Seeing Clearly: eye stuff

Sunday, March 29, 2009

eye stuff

Sometimes I forget that this blog began with a grim diagnosis coupled with a car crash. The eye and the car have both been replaced, with varying degrees of success. My car is pretty fabulous: a little white Toyota Rav-4 with a pug nose and sexy lines (in an athletic sort of way). It goes pretty fast and, with my many custom-cool mirrors attached, my visibility is really good. Weirdly, I can parallel park better than ever.

My prosthetic eye is another story. It is beautiful, that is for sure. Michael painted it for me, following some vague directions about echoing the colors of my favorite turquoise ring. I was hell-bent on an artistic prosthetic. It is a work of art, I thought. It is but another way to express oneself, I reasoned. I can tell you that the usual responses to it are 1) wow, it sure looks real! and 2) why is it a different color? So, in terms of aesthetics, mission accomplished, sort of.

What is lacking, to some extent, is what opthamologists refer to as "horizontal motility", or the ability of my prosthetic to move from one side to the other. The up-and-down movement is pretty good-at least within the realm of normal eye movement. We just don't peer WAY up or WAY down that often. The problem comes when I am looking at you from a slightly sideways perspective. My artistic prosthetic stubbornly stares off somewhere in the distance while the real one works the way it should, giving me a rather cross-eyed appearance.

My friends assure me that this is not noticeable with glasses on, but I am aware of it, and no more than when I am a close huddle with my little guys at school. It just looks a little weird.

Fortunately, there is a solution: the peg. Here is what happens: the occular surgeon drills a little hole in your implant, and inserts a titanium peg in it that sticks out a little bit. Then, the occularist, Mike in my case, makes a little dent in the back of my prosthetic, into which the little peg fits. As a result, the prosthetic eye articulates back and forth in concert with the other one, with a few adjustments here and there.

I consult with the surgeon at the end of April and we take it from there.

A good day to read books....love to all out there in the universe.

Claudia

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Hey darlin'

Time is flying by. So glad you've kept the blog. For you, I'm excited that you're going ahead with the peg. I hope it does all that it can in terms of range of motion and what you hope it to do. Although, I know you know - you're so beautiful as you are!

I was touched to tears as I read through your rememberance of Annie Lane. I know I was there for the funeral services, but I'm so sorry that I wasn't really there for you, I remember feeling so inadequate and I'm just thankful that others enveloped you with the compassion you needed and deserved. I was just so stupid back then, I'm sorry. Perhaps the next time I'm in Holland we can go together to bring her flowers. It would be good to say hello/goodbye to my little niece.
Love you always, Deborah; April 14, 2009 at 2:19 PM

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The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.

a poem from TRAVELING MERCIES by Annie Lamott

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feeling we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--w.s. merwin

from Kabir, Indian mystic poet

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!...

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten--

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with

an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Night Letter to theReader by Billy Collins

Night Letter to the Reader

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,

a bird leaving the nest,

a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,

an ordinary insomniac

amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking

about something I heard at a party,

about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,

but as it is, I am simply conscious,

an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity

of the night and the slight zephyrs

that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out

and stands a little ahead,

her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you were even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

but this is what I want to do--

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

This poem does what all good art does-it makes my heart fill as I recognize myself in it, and I say, "yes! that is exactly it!" and I realize once again that I need to tell you so many things. I feel inspired. Alive.

There are not enough hours.

a note from Kevin Griffin, author and spritual leader from Shambhala