When I was younger, I loved playing sports. You name it, I played it: hockey, cricket and best of all, tennis. I always dreamed of playing at Wimbledon and sport was my entire life. You wouldn't have thought that taking a shower could change all that, would you?

It all happened when I was 8 years old. I'd just been kayaking, so I needed to wash my hair to get the saltwater out before I could go rollerblading with friends. I was halfway through my shower when suddenly everything vanished. I couldn't see out of either of my eyes.

Terrified, I screamed and my Mum, Dad and brother came running. I'd managed to find my towel and was sitting down with it around me when they found me. I can't remember much from that moment onwards, but my Mum told me that they dressed me quickly and got me to casualty within 10 minutes.

Something was really wrong

As soon as I got to hospital I realised something was really wrong. I still couldn't see anything and my family were making such a fuss of me; kissing me and telling me they loved me. I screamed again; I was panicking. In fact, I continued to scream so loudly that I didn't heard the doctors say they were going to fix it all. They rushed me through for an emergency operation.

I came round the next day, roughly ten hours since I'd been sent into the operating theatre. My mum told me the doctors hadn't been able to fix my eyes during the operation; I remember how the words all came rushing out of her mouth.

The doctors told me they had no idea what was wrong with my eye. They said it may be the shampoo in my eyes and that I should go home and rest. If my sight didn't come back in a few hours, we should go straight back into hospital.

The rest of that day I slept and when I woke up, I could see again! I thought that was the end of it and that my trauma was over, but really it was just beginning.

Shattered dreams

It turned out only my right eye had vision. I went back and forth to the hospital every week for three months and eventually they decided there was nothing they could do for me. My dreams of playing at Wimbledon were shattered, because with only one eyed vision the tennis ball looked like it was in a different place to where it actually was.

*Some names may have been changed.

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A glimmer of hope

Two years later the doctors called me back in - I'd got so depressed over those years that I'd lost 1/2 stone in weight, which doesn't sound like much but I was already a stone and a half underweight to begin with. You can see why my family and the doctors were worried, so I assumed they wanted to talk to me about my weight.

To my surprise, this wasn't the reason the doctors wanted to see me. They actually had some really good news for me! Although they still didn't know what was really wrong, it turned out there was an operation I could have that might save my sight. Until then, I'd lost all hope… but suddenly there appeared to be a little glimmer of it.

The operation took seven hours and I wanted to know straight away whether or not it had worked. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know for another two weeks because I had to keep a patch on my eye to keep infections away.

I honestly had a great time in hospital over those couple of weeks. I'd got sick of the place over the past two years, but this time it was different because I had hope with me.

Success!

When the patch was finally removed, my sight was nearly perfect. I couldn't believe it! I screamed with happiness and all the nurses were so happy for me that they held a party for me on the ward.

Bigger celebrations were to come though: I got back home to find all my former tennis, cricket, kayaking, hockey, netball, football (pretty much every sport you can think of) coaches - all offering me my place back to me after I'd been forced to quit their teams. It was all such a fantastic feeling.

Back in my game

Three months later and I was training again, with adrenalin pumping through me every step of the way. I took up coasteering (jumping off cliffs - with an instructor and only in safe places, don't worry :]). With this new sport I found my confidence grew.

A couple of years on and I'm fully back in my game, travelling all of Britain playing for my regional tennis team. My dream of playing at Wimbledon is closer than ever, which after all I've been through, just goes to show, you should never, ever give up hope.