The last thing I remember is laying here in
my own bed. And I vaguely remember being taken
to the hospital. And then after that, I don’t
remember anything. When I woke up, it was
completely black. Absolutely black.
When Milena Channing was 29 years old, she
was left blind by a stroke.
My eyes are perfect, but it’s the damage
that the stroke did to my brain.
It had completely decimated her primary visual
cortex, that area at the back of the brain
that processes all of the information from
your eyes. But then, a little while later…
I was giving Stephanie a bath, and you know,
running the tap, running the water. I see
the water moving.
But then I went and told
all the doctors.
They said, “It’s her imagination.”
And then I started seeing
the rain coming down from the sky,
the windscreen wipers on,
the steam coming from a coffee
cup.
And though she couldn’t see her daughter…
I would see a ponytail moving left to right.
It seemed to be things that were moving. But
nobody believed me.
She visited neurologists in Canada who showed
her this weird shifting grid.
I’d actually started crying, because I could
see it.
It turns out there’s these modules in the
brain that are specialized for processing
higher order aspects of vision, like recognizing
faces or letters or motion. And it seemed
that in Milena’s brain, the information
coming through the eyes had found a way to
bypass that broken primary visual cortex and
still get out to that motion module,
a part of her brain that was apparently still intact.
It’s just amazing what I can see. I can
avoid obstacles and fill the kettle.
I’m seeing colors better,
but I can’t see people.
I don’t see your face. I mean you’re there,
but I just see the shadow.
That compartmental nature of vision 
that may have been her blessing
is also proving to be a quiet curse.
Just now and again it hits me that, you know,
why can’t I see my daughter’s face and
who does she look like, and it’s so frustrating.
And then I think about it for a while and then I think,
oh well,
at least I’m here.
