Friday, March 14: a trip to the ocularist!

Hi, All, 

Today was a very big day-Bobbi and I went to Mike Bain's office today and he made me an Iris conformer!  As you can see from the pictures, he is a lovely guy and he was very painstaking in working on this temporary eye. I will be wearing it for a week, and then next Friday the 21st, I will go to Saginaw and he will make for me my "custom deluxe model".  I feel like this is a great transition, and it is really nice to look at myself and see two eyes looking back at me. I can only imagine how cool the final one will be.

I had dinner with the girls and they all gave me the thumbs-up and they feel like I am "back."

Let me know what you think!

love,

claudia

Iris conformer!

To

Tuesday March 11: One Month Post-Op

Hello, All,

It has been almost a week since I have posted. Since then, my old friend Julie Wennekes has visited.  We visited Carolyn's for movie night, had lunch at Butch's, shopped at BFF stores Roxie's Vintage and Karla's, did beauty rituals, stayed up late, lounged in jammies...we had dinner at Ron  and Val's in Michigan City (Ron is Julie's bro, and he and his beautiful wife Valerie are both artists.  Check out the book they illustrated: www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Spiritual-Dreaming-Harold Klemp/dp/1570431493.  Her other bro Phil with his sons Noah and Travis were there, too, as was sis Coralee and exhub Pat. I have known all of these people since I was about 18, so it was a good reunion...went to work yesterday, not to teach but to work on curriculum with art amigos Jan, Christina, Sherry, Kathy and Susan Loughrin. Good way to get back in to the swing of things. Bella made friends with Pam Howard!

ONe month Post-op, I have recieved the second-opinion path report from Emory University, which concurs with the first one, so according to at least two learned groups of people, I am cancer free. Words cannot express how that feels but I know a lot of you know.

I talked to Diana Esquival today-she and Al moved to Cincinnati last year. Her family has had a number of very serious medical crises in the past few years and I have admired the way her family has come together, and the strength of their faith. Who knows when these things can happen to any of us and how we will come together? We hope to see each other in the spring.

Also thank you to Ann McKnight, fellow 8 and holy woman healer, for the cranial-sacral massage. She loved up my poor eye today.

Pictures of Julie and I at the beach...the one of our footprints was Julie's idea.  As Leonard Cohen would say, " our steps will always rhyme.

Wednesday, March 5: News on my New Eye!

hello, good people out there,

Good news! Through my new friends at Losteye.com I have learned about natural iris conformers, which are a more realistic-looking alternative to the "clear conformer" which provides the shininess you can see peeking out of my left eye. This led me to talk on the phone today with Mike Bain, who will be creating my custom prosthesis in the next few weeks. He will be able to have on of these iris conformers--basically, white with an iris painted on-- ready for me when we meet next Friday the 14th! This means that if I go back to work on the 17th as planned, I will have something that looks like a human eye in place. I am so excited about this! He also looked at the ideas Annie and Jon created for my permanent new eye and feels that he can accomodate me there, too, so this is very good news.

The sunshine is certainly helping to lift my spirits, as is the company and communication provided by Bella, great books and dear friends. Thank you for continuing cards, phone calls, emails, jokes, coffee dates, movie recommendations.....

love to you all.

latest glam shots!

Tuesday morning

Hello, 

I have been exploring Losteye.com, which is an amazing resource for anyone who is facing the loss of an eye, and I found this picture of what my implant looks like.

 

As you can see, it is very porous, which allows the muscle to really permeate and become a part of the implant. Though it is manmade, I feel that it has an organic quality about it, don't you?

It is quite beautiful, I think. More so than the villanous FRedd.

Monday night, March 3

Three weeks post-op today.  Annie went back to Chicago with her car loaded with the accumulation of four+ weeks here in Holland...thank you, my girl, for being here through all of this.  I have appreciated having people around and will continue to need to stay connected with all of you as time goes on and this adventure keeps unfolding. It is certainly one of hills and valleys and I must admit to being in a valley now and then lately. I think that the reality of the loss of my eye and its vision are settling in now.   The surgery is over, the cancer is (hopefully) gone, the swelling and bruising are almost a memory...and now for the rest of my life!  Realizing that what I am looking at today is going to be the "new normal" is a bit of a blow at times. I am sure that my other senses will step up to the plate and round out my sensory experience as time goes on, but today, I missed the richness of my former visual experience. Of course, I need only remind myself that I at least HAVE vision to get out of that line of thinking in a hurry.

