Sheila Sims Iding
I can see clearly now…well…not exactly…yet. I could see clearly until a month ago. Until I thought sinus pressure was messing with my vision. Until the doctor made it clear it wasn’t sinus pressure at all…it was optic nerve damage. So began a month of not seeing “clearly now”. A month of tests and appointments and tests and appointments and a pill 5 times a day trying…hoping….praying that I will be able to see “clearly now”.
It’s only been a month but it has been an eye-opening month for sure. I won’t even say “pardon the pun” this time because it’s not about the pun. It’s about realizing the truth in the statement “you don’t know what you have ‘til it is gone”. It’s been a humbling month. My left eye vision was almost gone…and I now realize what I had…what I hope to re-have.
We all like to think we don’t take our sight for granted…but at some level we must. How can we fully fathom the amazing miracle of sight. I was talking with someone at school who was worried about a family member having a stroke and losing vision. (The family member is fine but there was a scare.) She did say to me, of all the senses we could lose, sight would by far be the worst. I think most of us would agree with that. Maybe most of us have said that. I know I have. But I know when she said those words they carried a little more weight than they did a month ago.
This past month as my vision slowly returns my eyes were opened to the following:
When your vision is “clouded” with a blind spot, you don’t wait a week
to call the doctor. Even if you are attending a conference in Grand Rapids.
Missing a day of a conference is nothing compared to missing an important diagnosis?
When your left eye is mostly clouded over with a blind spot your right eye can do amazing things. When I look out of both eyes, it’s like nothing is wrong…until I have to change lanes to the left lane when driving. Talk about a blind spot. (I still can’t believe the doctor said I could drive.)
When you are at the eye doctor and you cover your right eye to read the eye chart with your left eye and you can’t read one letter, fear begins to cloud your thinking as much as the blind spot clouded your vision. It’s not because the letters are fuzzy or not clear. It’s because the chart totally disappears into the blind spot and there is nothing there. Nothing. Even when the doctor asks are you sure? Nothing. Even when you ask to try again. Nothing.
You realize when you have been blessed with great health and great vision your whole life that culture shock sets in because you aren’t in comfort land anymore. You are in foreign territory.
I think I cheated at one point because I saw the letters S and L (or maybe S and F) at the very top of the chart. I am not sure I saw them through the blind spot or if I peeked out of my right eye. But it was enough to get a number for my vision. However, the number was difficult to hear. When the doctor tells the nurse your vision is 20/200 and you are used to hearing the blessed 20/20, it sounds like a foreign language.
When you hear “20/200” and “rule out Multiple Sclerosis” and “optic nerve stroke” and MRI’s and tests and tests, you begin to realize you took your vision for granted. You get a bit scared but the real scare didn’t come until week 2. Oh…the MRI’s and waiting for test results are all scary. We have all been there before. Afraid of tests. Afraid of test results. Afraid of waiting for the unknown to be known. I thought that was fear enough. But just in case I was getting cocky about not having MS and great test results, I got one more eye opening experience a couple of weeks ago.
While sitting at my desk early one morning a few weeks ago before school even started, my right eye got gunky and cloudy. And then I could not see anything. For about three minutes I could not see out of either eye. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go check in the mirror; I couldn’t walk anywhere or even use my phone to call anyone. I was frozen. I knew my right eye would clear because it has happened before. It was sinus/allergy stuff. But it cemented in my mind the thoughts of the past few weeks about the precious gift of sight.
And whenever I get things ready for school each year, I will remember how everything took longer this year. How names on cubbies were tricky to line up. (My depth perception is off too.). How the labels themselves are tricky…just to find where they are on the sheet to peel them off. How writing names on those little lines in a grade book or attendance chart can be more challenging than the year before. How preparing gratitude journals for 45 staff people became a constant remember as I wrote the word “gratitude” on each one. How making journal pencils for 45 staff people should have taken me an hour and not 3 hours. Tying a ribbon in a knot can be tricky when it is small…it becomes frustrating when you can’t see the whole ribbon.
So as my left eye slowly heals, as my sight slowly returns, so does my hope of fully healing and my hope of seeing “clearly now”. I will always remember the fear as the doctor scrambled to make notes and order tests. I will remember the emptiness of not being able to see the chart at all. I will remember the panic of both eyes being clouded…for just a few minutes.
I will continue to think of my friends who only have one eye, my friends who have endured greater vision challenges, and my friends who know worse things. I will continue to pray to St. Lucy and be grateful for her intervention. (Thank you, Tim for teaching me about her.) I will continue to take my meds and cover my right eye too many times each day just to check on the healing process of that left eye. I will wait for my recheck in a few weeks and hope that the letter chart does not disappear. I will appreciate any letters that appear. They will be magical letters to me now. Mostly, I will embrace my new appreciate of the amazingly precious gift of sight and I will hope for the day when I honestly say “I can see clearly now.”