Amoeba robs actress of sight in one eye after contact with grit
It started with a piece of grit behind her contact lens. Within six weeks, Amanda Eckersley was blind in one eye.
The public servant from Upper Hutt, north of Wellington, was struck last year by the rare eye disease acanthamoeba keratitis.
The disease, which affects an average of only about eight people a year in New Zealand, is caused by a water-borne amoeba infecting the eye.
Eckersley’s best guess is that grit from a construction site near her home became trapped between her eye and her contact lens, causing a lesion on her cornea.
That then became infected by the amoeba while she was either swimming or showering.
Within a week, she was in hospital.
About five weeks later, she had lost the sight in her right eye.
She stayed in hospital throughout that time as doctors battled the illness.
The treatment was even worse than losing her sight, she said, as it killed the cornea, froze her face around the infected eye, and was excruciatingly painful.
‘‘They applied toxic drops every hour, so I did not sleep very much for 18 days.’’
Just when she thought things could not get any worse, her husband was made redundant and her father died.
But she remains determined to get on with life, and that includes pursuing her love of acting.
‘‘The important thing is that it can have your eye but it can’t take your life. I have to continue on with my life.’’
She is performing next month with Wellington Repertory in the play Our Country’s Good – and the effects of her illness have come to her aid.
Left with a drooping eyebrow and ‘‘white blindness’’ in her right eye, she is able to exploit her appearance in her role as Dabby Bryant – a tough convict in prison for a failed robbery.
Being able to return to acting is a big part of her recovery, and she is grateful that director Joanne Lisik was prepared to give her a chance.
Doctors have told her a cornea graft is a possibility to restore her sight, but for now she is concentrating on getting on with life.
‘‘You adapt to your new reality. I often bump into people on my blind side and apologise, explaining I have no peripheral vision.
‘‘I also have no depth perception, which makes parking interesting.’’ ●➤ Our Country’s Good runs from April 4 to April 14 at the Gryphon Theatre, 22 Ghuznee St, Wellington. To book tickets, go to wellington repertory.org.nz/bookings or email bookings@wellingtonrepertory.org.nz, or call 021 0820 2357.