I have joined a website called Losteye.com, a message board and info forum started by a man who had the same thing I did-interocular melanoma.  It is a great find, full of resources and supportive, upbeat people who are going through the same thing I am, or who are long past this stage and leading happy and productive lives.  There are so many different reasons that people become blind in one eye and the stories are as varied as the people who write them. I am relieved to post questions and concerns and have them addressed by those who know.  It is important to check sources, too--I got on one site that had misleading stats about longterm survival from my cancer and it scared me to death until I read further and realized that it wasn't accurate information.  My friends, this is one heck of an education.

I drove home from a meeting in the dark tonight and it went fine.  The lights threw me a little but I quickly adapted. 

Thanks to Jan for the call today, and to Nathan for coming over and helping with the license plate on the RAv. Also to Jade the Warrior Princess for stopping by for a cuppa after work. All of you got me through the day!

As always, so thankful for my life and for my friends and family....feeling a little somber tonight, I guess, and like the road is a long one ahead, but also knowing tht I am safely held throughout....

love you guys....

Here's Jon's design....he combined the ring with the idea of a sunset.  BEEaautiful.

saturday -March 1st

good morning,

the sun is shining and it is a gorgeous morning. 

Yesterday, I woke up with a head cold, and it is still making life interesting today...Annie agreed to stay for the weekend to see how this thing plays out. I feel especially vulnerable given the recent vertigo and fears of germs in general!  So, laying low, reading and sleeping and leaving the day to day up to Annie and others. Again. It is hard to let go but I have no choice. I miss my life, the person I saw myself as being before all of this. Of course, I what is really happening is that I am letting go of that fictional character who was invincible and could do anything. 

Suddenly, it is March. Feeling like I was in some kind of weird other place for the whole month of February. It was one month ago that I received the news from Dr. Aaberg.  

Feeling hesitant to write too much for fear of self pity leaking in to my words, but it is lurking there around the edges, and reminding me how important the health of my spiritual practice is right now- (really, it is important every day, through everything...) 

Anyone want to go see the Dalai Llama in April? He is coming to Ann Arbor.

Hope you are well and happy out there.

Julie Wennekes, my old friend and college roommate, is coming for the weekend next Friday.

She will be here for 3 days. I went to see her in November-she is a fellow in DC for a year, working at a federal level to push Head Start initiatives, but her experience is so much larger than that, of course. She has immersed herself in DC and is taking every advantage of being there. I am very proud to call her my friend because it really makes me look good to be in her light. :)

I am getting cards from Waukazoo families, some of whom have left Waukazoo and are now Harbor Lights or High School families...it warms my heart to be remembered.  Also having fun with Facebook talking to former students and old friends. In the middle of this somewhat cloistered experience I am feeling far more connected by heart with so many. I talk to my dad every day. What a blessing.

anyway, how I do ramble on....more later....

love,

claudia

hello, all! this is annie, posting for mother-dear. see below for pictures...

this a picture of mom's late left eye, and superimposed atop her iris, i've included the colors of her turquoise ring. this, friends, is what we're aiming for. plus a few gold flecks along the edge.

if you're wondering how the hell this works, visit these links. it's an incredibly interesting process:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPA8jkr-Keg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB5wTYNscWs

yesterday, we visited waukazoo for the first time since my mom's car accident, and she was treated like a regular celebrity. she is so thankful to have such a supportive group of coworkers and such wonderful students (i am too. thanks, everyone). she was able to remove her eye patch and show the kids her "zombie eye," as i like to call it. they were very engaged, curious, and only slightly creeped out!

mrs. art gets mobbed, and welcomes it!

more hugs

a synchronized group hug in mrs. gundrum's classroom

mrs. art tells mr. lyon's classroom about her eye

last night, mark vandenbosch stopped by our house and offered mom some encouraging words and a shoulder to cry on. thank you, mark. and, you know. thanks to bella too.

and, finally, as i'm writing this, heidi and amy, fellow west ottawa art teachers, are paying us a visit.