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| The bridge of my glasses had broken. |
It all started with a broken
bridge. The bridge of my glasses had broken.
The previous evening, the 15th of
august, we had driven to my Father-in-law’s house in Moca. Once we left the
main road, it was a really rather difficult drive, with dark trees and deep
ditches on both sides of a winding country road. A black-on-black
night drive illuminated only by our headlights, and the occasional dazzling
glare of on-coming traffic. It was really rather tricky. But what I
didn’t realize at the time was that the problem wasn’t the lack of white lines
on the road.
The following day I found I had
broken the bridge of my glasses. So, when we got back to Santo
Domingo, I went to the oculist to get a new pair. Of course he had
to graduate my eyes for the lenses, and then came the news. “You
have serious cataract problem in both eyes. They should be operated
on immediately”.
The problem with cataracts is that
they “grow” on you. It is a slow, very slow loss of
visibility. So slow that you don’t realize that you are seeing a
tiny bit less every day. I never imagined that I had a problem.
Every patient’s Vía Crucis
So I started out on the
“preproduction” which all doctors insist upon: blood and urine
analysis, X ray of the thorax, and a long a very expensive examination by a
cardiologist. We do have an health insurance plan, which covers
maybe 80% of costs, but there are all sorts of extras and little bits added
on.
And then came further tests (and
further add-on prices) in the surgeon’s consulting office, and an admission
charge from the clinic. And of course I shouldn’t forget the charges
from the original oculist.
Finally I was
ready. The final total was a near wipe out of our savings.
Apart from the economic damage, I
found myself suffering alongside so many patients who are hustled and bustled,
when they are nervous and sometimes really frightened. Almost always
they are piled into “waiting areas” that are little more than corridors, complete
with harsh over-head florescent lights, a painful echo, indifferent people
pushing through, and some under-paid clerks shouting through a stupid glass
window. And then comes the waiting and waiting and
waiting. There is no suggestion of “take a ticket” o “the doctor
will see you at exactly …” You just sit on your thumbs, wasting your day away,
until the secretary deigns to call you next.
There are NGO’s that complain when
cattle are treated like this.
27th of August 2015
With less than a day to go until I receive the first
of two cataract surgeries, I have to admit that I am scared.
Yes, I know that it is a simple job, and that I will
walk out of the clinic the same morning. But, they are my eyes, my
eyes! Not only are they the windows to my soul, but my window to the
world outside. I am still wrestling with the fear -however small-
that something might go wrong, and I could be left “eyeless in Gaza, by a well,
with slaves”.
Maybe it is a small conceit, but it seems to me that I
always see more around me than the people I am with. I love to use
my eyes, I enjoy observing, looking at the details:
— at people sitting in the underground, guessing
from their appearance and their clothes as to what sort of lives they
live;
— or driving through empty countryside, whether on
Dartmoor, in the Scilly Isles or on the road to Cap-Haïtien, imagining living
there alone, as a hermit;
— or following the line of a beautiful face,
from the lobe of the ear, bordering the cheek and the crinkle at the edge of the
mouth, to the clear cut roundness of her chin.
Will I lose the light that shines in on my life, and
have to fall back on my memories to enjoy the sunset from the Cinque Terre? Or
the daffodils of my childhood, bending before spring winds?
I know it is immature, but then, I am who I am.
Ever since I heard the news, I have been repeating
again and again John Milton’s Poem:
WHEN I consider how my light is
spent
E're half my days, in this dark
world and wide,
And that one Talent which is
death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my
Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and
present
My true account, least he returning
chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light
deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to
prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth
not need
Either man's work or his own gifts,
who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him
best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding
speed
And post o're Land and Ocean
without rest:
They also serve who only stand and
waite.
"On His Blindness"
John Milton
29 of August 2015
“In the land of the
blind, the one-eyed is King”
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| Here’s a one-eyed looking for a Kingdom! |
The surgeon seems to be content with
yesterday’s handiwork. And Me? Well I can see with a lot
more detail, and with a greater “depth of focus”. I can even see the
mangoes on the mango tree!
Now we enter the next stage:
Cataract 1.2 =
rehabilitation. At least a week using dark glasses to:
a) avoid infection and
b) so that my friends don’t scare me when they see a bit of red in the
corner of my eye, and suggest a “diagnosis” that might get me worried. (Amateur
doctors are dangerous!)
 | |
|
Cataract 1.3 = I have to
follow a complicated eye drop procedure: for the next month, at different times
each day, I have to give myself drops from little bottles, twice a day from one
bottle, thrice from another and four times from another.
Cataract 2.1 = on Monday
I started out on the same “Via Crucis” all over again, with visits to the
specialists all week long, finishing up on Friday receiving the same
“proceeding” on my left eye.
I am calm, slightly confused, convinced that the work was necessary, but
stunned by the cost.
12th of September 2015
And two and a half
weeks later, I have survived! No, I’m not talking about the possible
things that might have gone wrong. I mean I have survived my
own fears. I didn’t lose anything and I gained so much:
For a week I was
seeing with one eye renovated, and the other still untouched by the surgeon’s
ultra-sound. The comparison was dramatic! I can see everything
so much clearer, bolder and crisper with the new eye.
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| I had forgotten that there are so many different colours |
But even more, I
rediscovered the impact of the thousands of shades of colour in every thing I
saw around me. I understood for the first time the expression “depth
of focus”, because I could compare a distant view seen with either eye, one
after the other, and the difference is dramatic.
Now I can
see that the girls are even more beautiful, and the boys are even more
ugly! But seriously I am re-discovering the beauty of nature. I used
to see the trees, now I can see each luscious mango on them, waiting to be
eaten. I didn't realize I was missing so much. I am
really happy, and really broke - each procedure costs (as we say here) an
eye! But I can really see again! Suddenly I have another
reason to give thanks... for being able to see.
There is one loss: the freedom to look
anywhere at anytime. The lenses that were implanted are for middle
and distant vision. From now on I will have to use glasses to
read. But that is a small price to pay.
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| Oh to be in England now that April’s here |
And whoever wakes in England sees, some
morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood
sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny
leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard
bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May
follows
And the white-throat builds, and all the
swallows!
Hark, where my blossom’d pear-tree in
the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the
clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent
spray’s edge—
That ’s the wise thrush: he sings each
song twice over
Lest you should think he never could
re-capture
The first fine careless
rapture!
And, though the fields look rough with
hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes
anew
The buttercups, the little children’s
dower,
Far brighter than this gaudy
melon-flower!
“Home Thoughts from Abroad”
Robert Browning
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