"I was 16 when I realised I couldn't see very well at night. I'd go out cycling with my friends and I'd be thinking, how the heck can they go so fast? I couldn't see a thing. I refused to believe it. I wanted to hide it, mainly from myself. I told myself I could still see. I just avoided going out at night.
"Little by little, my eyesight started deteriorating. At 18, I realised I couldn't play squash any more. Then I couldn't play tennis. Then football. I was always hoping that it wouldn't get any worse, but I knew in the back of my mind it would. I reached a point where I couldn't drive a car, ride a bike, or play sports. It was a constant fight with myself not to let it bother me.
"I was about 30 when I lost the central vision in my left eye, then my right eye went down about five years later. I still have some peripheral vision, but not enough to recognise anybody or anything. Only from the corner of my eye do I know whether it's daylight.
"It was three or four days after the operation that I started using the chip in my left eye. I looked like I'd been in a boxing match. Around my eye it was all black and blue and swollen. It was a long operation. When the chip was first turned on, I just saw flashes and flickering. It didn't make any sense. But in a matter of hours, everything started to get clearer. It's like seeing in black and white. When I looked at people for the first time, they looked like ghosts. Then things got sharper. I could make out large letters and tell the difference between someone in a white lab coat, a yellow shirt or a blue jacket.
"Getting used to the chip was a learning process. The greatest thing was that I was able to focus, and see something right there. We kept tuning the chip to make the images sharper. I felt like a test driver in Formula One. It was a good feeling. It was such a good adventure to be part of the project. I became the first person in the world to pass some visual tests with the chip. When the product is ready for the market, if there are no real setbacks, perhaps in a few years I will get it back."
