New encourager: Bodo
“You need a heart, preferably a very big heart, to get through life happily – but even with your eyes, one is enough!”.
Now you know my motto in life.
I was diagnosed with retinoblastoma in 1973 at the age of 3. I am now 51 and have been living with my “artificial eye” for a good 48 years.
I think that’s a nicer term than “glass eye”, because the manufacturing process is simply a true art.
I now have a collection of around 40 of these masterpieces, as the prosthesis has to be replaced approximately every 1 to 2 years.
Despite the slight limitations caused by the missing right eye, I have had a fairly normal life so far.
I have remained childless, but this was not due to fear of my offspring developing retinoblastoma – it just happened that way.
I am now a stepfather and step-grandfather of two.
When I was a child, I was always called out with a mocking “You’re cross-eyed!”, but I didn’t suffer much from it.
I told these children that I couldn’t do that and why – and that was that.
I also had good friends who liked me and stuck by me.
It also helped me in my youth to know that there were other people, including famous ones, with the same “problem”, such as the actor Peter Falk (alias “Inspector Columbo”) and the show host Frank Elstner – the two of them were my personal encouragers.
I also had no problems in kindergarten and elementary school and had one or two first girlfriends.
After training as a car mechanic, I studied environmental engineering.
It should be noted here that I would no longer wholeheartedly recommend training in a trade to young people with one eye; there is a risk of damaging the remaining eye when working on building sites or in workshops and this should be avoided by choosing a different career.
But that’s up to you – it worked out well for me and maybe it’s just the anxiety and experience of old age that I’m talking about here.
The important thing for me to say is that even as a person with only one eye, “the whole world is open to you”.
Except for a career as a bus or streetcar driver, because we one-eyed people are denied a driver’s license for passenger transport… At the same time, the removal of my eye saved me from military service.
The Bundeswehr didn’t want to risk going blind in an accident.
Since graduating, I have had various jobs as an engineer, some of which lasted many years, and I was valued everywhere and the changes of employer always came from me.
I have also worked in sales with direct customer contact and as managing director of a trade company as well as an independent energy consultant.
As Head of Building Services Engineering at the “Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt” (PTB), I managed a team of 50 employees for 7 years.
I am now employed by the district of Wolfenbüttel, where I manage the “Department for Sustainability and Climate Protection” on the one hand and the office of the “Stiftung Zukunftsfonds Asse” on the other.
In both functions, I am in the public eye without my disability being a problem.
My free time is spent dancing, which is my wife and I’s great passion.
We are part of a standard formation of 8 couples aged between 28 and 72 and even dance tournaments in the 2nd Bundesliga with this cheerful group.
It’s a great sport, and I’m also happy to volunteer on the board of our club.
And the outlook: I’m looking forward to hopefully another 20 or 30 healthy and fun-loving years, like any 51-year-old.
And now for the high level of complaining: my right eyelid is starting to droop a little.
No wonder, given that it has had to wipe over a glass foreign body for 12 to 16 hours a day for almost 48 years.
A facial surgeon friend of mine has already told me that it will be a tiny operation if the eyelid really needs to be tightened at some point.
But that will have to wait until I retire…
The short version:
Life is wonderful.
And yes, it always includes strokes of fate.
But as a good friend once said: If you don’t have to suffer something, you don’t know how well you’re doing!
She’s right.
And a big thank you to the Bavarian village doctor, whose name I don’t even know – maybe I wouldn’t still be here without him.
And I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the last 48 years of my life as incredibly as I did.
