it Public Heath?

In general, nystagmus improves when the patient tries to fixate or look directly at an object, worsens when the patient is sick or fatigued and may even stop in certain directions of gaze, or when looking at objects closely, with convergence.

I wondered, would my own emotional and spiritual nystagmus improve when I started to fix my eyes on God, too? Would they finally be aligned and would my vision be clear once I stopped roving and started to look in the right direction, started to fixate upwards?

So perhaps, it is not that I have been myopic that I have failed to see. But maybe, simply impatient and looking in the wrong directions. My eyes are scanning the horizon anxiously, without the ability to fixate.

And so I pray, that my eyes may be drawn back to the One who really matters. Because it is only when I look up and fixate my eyes on what’s truly important that perhaps, my sight and 6/6 vision will be restored again.

Photo by Xi.

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,

the author and perfecter of our faith,

who for the joy set before him endured the cross,

scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men,

so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

- Hebrews 12:2