"I feared losing my limbs, but I never thought about my eyesight": a year after life-changing injury

"When we were semi-encircled during the war, I looked at photos of children. I was afraid I would never see them again," says 35-year-old Denys Abdulin.

His fear came true. Only in a different way. He went blind.

It happened more than a year ago. How does Denys live? What exactly does he have to learn in this new world? And most importantly, how? Who helps with the rehabilitation and socialization of people like Denys - soldiers who have lost their eyesight due to injuries?

hromadske found out.

Routes from and to home

Bila Tserkva. At the entrance of a standard five-story building, two men in dark T-shirts and black sports shorts hold hands. The first one can barely see. He is checking the other, who is completely blind, as he navigates the street with a cane. He gives his companion a task to learn three routes: to the two nearest grocery stores, to a public transportation stop, and to an intersection.

"You show me the way to the beer bar and also the way to the toy store — I'll take my kids there," the visually impaired man laughs.

The first man is Vasyl Hoshovskyi, who came from Ivano-Frankivsk. He is a spatial orientation coach. He has been visually impaired since he was 8 years old. The second man is Denys Abdulin, a military man. He lost his sight last May while defending Sievierodonetsk.

The men are leaning over a tablet. It looks like a folder covered with dark cloth on the inside. It has a primitive map of the neighborhood where Denys lives, which looks like a kindergarten applique. The stripes are the road, the squares are the buildings. Vasyl, holding his protege's fingers in his own, moves them over the slightly blown stickers. This way Denys has to create an image in his head of where they are going.

The instructor puts a bracelet with tiny bells on his arm. If the soldier deviates from the route or is in danger, he will sound the bell.

The men set off. The heat is merciless even in the shade. It is about 35 degrees Celsius.

The nearest grocery store, Step, is no more than 50 meters away, in a neighboring building. Denys taps the curb with a cane with a ball on the end, which shows him the direction of travel. The curb turns, and he turns. He confidently crosses the road between the buildings: the fighter grew up in this neighborhood and has been to the store hundreds of times. He easily climbs the high stairs to the door. The shop assistant rushes to meet him:

"Hello, Denys! If you need anything, put your fingers in your mouth and whistle. I'll come out."

He laughs and heads back home. The coach stays behind. His gait is as elastic as a cat's. No need for bells for now. The soldier is doing a great job. A few minutes of smoke break on the bench: Denys feels the end of the cigarette with his finger and flicks the lighter. But the flame burns a hole in the middle. He does not notice this and continues smoking as usual.

Meanwhile, Vasyl explains that people who lost their sight in adulthood are better off than those who were born without it. Because the former have a memory, they know what everything looks like.

Denys walks the second route to several stores, including a coffee shop, perfectly. Although he came across stairs, a chain-link fence, street flowerpots, and a container of watermelons. Denys was happy when he found a melon among them.

"Leska, buy it," he ordered his wife. All this year and a half, this thin, funny 32-year-old woman has been his eyes. Today, she is filming her husband walking down the street alone for the first time, without the support of her elbow.

Again, they take a break at the entrance to their home.

The walking stick - 400 years as a universal means of safety and orientation

"Now we're going to do the hardest part," Vasyl says. "The intersection is difficult to master. And here it is so hot. Blind people have a high concentration of attention, it takes three times more energy than a person who can see. You are walking mechanically, while Denys is thinking about the route. It is clear that he will get tired quickly."

We move from the quiet yard to the noisy street. The sidewalk is crowded, and passersby look back at the tall, broad-shouldered man with tinted glasses, who is boldly poking his cane around. Some step aside to make way, others stare in silence. Denys uses his cane to feel for obstacles in his path: parked cars, building blocks. Somewhere the curb disappears, because flower beds have begun. He gets confused and takes a wrong turn. Vasyl jingles his bells to indicate the direction.

Before the intersection, the men stop. Using his cane, Denys felt that they were standing on a surface with truncated domes They are deliberately placed for the blind. They warn about intersections and stairs. The soldier listens for the cars to stop and turn quiet. Then it's safe to go. But a few seconds are lost, and before the man can cross the road, the red light flashes.

"However, drivers are supposed to wait for a person with a cane," the coach explains.

