Sage & Esther — Global Health Communications Agency

It started on a warm June morning in Toronto. I opened my laptop at 8 a.m. and was half-blind by 8:20.

Nothing reshapes your professional convictions like realising your eyesight depends on someone else’s guesswork. Misdiagnosis pushed me straight into a career where clarity isn’t optional, and accuracy isn’t negotiable.

Then came the floater…large enough to make everything else in the room irrelevant. Then the floater got bigger, and the room started to tilt around the problem. 

At what point does diagnostic humility matter in a system built on the cracked foundation of wait-list culture? In my case, that culture extended into the very idea of getting an answer.

By 8:45 a.m., I was crawling up the stairs of my home in Toronto, my body seizing in ways I chalked up to anxiety rather than accept the alternative. Fifteen minutes later, my vision had returned, but the paramedics still hadn’t arrived, even though my call had placed me under stroke protocol. You’d expect some urgency.

THE BEGINNING OF A DISTORTED REALITY

At that point, I decided I’d let them check my vitals and then go back inside to recover for the rest of the day. This is the part where my brain decided to intervene and decide that we have a tumour to rule out. Well, here comes the journey that unfolded what it is to realise a privileged life today. The revelation that occurred to me today, after hearing how normal my abnormal experiences are, required my defence to protect my own agency while intentionally handing over a piece of autonomy. Questionable? Not so much.  

We often talk about shattering the glass ceiling, but just for a day, I hoped for a little bit of roof over my head as the rest of the world came crashing down. Especially in a very real sense, not being able to see it with my own two eyes. 

When Normal Results Become a Cage

At the ER, the doctor ruled out glaucoma within minutes, dismissed stroke shortly after, and confidently attributed my sudden vision loss to sinus issues. The confidence in his voice felt almost rehearsed. I sat alone, staring at the tiled floor while he explained that everything looked normal. There was an emptiness to that word because normal was the farthest thing from what I was experiencing. But that was the beginning and the end of the conversation. A normal CT scan meant I was fine. My body insisted otherwise.

A Year of Uncertainty

Over the next nine months, the floaters that began as brief interruptions became constant, unnerving patterns. My vision kept shifting. I lost peripheral vision at random times, day or night, as if part of my field were being quietly erased. I woke many mornings with no vision in my left eye, waiting for the world to return at its own pace. Words on my phone hovered and distorted. Light felt sharp. Screens felt aggressive. Reality itself felt unstable.

Multiple ophthalmologists examined me. Each had a new explanation for symptoms that never changed. Dryness. Vitamin deficiency. Anxiety. Not one of them paused long enough to consider that my body might be telling the truth. Living alone in a body that will not behave, inside a system that will not listen, creates a very specific fear. It is quiet, persistent, and exhausting.

MY PERSONAL PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

My Toronto apartment turned into a dim cave out of necessity. Curtains stayed closed. Screens stayed dim. I wore glasses while sleeping because waking up to darkness was becoming routine. Days blurred into nights as I tried convincing myself I was imagining things, because the alternative was too frightening.

Temporary neurological symptoms appeared. More tests. More appointments. More reassurance from clinicians who seemed more invested in their theories than in my experience. Nothing was wrong on paper, but nothing felt right in my body. This is how people lose trust in healthcare. Not through a single failure, but through the slow erosion of being told that your reality is not real.

INDIA, AND THE FIRST REAL ANSWER

When I flew to India, I was not searching for clarity. I was searching for relief from the possibility that everything was in my head. A family friend urged me to see her ophthalmologist. I went out of politeness, not expectation.

Within minutes, the specialist paused the scan and said he could see the problem clearly. He turned the monitor toward me. Macular holes. Traction. Near retinal detachment. Vitreous degeneration that should not occur at my age. I felt something inside me break. I cried in his office in front of my family because it was the first time in a year that someone saw what I was living with. He told me that only a very small percentage of patients regain vision after an episode like mine. I thought about every morning I had woken up in darkness, every appointment where I was told nothing was wrong, every moment I wondered if I was losing my mind.

Treatment began immediately. Over the next few months, I received laser photocoagulation in both eyes. The fear did not disappear instantly, but clarity helped me breathe again.

A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM, NOT A PERSONAL ONE

My experience is not an anomaly. Diagnostic error affects millions worldwide. In Canada, an estimated one in twenty adults experiences a diagnostic mistake each year. In India, the sheer scale of healthcare delivery means errors persist in different, often unreported ways. Both systems struggle, but the impact on patients is remarkably similar.

The difference in my case was not geography. It was attention. In India, someone finally looked long enough to see what was right in front of them.

THE TECHNOLOGY THAT SAVED MY EYESIGHT

What ultimately stabilised my vision was not luck. It was technology, specifically a high-precision retinal laser system used for photocoagulation.

Most patients never hear about it. It sits quietly in ophthalmology clinics, doing its work without spectacle. But when the retina begins to pull or detach, that quiet machine becomes the difference between saved vision and irreversible loss.

Laser photocoagulation appears simple: a focused beam seals or reinforces weak or damaged areas. In reality, it is an orchestration of physics, engineering, and medicine. The device must deliver energy with microscopic accuracy. One incorrect pulse can cause harm. One correct pulse can save sight.

In my case, the laser treated the fragile edges of the macular holes and stabilised the pulling vitreous. It prevented early detachment from becoming a full one. Watching the surgeon work with the device was remarkable. No theatrics, no hesitation. Just practised confidence supported by reliable engineering.

For a year, uncertainty ruled my life because no one could explain what was happening inside my eye. In India, clarity arrived through an incredibly patient surgeon who looked long enough, and through technology built to intervene at the exact moment biology begins to fail. Neither was the hero alone. The outcome depended on both working in perfect alignment.

That experience revealed something important. Medtech is not an accessory to healthcare. It is the bridge between diagnosis and recovery. It is the difference between fear and stability. It is the reason someone like me, who once woke up to darkness, can now see the world again.

HOW THIS EXPERIENCE RESHAPED MY WORK

That year did not just alter my health, it reshaped my understanding of medicine, communication, and responsibility. It showed me how wide the gap can be between what a patient feels and what a system concludes. It showed me that clarity is not a luxury. It is the foundation upon which care is delivered.

So now, I build communication that bridges the space I fell into. I write for the patients who cannot find the right words. I translate medical information so that no one has to convince themselves they are imagining their symptoms the way I did.

A CLOSING NOTE

The isolation that comes with medical uncertainty — especially when you’re far from home, is the kind that sits quietly beside you, even in a crowded room.

Misdiagnosis rewired my understanding of accuracy. Clarity was what I needed most, and it is what I now work to create.

At Sage and Esther, we transform complex medical information into communication that patients can understand, clinicians can trust, and healthcare systems can rely on. If your work depends on clarity, we build the words that make that clarity possible.

A NOTE ON THE PERSON BEHIND THE LASER

The technology saved my eyesight, but only because the right person was guiding it. Dr. Atit Shah in Mumbai saw what no one else had taken the time to see, explained it with rare precision, and acted with the kind of steadiness that makes you trust the room again.

His clarity, tenacity, and refusal to accept easy answers changed the course of my life. Devices matter, but the person behind them matters more. In my case, that person was Dr. Shah.

Dr. Shah, thank you. I owe you my vision and a little extra for good measure.

This conversation continues at ananya@sageandesther.com 

If you write, I’ll read. Nothing gets lost in transit.