Losing Eyesight while Gaining Vision

Today I am 43.  I have to pinch myself to believe it.  Pinch. Pinch.  Still not totally buying it.  When I look in the mirror I don't see a person who is middle aged, and yet, I am.  When my Mom threw a 40th birthday party for my Dad back in  March of 1980, I distinctly remember thinking, "Geez, my Dad is really old"!    There were the obvious gag gifts like bottles of Geritol and Over the Hill cards that worried me, but mostly it was the number. FORTY.  Somehow, age brings perspective to us all, and forty doesn't seem nearly as old as it did when our parents "joined the club". 

So, you might wonder what my birthday gift to myself is for the ripe old age of 43; I've just ordered my first prescription eye glasses.  For those of you who have worn contact lenses or eye glasses since childhood, you may find this totally non-monumental, but for me this is a MAJOR leap into middle age. It has been painful having to admit to myself that I no longer have my famed Eagle Eyes.

Jeffrey nicknamed me Eagle Eyes close to 21 years ago, near the time we met.  I had been blessed with 20/10 vision in both eyes.  Better than 20/20.  It is one of my few natural gifts, in addition to my freakishly long arms which can reach anything.  I've always been proud of my superior eyesight.  Jeff relied on me on road trips to read long distance signage on the highways, and my eyes never failed me.  Well, that is not entirely true...

Flashback to summer 1986.  My Mom took my little brother Michael, me and my best friend Hilken away to Brigantine Beach Island, NJ, near Atlantic City.  We were sweet 16.  It was a wonderful vacation in the sun, sand, seeing shows at the Resort Hotels and sneaking into the casinos underage.  On the drive home to Syracuse, we played the soundtrack to The Big Chill, and sang at the top of our salty lungs.  Suddenly, I saw it -- a decapitated body in the median.  SCREAMING. PANIC.  My Mom believed me.  We got off at the next exit.  Middle of upstate-boondock-nowheresville.  Stopped at the firehouse in a one-street town.  Within minutes, the entire town had collected -- old people on bicycles, children on their big wheels, rusty upstate NY pickup trucks.  We formed a caravan to find the body; half the town joined the investigation.  A greasy man named Vaughn rode shotgun to my Mother to ensure we stayed calm.  Later, my Mother had to sell her car to get rid of the grease stains he left behind on the camel colored upholstery.  No joke.  But, this is part is funny, well, now it's funny: it was a dead deer in the median, positioned in such a way that my eyes had been fooled.  Just like the "Sammy the Seal" story from my first blog post, you may imagine I never lived this down.  I can hear you saying it now, Only you Gillian!  Yes, only me.  Drama seems to follow me all of my days.  

And speaking of drama, my eyes are like the Phoenix which rises from the ashes.  If you didn't know me in January of 1999, you wouldn't know that my Eagle Eyes were nearly lost.  I went in, just before my 29th birthday for my third sinus surgery.  It was necessary to remove several small bones in my face (near my nose) to permanently open my right and left maxillary sinuses.  Against my better judgement, I agreed to have the procedure done in a surgery center.  The ENT surgeon began the surgery by injecting lidocaine up through my right nostril, intending it to go down into my right sinus, but the sinus had scarred closed and the lidocaine ended up traveling the path of least resistance and found it's way behind my right eye.  One thing lead to another and my eye ended up blowing up to the size of a tennis ball, and came entirely out of its socket!  The doctor cut an incision out the right side of my eye to relieve the pressure, gave me Mannitol to reduce the swelling and then things got worse.  In true Gillian fashion, my heart stopped and my lungs filled with pulmonary edema.  Three hours of CPR.  One Ambulance ride to the hospital.  One week of panicked doctors circling my bed.  Months of tests and recuperation.  Doctors worried that my optic nerve was done for.  They told me I might be permanently blind.  I looked like a battered woman, and every time Jeff took me to a doctor's appointment, people muttered under their breath about Jeff, "my abuser".  I had several plastic surgeries to repair my lower and upper eyelids.  Remarkably, my eyesight not only returned in time, but remarkably regenerated back to the original 20/10.  A miracle.  (P.S. No sinus surgery actually happened in 1999.  I waited until 2007 and finally had the procedure done successfully by a different surgeon.)

Happy ending?  Not quite.  This is a Gillian story after all!  In October of 1999, I went on a business trip to Miami, Florida.  Woke up to attend a conference in an air conditioned hotel room.  As my eyes flashed open to hit the alarm, my cornea TORE off.  Completely.  My right eyelid, now too small for my eye, had adhered to my cornea in the night. I ended up in a fetal position in a wheelchair which my face bandaged on a plane home the following morning.  It was the one time in my life when I understood how pain could make a person want to die.  Agony to the tenth power.  All these years later, I still have reoccurring corneal abrasions and must still use sterile lubricant/ointment in my eyes most nights. Not complaining, mind you, we all have our crosses to bear.  I share this with you so you might understand why I have such an unusual relationship with my eyes.

(As a side note, my favorite felines also seem to suffer in the eye department.  Several years ago, my kitty boy Goliath passed away at age 16 after a battle with cancer which began in the angle of his eye.  Our veterinarian surgically removed his beautiful amber eye so we were able to enjoy several more years with him as a pirate cat. Last year, we rescued a pair of kittens here on the islands.  Both were born with eye anomalies.  My beloved baby boy, Perry Pepper, was born without eyelids.  This week I took him for a second surgery to cryogenically freeze the fur from above his eyes.  He gets the same ointment in his eyes that I do, and he seems to know.  We sleep together every night, his damaged eyes snuggled into my neck.)

It is a matter of how we SEE ourselves.  If I were asked to come up with a list of my attributes, my superior eyesight would be on that list.  Well, it would have been on that list.  This past year, threading needles to mend kids clothes, I knew that my list would be changing.  I can no longer thread the eye of a needle on the first try.  It is exasperating.  That was the first sign of my failing eyesight.  Then it became difficult to read books; I had no choice but to admit to myself it was time for glasses.  So, I found a doctor, got a prescription and then I waited.  Waited for months.  Just. Couldn't. Do. It.

Then, this past weekend, my family dragged me, and my prescription, to pick out frames.  I guess my taste in eyeglasses frames is as poor as my taste in shoes and handbags.  (You know who you are -- who have long made fun of my taste in shoes and purses!)  The Opthamologist laughed and my family just sadly shook their heads when I modeled the pair I liked best.  Grace has great taste and chose my frames. I selected a simple pair with copper rims to match my hair.  Now, as I squint at my PC monitor, I am waiting for them to come in.  I wonder, will I look like Granny Goose?  Will I see myself differently?  (I think yes.)  Will they make me look, gasp, older?  Like I'm 43?  Stay tuned for a photo update.  You be the judge.   :-)

I may be losing my eyesight, but I am gaining vision -- clarity about what I want for myself, and what is MOST important.  I know one thing, even if my eyesight is failing, the forties are fabulous! XOXO

♥ Gilly