Not the Good Eye

Russ was born with one good eye and one non-working eye. Since that was all he ever knew his brain learned depth perception in ways different from those of us with two eyes. For the most part it was not an issue except for 3-d movies. As a child his mother guarded his good eye.

Then he married me and it was my turn to be the protector of the good eye. About ten years ago he had a serious eye problem in his bad eye and we weren’t that worried because what could happen? He was already blind in that eye. Recently his good eye has been getting worse.

He went to our good friend, world renowned Dr. Terry Kim and for months they discussed options. Russ tried to hide from me how bad his good eye was, but really there was no hiding from me. As his close vision got worse and worse he would hold his iPhone an inch from his face.

I begged him to schedule the surgery that was needed which now involved two surgeons of differing specialties, Dr. Postal and Dr. Kim. In the small world of Durham both doctors had daughters who were friends of Carter’s from school, so I ways happy to have that close connection.

Today was the surgery. I took Russ over to Duke eye hospital at 5:45, worried about the outcome of his only useful eye. Thank goodness for the wonderful medical team at Duke. Both Drs said the respective surgeries went well. When I was reunited with him in recovery he was in fine shape, except for the giant patch over the good eye.

I brought in a practically blind man and brought home a totally blind man. We won’t know how the repairs have worked until we go back first thing in the morning and they take the pirate patch off. Even then it will take a week or more for his vision to return.

So now I am nurse maid, email and text reader, driver and all things Russ needs. In a miraculous turn of events Russ’ previous useless blind eye, which does not have a lens is stepping up and working in a way never detected before. He is able to see a little light from it and can make out lights and darks in big swaths. It is not much, but it is much better for getting around the house.

Not being able to read is the worse part of this whole thing. Russ generally reads six to eight hours every night. So with no work to do, and nothing to read he insisted he needed to at least get his steps today. He got on the treadmill and did his 12,000 steps. I called him blind man walking.

I am ever so thankful for the friends who have helped us out. I did not say much about this before it happened, but this past week I finally had to let some people know. Thanks to Christy and Paige who dropped off food for us. I know it may seem like bringing coals to New Castle, but I really appreciated not having to cook on top of reading texts and emails.

The true test was I had to be Russ’ tech support and fix somethings on his iPad. He was ready to give up on me being able to fix his issues, but eventually I got it, of course with his coaching.

So I ask for your prayers for Russ’ continued recovery and the return of the sight in his good eye. And don’t send him any texts that say something bad about me since I will be reading them to him for a while.