"If we were all the same, the world would be very boring..."

My parents said I was a clumsy child. I struggled to play catch and with depth perception. But I loved to read. If you couldn't find me, it was because I was holed up somewhere with my nose in a book; exploring Wonderland, adventuring with the Famous Five or imagining a world where mice attended dances (thank you, Beatrix Potter!).

I was at university studying English Literature in 2012 when I found out I needed glasses. I was getting headaches, and couldn't see the board properly. I went to the opticians. Problem fixed? Not quite.

Walking to class one day, I nearly fell over because I moved away from the curb so suddenly. I thought I was going to fall off it into the road, when in fact I had been nowhere near it. My friend laughed and asked me what I thought I was doing. Later that day, when I dropped my tea on the floor because I missed the countertop, she said "there's something wrong with you". I laughed, thinking she was making a joke. "Seriously, I think you have something wrong". I said I had always been like that, that it was normal. She said it wasn't a normal thing to happen, and suggested I might have Irlens Syndrome - something a friend of hers had.

Irlens Syndrome is a visual perceptive disorder, which means a person struggles with processing the visual information the brain receives from the eyes. It has a variety of different elements to it - not everyone will have the same experience or the same coping strategies. For more information, please see the website: Irlen — The Official Irlen International Website, Colored Lenses, Colored Overlays, Diagnosticians, Screeners

I had never heard of it before - it sounded made up. Nevertheless, I looked at the website, and took the online quiz, and got nearly 100%. Score! I arranged to have an Irlens Assessor come out to me, and when he assessed me, he said he was surprised I had got into university with all the difficulties I had! At the time, the glasses couldn't be made in the UK and had to come from America, with a cost to match. The £800 price tag made me baulk, but I was assured that Irlens Syndrome is classified as a disability under the 2010 Equality act, thus ensuring I could get Disabled Students Allowance.

The moment I got my new glasses, I felt as though my life was so much easier! I was writing my assignments in half the time, I wasn't falling over as much and I was reading for pleasure again.

Due to my prescription changes, I hadn't been able to get my Irlens glasses remade after university - I didn't know I could get help from the government through the Access to Work scheme. So I had struggled for 4 years - using overlays that weren't quite the right colour, and using blue paper to write on that didn't quite alleviate all my symptoms.

Starting my SNA course in 2019, I found out that I was entitled to file for the Access to Work scheme. I was assessed by a lovely person, who helped me facilitate all the red tape. Then, 8 weeks later, I was in possession of my lovely new reading glasses! This colour is different to the original colour I had in 2015, apparently, the colour you need can change!

I would not have made it through my SNA training without these glasses. For university, we had a lot of reading and computer work to do, and the lectures - in their brightly lit rooms - would have been nigh on impossible to sit through. For clinical practice, working under fluorescent lights, using the computer for everything but writing notes, writing notes on various colours of paper - long story short I wouldn't have been able to complete the course.

Now that you have a bit of background, here is a bit about the difficulties I face day to day now that I am qualified.

Computers: From medication administration to logging a maintenance job, to looking at vital observations; nearly everything is on the computer system now. And with that, things have different colours and different fonts. Some of the computers have smaller screens, which means everything is tiny, and sometimes I can spend 5 minutes just trying to find where on earth the mouse has disappeared to. With so many referrals to different services within the hospital being online, I have to take my time filling these out to ensure that there are no mistakes. Wanting to ensure that I remain professional, I find that it can take me twice as long as someone else to fill out an online form; or to see where something is written on the screen.

Paperwork: Someone, in their infinite wisdom, decided that different pieces of paperwork in a hospital should be different colours. For someone without a visual perceptive disorder, this is not even remotely a problem - in fact, it makes life easier. But for me, it means that I can struggle to read different notes even with my magic specs. Have you ever tried to read a bright orange document (and I mean bright orange - think Sunny D on steroids) with a doctors scrawl on it? Have you ever tried to read a doctors scrawl that looks like it wobbles around the page, floats and goes blurry? Although my glasses are great, when you throw random colours like orange into the mix, I find I still get some of the symptoms I have without my specs are present. This means I need to concentrate even more to read the notes - making me feel more tired more quickly. Then we have the Occupational Therapist notes - yellow; Physio notes - Green (with predominantly green-tinted glasses this is particularly weird); Nursing notes - cream; End of Life booklet - Purple. There are others, but these are the main ones I use.

Lights: It surely can't be a surprise that there are fluorescent lights everywhere in a hospital. And it may be barely perceptible to you, but to me, the flickering they give off is very obvious, very off-putting, and very straining to work under. With COVID, I find that wearing a mask coupled with my green specs makes my face inaccessible to patients; so I try to swap out for my normal specs when I am at the bedside. I will add that having a tinted lens whilst checking a skin condition is less than ideal, as the colours are altered; coupled with the fact that my tinted glasses cost approximately £400 - although I get the Access to Work scheme, I have to pay for them initially and claim the money back. I have had too many close calls with being hit in the face to warrant wearing them near a patient if I can help it! (I will add that these were not violent attacks, but scared patients with cognitive difficulties and I do not blame them in any way). I find that by 12:00, having been at work for 4.5 hours, I need to wear my tinted glasses nearly 100% of the time, rather than when I am reading or working on the computer to help alleviate the strain. By the time I reach the 6-hour mark I have normally got a headache; despite analgesia.

Why work 12 hours days you ask? Because I have tried working short days (8 hours), and I didn't personally find it helped. I just ended up with headaches on more days of the week than when I was working long days. The only shift where this improves is a night shift because we turn most of the lights off. But working nights is a lifestyle adjustment, one I am not sure I am ready to take yet (although I am close to conversion!)

Concentration: I find it very hard to concentrate for any length of time. In fact, so far this blog post has taken me over an hour to write, not including the 20-minute break I have taken away from the screen. And of course, I have my magic specs on. Nursing is a career option that requires long stints of concentration at a time. Medications, legal documentation, conversing with patients and other members of staff, understanding the body systems and the medical plan in place for care - all of it requires concentration. That is a lot of mental energy to expend, for anyone. As every job I do requires more focus, more concentration, more time - I tend to find that I have lapses in my concentration. I am aware of this, and try to complete my work in a way that means that I don't have to concentrate on one thing for any length of time. For example, when I write my notes, I try not to sit and write them all in one go - if I do, that is when I make mistakes. It is okay to make mistakes, provided you are candid and take any necessary steps to remedy/rectify the situation. But it is better to avoid putting yourself in a situation where you know you will make mistakes, no?

So you may well be thinking, why this career path? Why do something that clearly throws all these challenges at you? Because I have the capability. I may need to adapt my ways of working, to allow myself more time, and to have the correct equipment (think magic specs), and I may not remember it all the time; but I am good at my job. I am intuitive, perceptive and enjoy looking after people.

So it takes me a bit longer. So it means I have to take myself somewhere quiet to use the computer or to write my notes. So I wear green-tinted spectacles (and yes, part of me wishes I needed pink so I could say I see the world through rose-tinted glasses); and I embrace what makes me different. So what?

My being different through having Irlens Syndrome is no different to anything else that makes me different. Phew, that's of a lot of difference! Some people have dyspraxia, dyslexia, dyscalculia. Some people have pink hair, some people have 1 leg. Our differences mean that we see the world uniquely, have alternative life experiences and can each offer our own personal take on nursing. Ultimately, we all work to the same goal - to provide excellent care for anyone that walks through our doors. Regardless of anything being different.