"You can tell who has bought a license and who hasn't," Denys laughs. "Leska and I once deliberately crossed in front of a car. So they had to stop."

On the other side of the street, he comes across a guide tile for the blind. The ball on the end of the stick has to fall into the groove. And if you roll it along the bottom of the groove, you'll walk smoothly. But everything around is lined with paving slabs, and the ball, falling into the cracks between them, confuses the man.

"Not everywhere signs for the blind are placed correctly. Therefore, a walking stick is a universal means of safety and orientation. And it has been for 400 years," Vasyl explains.

His verdict is that it's too early for Denys to start the third route. However, he is generally satisfied with his student.

Birds of a feather flock together

Where did Denys get his initial knowledge of how to move in space with a cane? And how did Vasyl come into his life?

Let's rewind a few hours. It’s me, Vasyl Hoshovskyi, and Olesia Perechenko, director of the All-Ukrainian League of Organizations of Persons with Visual Impairments "Modern View", set off early in the morning from Kyiv to Bila Tserkva. We talked on the way.

Olesia is blind herself and became the head of the union in 2019. It was created to work with military personnel who lost their sight due to war injuries. Since there is no specialized rehabilitation center for visually impaired people in Ukraine, they are sent to regular ones. And there are no specialists who can work with them.

She explains:

"That's why the soldiers just hung out there, attended treatment, and were led by the hand. They were visited by psychologists and social workers, who told them that everything would be fine. But the guys thought differently: ‘You have arms, legs, eyesight. Go away and don't sell me this.’

We use a different system with them, we call it ‘one to one for one's own’. Once I was invited to the hospital to see a guy with suicidal tendencies. He was missing an arm, a leg, and an eye. He was going to jump out the window. So I came. A delegation of doctors stood behind me. I said: ‘You can come out, I won't hurt him, and he won't hurt me either’. I did not know that he had no leg, so I offered him: ‘Let's go for a walk because your hospital smells weird’. - ‘I don't have a leg’. - ‘Oh, surprise, what are you going to do? Are you going to get prosthetics? Will you let me touch it when you get it done?’ - ‘But I have a high amputation’. - ‘So you're seducing me?’ And that was it. We giggled. We started talking, began to communicate. One day I came back from a conference abroad and he asked me: ‘Have you dumped me? You don't answer the phone. I bought myself an iPhone and installed a voice-activated program’. Now he has plans for his life and calls me every day to tell me about his achievements."

Without sight, you can do the same things as with it: get married, change professions

From 2019 to the present, Modern View and the charitable foundation of Oleksandr Tereshchenko (a defender of the Donetsk airport who has amputations of both arms - ed.) have been organizing off-site camps for veterans with complete vision loss. This is the only rehabilitation available to them in Ukraine today.

For two weeks, the specialists from Perechenko's team work with the fighters and teach them to be independent.

"A person has to acquire the first skills that will then develop to the level of full inclusion in life," says Olesia. "That is, personal hygiene, and the ability to find the right things, clean, cook, navigate in their home and on the street, visit shops. For example, I walk everywhere with a cane, and I ride the subway. 

We are also slowly working with the guys' minds. We want them not to feel sorry for themselves, not to whine, not to think that everyone should help. We teach them that a wife and mother are not their hired laborers. For those who do not have a family, we talk about creating one. Blind men can marry rather successfully. Vlad, whom we visited yesterday, is getting married any day now. He and his fiancée met before he was injured and chatted online, never seeing each other. And after he lost his sight, she found him in the hospital. Now she’s chuffed to be around him. And it is normal. Loss of sight does not affect such things. I tell the guys: you have to be interesting, simple, easy-going people. You should be able to fall for a girl if you like her."

During rehabilitation, fighters are also told about changing their profession or returning to the profession. There are blind teachers, lawyers, psychologists, journalists, managers, etc.

"You have to position yourself not as a person who cannot see, but as a specialist: give them a probationary period, a task. And they will hire you if you are competitive in this market. It all depends on how you feel in this state and how you can present yourself," Olesia emphasizes. "It is clear that to get a job, we need to be smarter than the sighted. If a person with ‘eyes’ can just sit down and answer the phone, we will have to make more effort."

