Breanna T., an emergency room nurse, was in the middle of her shift when something terrifying happened—her vision suddenly vanished.
“I looked up when someone called my name, and I couldn’t see who it was,” Breanna told PEOPLE. “Ten seconds earlier, I could see perfectly fine.”
The 33-year-old nurse was treating patients when her eyesight started failing in both eyes. Still on duty, she kept working while quietly trying to figure out what was wrong—checking her glasses, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels.
“I didn’t want to panic anyone,” she said. “I tried everything I could think of before telling my coworkers.”
After ruling out immediate dangers like a stroke—since she had no other symptoms—Breanna was told by doctors that the situation didn’t seem urgent and to follow up with a specialist later. But what followed was a five-day nightmare of uncertainty, frustration, and fear.
In a TikTok video that has since gone viral, Breanna walked viewers through her experience, starting with trying to book an emergency appointment with an optometrist—only to be turned away repeatedly.
“They wouldn’t even let me explain what was going on,” she said. “They’d just say there were no openings.”
Eventually, with help from her boyfriend and mother, Breanna secured an appointment. That visit changed everything. The optometrist immediately noticed swelling and extremely high pressure in her eyes—classic signs of acute angle closure glaucoma, a rare and sudden form of the disease that can lead to permanent vision loss if not treated quickly.
“It was 4:30 p.m. on a Friday. I was terrified I’d have to go back to the ER and start from scratch,” Breanna said.
She was told to stop taking a new antidepressant medication, which her doctors now believe triggered the condition—especially since her vision returned once the drug was out of her system. Medical scans later revealed she had an enlarged optic nerve, making her more vulnerable to developing glaucoma.
“I’d never even heard of this type of glaucoma,” she said. “In the ER, we usually see the slow-developing kind, not this sudden blindness.”
Even before her diagnosis, the emotional toll of being in the dark—literally and medically—was overwhelming. Breanna said she thought of her young son constantly.
“All I could think was, ‘Will I be able to see my son grow up?’”
After her sight returned, Breanna returned to work with a new perspective—not only as a nurse, but also as someone who had lived through a medical scare with no clear path to answers.
“I tell my patients to advocate for themselves, and now I’ve lived that advice,” she said. “You have to keep pushing until someone listens.”
Breanna also opened up about how difficult it can be as a woman in medicine—even working in the field didn’t shield her from being dismissed at first.
“Women are often brushed off. Even I felt like I wasn’t being taken seriously,” she said.
Now, Breanna receives regular checkups to monitor her eye health. Her experience has sparked widespread conversation online about medical advocacy, medication side effects, and the power of persistence.
“I didn’t follow a textbook case,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t sick. Not every illness looks the way you expect it to.”
