Thanks for visiting my page and for reading my story. Hopefully you choose to support my cause to help improve the lives of others giving the gift of sight to the one in five people who will have a serious sight condition in their life time.

Just to give an insight to how sight loss affects my life. Many people don’t know I was diagnosed after a routine optician appointment at 10 years old with kerataconus a rare eye condition. I was the youngest person to be diagnosed with it at the time and it began to seriously impact my life. Squinting became the norm to get any form of vision & the eyes are extremely sensitive to bright lights. My contact lens prescriptions were approx -16 to give people a reference for my vision. Without research into these conditions from charities like fight for sight I would not be able to see well enough to go about daily life.

Glasses cannot fix my vision enough to see well, lazer is not an option for this condition and it was too far gone for cross linking (slowing down the process). Surgery was the only option once the condition settled post puberty.

So I was forced to live with it & had to learn to put two contact lenses (piggy backing) in each eye which at 10 years old was pretty torturous. Some days I couldn’t keep them in so couldn’t read the boards in school & had to copy my classmates notes & some sports were just too difficult to play as I couldn’t follow the ball.

At 23 years old I had to move back to the uk from Australia to undergo several eye operations to remove and replace my right cornea with a donors. There was no certainty of success with the graft and it can still reject it at any point in time.

Thankfully the cornea graft was accepted after 2 years of minimal vision in the right eye. I had to lie flat in bed for 3 months post surgery to keep the eye pressure down. I tried to learn french to fight the boredom but failed miserably.

I even had local anaesthetic for the second procedure after disliking general and believe me watching someone operating on your eye and putting in & pulling out stitches I can assure you is not a pleasant experience.

The surgery did not improve my vision enough to stop me needing contact lenses & I still wear hard contact lenses and scleral lenses to be able to see. No daily lenses are on offer and I may need the graft replacing a few more times in my lifetime as they have a shelf life & the left one may be needed to be replaced at some point in the future.

I try to not make excuses and remain positive as everyone has their own issues with many having far more debilitating injuries/ birth defects than me. I continue to challenge myself through my property business, fatherhood & physical challenges.

Putting contact lenses in the Saharan desert during the MDS after sandstorms wasn’t the easiest with no sinks & limited water but this challenge to climb to higher altitudes with this eye condition may represent its own uniques challenges in freezing temperatures & lack of oxygen but it’s one I’m looking forward to testing my body and mind and feel free to follow my journey on Instagram @property_n_adventure

This is a self funded trip on through the Khumbu icefall to camp 3 (7300m) on Mount Everest & if I’m still strong & there’s a weather window & I have time before our new baby is born there’s a chance I could attempt a summit push.

The highest I’ve climbed previously is 6160m on island peak & Mt Kilimanjaro at 5895m where I was hit with altitude sickness and had a few issues reaching the summit so wish me luck I’ll definitely need it 😁

Thanks for all the support 

Adam 

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