Not everyone wants to come to the camp, not everyone wants to study there.

"I came for my mom," "If you come up to me with a cane, I'll throw you out the window," "I don't need anything" are common responses. But the team works with them, with their relatives, and the blind themselves "see" how others cope. And on the third day, they are already asking: "Give me a cane". And on the 7th day, they pick up an accessible phone.

"Technology helps a lot," explains Olesia. "Programs for the phone and computer appeared about ten years ago. You just need to learn how to use them. There are even programmers among the blind. I work absolutely fine on a computer," she shows the laptop she took with her to work in Bila Tserkva. And while the men were working out routes on the street, she held a conference in Denys's apartment, in a corner.

So, during the rehabilitation in the camps, the soldiers gained skills and went home. What about their adaptation to society? "Modern View" has launched a new methodology that has never been used in the country before. A team of specialists will visit the soldiers at home and work with their requests. Like today with Abdulin.

"There are about 60 soldiers on the list of our union who lost their eyesight in the war. Half of them have been to our camps, and we will continue to support them," says Olesia. “Others are awaiting rehabilitation. The next camp is in September. Of course, there are people from the front who have been left out of our attention. So we are looking for them and spreading the word."

The atmosphere at home: laughter, love and a vacuum cleaner

Denys's mother left the family when he was young, and his father died in the early noughties. He was raised by his grandmother. In fact, he brought his young wife Lesia to her three-room apartment 15 years ago. Their sons Vlad and David were born. They have been living together ever since. The 86-year-old grandmother has one room, the brothers have their room, and the parents have a walk-through room. Now it stands with the walls torn off. Before the full-scale invasion, Denys started renovating. He managed to finish the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and toilet. But the bedrooms are still waiting. Usyk the cat is lying down on the cold kitchen tiles. He was named after boxer Oleksandr Usyk. Denys was a boxer in his youth, and at the age of 15 he even became a Ukrainian junior champion.

Lesia is making tea in the kitchen. She pours it into her husband's beer mug. The Abdulins are treated to cake, candy, and blueberries. Olesia Perechenko sits down next to Denys. She is cheerful, full of jokes, and easy-going. She asks her protege whether he immediately settled in at home after the hospital.

"I fell once," he answers.

"I do recall there being an earthquake in Kyiv Oblast," she replies.

Everyone laughs. We drink to the victory. Olesia taps her fingernails on her cup so that Denys can find it and toast with it.

The husband boasts that he was able to vacuum the room before we arrived and unfold the dining room table where we are sitting. That under his supervision, his wife changed the motor in the vacuum cleaner.

"Yeah, I mastered the hammer drill and learned to drive," Lesia laughs.

"Well, you see how your husband motivates you to do new things, otherwise you would have sat around and done nothing," Olesia teases her and invites the couple to come to a conference on working with the blind in Kyiv at Ukrinform the next day. There will be specialists and military men whom Denys met in the camp.

Everyone at the table is discussing where to park a car in the capital and how to get to the subway.

"I used to get lost there as a sighted man, and now what will happen," Denys takes his wife's hand. He feels that it depends on her whether they leave tomorrow or not. Lesia's face looks worried. Everyone has long since switched to other topics, and she is wondering how she will get there. This is not an easy trip for her. Later, in private, she admits that she is used to living for others and does not think about herself. To keep herself from being overwhelmed, she doesn't let herself relax. It's good that her mother lives nearby and can watch her grandchildren. Otherwise, it would have been very difficult. (The next day, the Abdulins will come to the conference - ed.)

Her thoughts are interrupted by Denys and Olesia's laughter. They are talking about the camera on their phone. There's a program for the blind that voices what the camera sees, for example: "A woman on a bench, a tree behind her."

"I wonder if it will tell if the woman is naked?" Denys tries to make everyone laugh.

"For you, yes, for me, no," Olesia responds.

Then they talk about money. Olesia demonstrates how the phone recognizes banknotes. You hold it up to the camera, and a woman's voice says: "Two hundred hryvnias."

"We have cash problems, we don't need this," Denys jokes.

