You would not think there could be a connection between my folks and building websites. My Mum and Dad were pure country folk, they loved the water and the simple lifestyle.

I loved building Websites

When I had my eye surgery I was staying with my folks. It was just after I had eye surgery for a retinal detachment in my left eye.  I could only see about a meter in front of myself, that’s about three feet in old terms, there was nothing I could do as my eyes were adjusting. But I could see the computer ok. It had to be the MacBook Pro, because the windows computer was just too hard on the eyes. I was building websites at that time.

You see when I returned from surgery, even though it was on one eye, both eyes had vision loss. I sat at opposite ends of the table to my Dad and I could not see him, so we changed and sat across the table from each other.  I could tell Dad was in shock. He even disappeared downstairs for a time while Mum and I had a cup of tea.  Dad had remove any clutter so I could safely get to the toilet, a job Mum had asked him to do for months. 

The interesting thing I remember about having the epiretinal membrane peel is the gas that is put back into the eye. It acts like a magnification glass. As I had to keep my head down for days, I began to notice all the hairs on my arms were magnified massively, it kept me amused for hours. I tried to explain what I was looking at to my folks… It was funny I had not noticed any hairs before.

I would go out on the balcony and look down over the water and marvel at the shapes. Even I was confused how I could go and have surgery on one eye and end up not seeing with both eyes. Dad would ask me what they done, because I was awake for the whole procedure. Dr Vote the surgeon only operated on one eye. 

I would go to Hobart on the bus for free, because they had given me a vision pass. I had gone from driving those buses only months earlier to requiring a vision pass and using a cane. It was from a whiplash while driving buses, that had caused the membrane tear in the first place.  I had avoided a collision, stopped very suddenly, whip-lashed my neck severally and the membrane in the back of the left eye detached all at the same time.

 Dad was worried for me because if I could not see

there was no future…

As much as I could, I would work on my computer, I must have been working on a website back then, because one day Dad is asking what are you working on? I had a web page open that I was working on, but what I was working on was a family portrait for them which I did not want him to see, so I switched.

I had never seen Dad was so intrigued with a website. Especially when I showed him how I could make money with it.  Then Dad said to me I should be building websites for other people. I was  blown away with what Dad said. For the first time he agreed with what I was working on.

I eventually finished the picture. There were two separate pictures of Mum that had to have the the background removed. I pasted the two pictures into a picture of us four siblings to creating one big family portrait, framed the picture and gave it to my folks for letting me stay there.

My folks were a little confused. When did you take this picture? My folks could not remember the photo being taken. Then I had to explain what I had done. You did this, yet you cant see past the table! You should do this for a living.

My folks were finally on my side… My folks encouraged me to pursue the graphic design and building websites. It felt good to finally have their blessing. My Mum and Dad have both passed away now and their legacy  has allowed me to continue building websites and follow my dreams.