Louis has succeeded in organising all the necessary showering and injection visits (not as easy as it sounds) and also attending a Melbourne GP with Helen.
Sally has been generously abandoning her home responsibilities with dog, rabbits and Lindsay to spend time with Helen during the week and give Louis a little freedom.
This morning I met with Louis and Helen in Kew and we went to see Dr F - an opthalmologist recommended by a friend of mine.
Essentially he confirmed that Helen's visual loss is permanent and likely to slowly decline. Almost certainly due to vessel damage - caused by the radiation treatment - which may have occurred anywhere along the course of the optic nerves throughout the brain.
Her left eye is down to just very faint light perception only, her right can see colour, shape and light but no detail (cannot make out faces). He made it clear that nothing we do will help to improve the damage that has occurred (and nothing we could have done would have prevented it). We are unlucky that the blindness developed so soon (relatively ) after the radiation as some people would have years after treatment, but apparently all people receiving brain radiation will eventually sustain significant visual loss as a result.
This is sad news and discouraging but not a surprise and it is helpful to have it stated so clearly. Also we learnt she should be eligible for a blind pension (and associated health-care card) which is really good news for us and something we weren't aware of before.
The delightful happenings of this afternoon - after the appointment Louis and Helen and I went out for coffee then back to the Mont Albert apartment where we rendezvoused with Sally and Lindsay. Later in the afternoon Alison came to visit from Castlemaine bringing with her her beautiful new reverie harp for Helen to have a go of! She has offered to lend it to Helen for as long as she would like to...
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