His wife responds with a joke of her own: she says she will place him on the "hundred-meter" stretch of the boulevard in the center where the townspeople go for walks. She will come home from her work as a social worker in the evening, and take him home from work:

"Why, everyone works. You will work too."

Everyone laughs.

His wife really wants Denys to find a job. But not to earn money, but for pleasure, so that he doesn't spend his days languishing.

When doctors said it was permanent, something broke inside

When we are alone with Denys, he tells us about his injury. His voice loses the bravura he used to hold onto before.

He, a loader from DIY store Epicenter, volunteered for the war right after the full-scale invasion. He defended Sievierodonetsk. On May 17, 2022, he and his comrades were in a house outside the city, which they chose to base themselves in because of a good basement.

"I was standing in a glazed veranda wearing a helmet, body armor, and an assault rifle. We did not hear any shelling with the guys. But we must have [failed to notice] a drone because they hit us very accurately. I didn't feel anything, it just seemed like fire came out of my eyes. It was a fragment that entered my head through my left ear and came out through my right eye. Four guys collapsed near me. All of them were [wounded] one of them had his arm almost torn off, and the others had light shrapnel wounds. All of them could not understand what was wrong with me: blood was pouring out of my eyes and ear."

He was bandaged at the local hospital. Then there were medical facilities in Dnipro and Kyiv. Denys kept trying to ask what was wrong with his eyes because he couldn't see. But he could not say a word. The fragment went through his head without damaging his brain. But on the way out, it shattered the bones of the orbit (where the eyeball is located), which includes the maxillary bone.

"I used to have a gap between my front teeth, but now my teeth are closer," he tries to smile.

When his spoken language got better, he asked his question more than once. One of his eyes was lost, and the other was buried in the bridge of his nose. One of the surgeons at Feofania Hospital pulled it out and performed six surgeries to try to save it. The doctor was ready to continue working if Denys could see at least a drop of light. But he did not.

"When the doctors said it was forever, something broke inside me. I felt sick: I broke out in a cold sweat and started to tremble. I was afraid of losing an arm or a leg, but I never thought about my eyesight”, he recalls. "I realized that I would never see my children or my wife. Leska jokes that she will always be young for me. At least I can touch them. And there are guys without eyes and hands," he exhales loudly.

The hope that he will see keeps him alive 

Denys perceives his blindness as temporary. He is kept alive by the hope that sooner or later the world will invent a way to see. Moreover, his optic nerves are still intact.

Denys and other fighters in the same condition are grasping at straws. One of them even created the “See Victory” Foundation and announced a fundraiser for a miracle chip. He heard that Spain has one, which is implanted in the brain, and a person regains his sight.

In the spring of 2023, an ophthalmologist from Ukraine went to Spain to study the issue. It turned out that there really is such a chip. But it worked on only one person. Her vision loss was insignificant. The chip was connected to a computer and stimulated the optic nerve through wires connected to the head. But for this purpose, she had to go to the clinic every day, as if it were her work.

"This will not work with our soldiers. But they do not lose hope and monitor technologies abroad. So far, there is nothing concrete, but several countries, including Israel, Spain, and America, say they are about to offer something.

It's good to believe, of course. But you have to learn to live an ordinary life. Because I have a friend who believes in the idea of technology so much that he doesn't want to pick up a cane or an accesible phone," Olesia Perechenko comments on the situation.

Denys still has to undergo several plastic surgeries to install artificial eyes. They will look aesthetically pleasing. For now, he wears black glasses to "not scare people".

He doesn't think about work, he says, but he'll do it later. He decided to learn basic computer programs so that he could at least turn on cartoons for his children.

I ask him about the future, and his answers are vague: "To take care of my health," "I'm worried about my sons, when school starts," "I have no purpose to go somewhere," "What joys are there in my condition, I can't even go swimming in the sea by myself."

Denys hugs everyone goodbye. This habit appeared when he lost his sight. When he hugs Olesia, he accidentally pokes her in the forearm with a lit cigarette. She screams in pain, and he is surprised. She immediately begins to poke him jokingly.

Olesia walks freely to the car, arm in arm with Vasyl. Denys clumsily stumbles to the building entrance, holding his hand out, groping the doorjamb. Everyone has returned to their own world.