
The Designer With Double Vision
Some Jabbering First
For the last two months or so, I’ve been in an internal conflict on whether to write this article or not. I wasn’t sure if the topic itself would appeal to the design community, mostly because the angle is far from being educational or inspiring at all — Even if I’d have to label it, I think it would fall under the “sensationalist” category, but I guess that is not up to me to judge.
One of the reasons it is hard to talk about this on my first ever written article is probably because I always pictured it to be about an outstanding personal design achievement or at least something that would inspire people to create amazing things. I’m often my worst enemy, and thinking that people could be even remotely interested in what I have to say, is pretty much science fiction to me.
After some drunk pondering, a bit of social pressure, and against my own belief on over-sharing personal matters on social media, I realized that I owe to myself to let this chapter of my life to be finally closed. I’ve never been someone who enjoys writing inspirational content on social media, nor I like to see that shit on my feed, so perhaps use my story solely as a reminder to be grateful for having a physically capable body that allows you to do what you love for a living.

A Drunken Tale
On the night of December 2018, after celebrating my 1st official vacation day of the year, I got attacked on the nasty & weed-smelling streets from downtown Vancouver by a stranger outside a bar near my house. No matter how many times I’ve said this to myself, It always gives me a weird sense of shame accompanied by a pang of numbing guilt. I have no way to explain this; there is an irrational mix of emotions, and the thought itself creates a cold, blurry, dreamlike effect inside my head that feels like a surreal episode in my life, almost like when you have dreams about being naked in front of hundreds of people — You can’t do much except to embrace it, knowing that you look like a fool trying to cover the obvious; Your naked self, exposed into hundreds of judgy eyes that keep telling you it is ok, but it’s not ok. I often try to swallow these feelings away, but they usually turn into “what would’ve happened” afterthoughts.
I don’t consider myself superstitious, but I must say that after that night, I read “signs” from the universe quite differently than I did before. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I agree, it is not fair to blame the universe or anyone else for the stupid decisions we make in life. If I would’ve had to take silly comedy shows more seriously back then, I would’ve known that “nothing good happens after 2:00 am”. but none of this would have mattered If I were only able to read all of the signs the universe was spitting on me that night. I don’t want to get you all turned off with the boring details of these signs without context so I’ll go over these in a more visually appealing article, with an even more sensationalist title soon.
As I mentioned before, I’ve spent my night celebrating. While I wasn’t in my most intelligently glorious state of mind, I was definitely not in a shitfaced ape state either, though the 2:00 am rule was far from being broken and the multiple signs from the universe at this point had been utterly ignored, I don’t recall a single reason to be attacked that night. Could’ve been something I did at the bar moments before? Or perhaps I just have a punchable face? Who the fuck knows?! The truth is, until today — I can’t find the motivation for the attacker to follow me, get close enough to finally sucker punch me. After some reenactments in my head — without finding a justifiable or logical reason, I just finally concluded that the dude was just a bully. I reckon this fact is probably what makes it embarrassing to me — Nobody wants to be the victim of a bully and certainly not when you’re at a disadvantage and by disadvantage, I mean being unaware you’re going to be attacked.
As a teenager, I got into a few physical disputes, and honestly, there was more honor in those school rivalries than most fights I’ve witnessed as a grown-up. Nowadays, punching someone without warning is seen as a legitimate defense reaction, even when there are no justifiable reasons that indicate you were in danger in the first place. In my experience, at least when you were teased or bullied by a pubescent brat, you always had an option for standing up for yourself or ignore the bully. Of course, there were consequences for either fight or bail and yes, bailing basically meant more bullying, but if you were in danger or somebody wanted to beat the shit out of you, there was always a sense of awareness and definitely an option, whether it meant to fight or at least run the fuck away. What I’m trying to say here is: fuck sucker punches and all of those who have attacked unaware victims, it is not brave, certainly not honorable. It is dangerous as fuck; in fact, I was shocked when I learned how often people get seriously injured or even die because of drunkards that throw sucker punches to random innocents, at least in British Columbia.

Just like the identity of the attacker and the motivations behind the sinister, the punch itself was apparently one of those 1 in a 1000 type of attacks. While I have no legitimate proof on the statistics here — at least a couple of specialists agreed on the oddly unilateral trajectory of the impact. Meaning that the attack was abnormally precise to be an “average” fist punch; now, this could’ve meant two things: 1) The attack was performed by someone who knows how to throw a good punch, a.k.a. Someone with “full contact” martial arts experience (Karate, MMA, jiu-jitsu, Box, etc.) or 2) The attacker had some sort of weapon like metal knuckles or rings. There was a 3rd theory from an experienced optometrist that suggested the impact was the result of multiple attacks while I was on the floor — there was a probability I was unconscious long enough to be a subject of numerous hits or even by multiple people.
The Physical Toll And The Emotional Crusade
The aftermath left me with a severe ocular contusion in both eyes that caused microhyphema, multiple corneal abrasions, and an orbital floor bone fracture that caused a restriction of the inferior rectus muscle. Honestly, these odd terms didn’t mean anything to me, my brain did a compilation of enough words to realize it was serious but, at this point, I had no clue on how delicate the situation was. My vision was still blurry, my face was slightly swollen, but none of these things were a red flag until the doctor told me there was a chance I could lose my full vision on both eyes.

