"The 'Eyes' Have It..."

From where I sit, I see before me the benefit and blessing of sight. I submitted myself to many hands this past Tuesday. I placed my faith and hope in the hands of the Lord through blessings and prayers, and He was there. With confidence, I placed my faith in an extremely gifted Physician, and he did an amazing job. I placed my care in the hands of Nurses and Anesthesia personnel, and they gave me kind, tender and loving care.

I didn't pray for sight, because there was so much damage to my eye, I just didn't feel that it would be possible. I only prayed for a good outcome for a new cornea and I didn't leave out the donor, for he or she had to give his or her life in order to provide this gift. I can testify, it is a good cornea.

It was amazing to lay flat on my back with my whole head covered with a drape, in a dream-like state, and listen to my Surgeon and his Fellow discuss everything that they were doing to my eye. It was a teaching experience for the Fellow; and it was a teaching experience for me. I learned that my iris had adhered itself to the old cornea and had to be carefully scraped away, losing part of it in the process. Then my iris had to be sutured together in two places. Because of all of the damage, the pupil is still bigger than the other one and irregular in shape. And my iris has lost some of the color that would make it hazel, like the other eye. It is a beautiful blue color. Hmmm! Maybe I could talk the good Dr. into doing that to the other iris! (Just kidding!)

The morning after surgery, I was escorted into a little room where the bandage was removed. I then was directed to look to the far wall and tell the Tech what I could see. I nearly jumped out of the chair, because I was so excited. I could see the big "E"! I haven't seen it for 8 years. Not only that, I could read the line below it. It was like a light had been turned on in a dead eye!

I cannot express enough how grateful I am for the blessings and prayers of so many in my behalf. If I never believed in miracles before, I am more of a believer now. Oh, I will still have only partial vision in my right eye, because the optic nerve won't regenerate, but it is enough that I will be able to see with two eyes instead of only one. God is good! He certainly has blessed me this week.

There's a song by Celtic Woman, called "When You Believe" that tells how great our faith can be. Why, we can move mountains, when we believe! I love the words to that song. I tried to find it for my playlist, but couldn't locate it. It's probably too new, and they don't release the newest ones on Playlist. Anyway, I do believe! And my mountain was moved this week.

The eye still has a long way to go toward healing, and rejection is always a possiblity, but I will continue to have faith and pray.

"I was blind, and could not see..."

When I began this journey 10 years ago, I was facing blindness. That is not a very positive future for one who loves to read and see all of God's creations with my eyes as well as my heart. I was diagnosed with Fuch's Distrophy (a progressive disease to the corneas that causes them to thicken, and thus cloud over, eventually causing blindness.) My grandfather on my dad's side may have had that disease, but no one knew what it was back then. He was blind in his older years.

There is no cure for this condition. The only treatment is Cornea Transplant. I chose to take that road in 2002, when I had my first surgery. That transplant was anything but successful. First, my eye did not like the surgery and reacted by producing excessively high intraoccular pressure that destroyed 1/3 of my optic nerve in my right eye, thus rendering me with partial blindness anyway in that eye. Next, the high pressure also caused my lense to go completely white (a cataract) and had to be removed with a new lens implanted in a second surgery.

As if all of that wasn't enough, another result of the high pressure caused my pupil to enlarge and the edge of my iris stuck to the new cornea, which makes it impossible for my pupil to contract. Thus, a third surgery was done to try and release that scar tissue. It didn't work.

Lastly, my cornea began to reject, due to a herpes simplex virus (I have a long history of cold sores, and that virus travels the nerve paths to the eyes) that made my entire cornea become thick and opaque. That is the condition of my right eye that I have accepted and lived with now for 8 years.

Less than one year after my right eye surgery was done, my left eye began to thicken so badly that I had to retire from working because I could no longer see clearly, and being a Nurse, one needs her eyes to see! I was a danger to my patients, and so I chose to retire. My Opthalmalogist knew of a surgeon in Portland that did a relatively new procedure called a DLEK (simply put, instead of removing the entire thickness of the cornea, only the inner layer is removed and replaced with a donor's inner layer. It is very complex, and no 100% results were guaranteed.) I opted to try that surgery.

On the day of my 4th surgery (first on my left eye) I was apprehensive, to say the least. After much prayer, I felt better, though the outcome wasn't predicted to be the best because of my past history. This eye could have also reacted and gone sour, and then blindness would be an instant result. I figured, "What the heck, either way I will be blind", so I went for it. Prayers were answered and the results were that I have been given back the sight in my left eye. It has served me well without any ill effects for 7 years now.

On Tuesday of next week, I will go under the little itty-bitty knife yet another time. My right eye has been causing me considerable pain over the past year or two, progressing to almost unbearable. So I am going to have that old, dead cornea replaced with a new one. Dr. Terry will clean up the scar tissue while he is doing the surgery, and put a running stitch around the edges of my iris to bring my pupil back to mid-point. This surgery will not bring back the vision I have lost due to the loss of a crucial part of my optic nerve, but perhaps some of my outer peripheral vision will return. There are many prayers going out in my behalf, and I am confident that I will be blessed.

This has been an interesting journey for me and for my family. Many blessings have come to me because of this condition. I have been so grateful for the vision that I have been given. You just don't really appreciate it until you face losing it. I read like crazy. I have turned to writing, both literature and music. I have resumed my career and have been so blessed with good health to do the things that I love to do. I have returned to taking piano lessons and love it. For all of these things and more, I give thanks.

And so the journey continues.