The notice itself was fucking scary — The surrealist tone of those words coming out of that pale emotionless and weird Dougie Howser-ish looking doctor felt like a second punch. Knowing your entire professional career depends on your eyes’ health, makes it even harder to process, and it is not an exaggeration when I say it felt tragic, like a movie with a “formulaic but effective script that for sure is going to make you cry” kind of tragic.

While I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown and with an overwhelming unfiltered bundle of hypothetical fears piercing my head during the first couple of hours, my eyes had to be kept in a 45° to 90° position for the next 7 days so they could stop bleeding.
After a long, excruciating, demoralizing and painful week, my eyes finally stopped bleeding and I was ready for surgery — I’m not going to lie, the procedure is painful and the first 72 hours are scary as fuck, mostly because the incision they made on my bottom eyelid was a little too close to my eye and while I was still able to close them, the long nylon suture kept poking the inner side of my left eye, so it felt pretty much like a little chamber of torture.


Since my eyes were too sensitive to light, all the cleaning sessions had to be done in the dark, so you don’t get to see anything except fractal-like shapes, similar to phosphenes when you rub your eyes, except wilder due the stress and dizziness.

Once I finally left the hospital, the recovery after the surgery was in theory, easy to follow — the real challenge relies on your ability to do absolutely nothing, without a movement and obviously without forcing your eyes into any effort that might damage your vision, meaning that all screens or direct light sources should be avoided… all of them. Have you heard about digital detox? Well, I was in the motherfucking Betty Ford program of digital detox, in my own home, without paying a penny for it. I guess it cost me a damaged set of eyes, but who cares as long as it works, right? No cellphones, no tv, and tons of time with myself not only made me dull, but it also made me feel anxious and imaginative, the uncool kind of imaginative (yes yes, a lame “shining” reference).
A few months after the 1st surgery, I started to regain some strength on the muscles around my eyes, and my vision improved, I had less sensitivity to light and I was able to have more screen time gradually. The double vision was persistent though.

The most frustrating part of my journey was witnessing the incredulity from multiple specialists when I was trying to explain to them that I was still experiencing some visual anomalies — my vision was still not great. There was no way I could convince the doctors that there was a slim chance that their diagnose was perhaps refutable. I think one problem with public healthcare is that doctors rely religiously on their machines, and they can easily discard the patient’s emotional state of mind. On the one hand, I’m not trying to assume I know better, but on the other, I was appalled by their stubbornness and resistance to hear what I had to say about a physical condition that was breaking me not only physically but emotionally too.
For the next 3 or 4 months, I went through a drastic change in my daily routines; I was mostly experimenting and adding tasks in my day to day, based on my ability to do things, ie: Sometimes I’d sit on the bed and wait for hours till my eyes could get less sensitive to natural light, while other days I’d just force them into looking at screen sources to gradually desensitize my brain from intense cool lights — fun stuff.

During this time, I tried to learn more about my condition — I was disappointed to see the lack of quality materials on the matter, in fact, I don’t remember any relevant information in regards to designers or artists with these conditions as most of the articles out there are written strictly from a medical standpoint. Most of them are merely informative with no real case studies or testimonials from creatives or artists whatsoever.
I did find a few interesting visual interpretations from a variety of artists that exemplified the effects of double and blurred vision — some of these artists have gone through some physical shock in their life. Some of them have experienced hallucinogens that have helped them to visualize the optical effect of diplopia, but I couldn’t find proof that any of them have the syndrome themselves. Perhaps the visual representation might be different from each individual but I found the following quite interesting and some pretty accurate.
(All art has been reformatted because my OCD)







Light after Darkness
After a second surgery (laser PTK) my vision has improved considerably, but it is not the same anymore — After almost a year I still have diplopia and some weird little thingy called eye floaters that can be annoying when staring even at a low light monitors. The overlapping images can sometimes affect the time it takes me to create things, mostly because it’s hard to focus or to spot small details on compositions with big dimensions. I use now the magnifying glass on my laptop and all my apps, which I now consider to be the best feature a phone could have.
The good news is that there is a chance these symptoms may decrease over time — according to the doctors, my brain will compensate the erratic way my eyes are processing light by synchronizing and adapting the images on each eye. That’s fucking cool, brain!

Time To Move On
All sorts of colorful situations have been triggered thanks to this shitty experience; Some good and some bad ones. I have tried to process what happened more philosophically, but I haven’t found anything enlightening enough so far other the overwhelming support from my beloved family and friends. Despite the rollercoaster of feelings, I think I’ve learned very little from the experience itself, and I wish I could give you something more insightful to chew on. “No moral this story has” (Yoda voice), but that is ok with me, life happens and I’m glad I was finally able to write about it.
I’m grateful for all the people who showed me their love & support and I finally feel ready to move on and do what I love the most. Hopefully, my next article can be more substantial and rich, design-wise.
See you next time and please, take care of your eyeballs, be glad you have a healthy vision that allows you to do what you love.


