The Eyes Have It, Part II

[I had just been informed by doctors at the Jules Stein Eye Clinic that I needed emergency surgery immediately. ]

As Chic put it so eloquently in 1978: Freak Out!

It was now 7 at night. I had left my work half done at the office. I hadn't eaten. There was no one to come pick me up or get my car out of the hospital parking lot. My company had just switched medical insurance carriers and I didn't even have an ID card yet. I didn't know if it would cover something like this. I had been expecting the clinic to simply dole out a future appointment with a laser and a prescription for eye drops. But there was a possibility I could be BLIND, at least in one eye, where if a retinal detachment involves the central macula, eyesight in that eye is irretrievable.

I was shocked by what they were proposing. The operation involved knocking me out, extracting my eyeball, clamping it into a plastic belt called a scleral buckle that would keep my raggedy eye tissue together, then reinserting the eye over a gas bubble at the back of the socket that would further tamp down the retinal tissue. It sounded frightening and more than a little sick-making.

As the doctors kept trying to convince me-- taking turns running out to make all the surgical arrangements and sending me to their hospital intake office-- I alternated between being a rational adult and blubbering like a cranky toddler. I made a kazillion phone calls, mostly to my boss and to our insurance consultant on the East Coast, where it was way after business hours, and to many of my very busy, geographically dispersed friends in the hope they could fetch me post-surgery. I wept, I wailed, I ranted and railed. I was embarrassingly unhinged. I blame the freakout on fatigue, the unpleasant prospect of being a further burden on my overburdened friends, and the fact that I'd have to bail last minute on numerous projects I needed to make good on. Things weren't looking good.

Finally I reached a breaking point where good sense reasserted itself. I felt railroaded and needlessly frightened by the hospital staff. I suddenly turned off the waterworks, gathered up my stuff, and calmly informed the medical team that I was leaving. With four hours' worth of dilating drops still in my eyes, I stumbled down to the parking lot with one of the doctors literally trotting across the plaza after me, begging me not to go. "I'm not saying you could go blind overnight, but it's a possibility," he warned. "You shouldn't go."

I kept stepping. My rationale was this: I had gone weeks with the symptoms. Another day wasn't going to make a major difference. And I wasn't going to succumb to surgery with no way home, my car racking up charges in their parking lot, my work going begging, and a $10,000-plus surgery bill that I didn't know would be covered or not.

The next day I confirmed my insurance status, left my car at the job, and hied it over to the Jules Stein Eye Center. But in my hospital gown, cap and booties, with nurses pulling me onto a gurney, I was still phoning around desperately to find someone to pick me up and then drive me out to where I was staying. I left messages for several folks and finally connected with a guy friend who owns a 2-seater convertible just before they jabbed me with the anesthesia IV.

Silly me--I'd been thinking that the operation would be like a laser procedure--the eye would be the only thing affected. I hadn't banked on the impact of anesthesia and a major surgery (the hint was that I had to chuck all my clothes for a hospital gown, duh). When I woke up, I felt as though I had been hit by a truck. My left eye was bandaged (they'd do laser work on the right eye later), and I could barely hold my head up as they wheeled me in a chair out to recovery.

"Your friend is here to pick you up," chirped the nurse. "She's right outside."

"SHE?" I repeated.

I had been expecting my male buddy and his Miata. For some reason I'd told him I would meet him outside afterward. I was in no condition to get up and meet someone outside!

Thank God for my girlfriend L, who got my desperate messages, dropped everything, drove to the hospital and located me. I ended up phoning Miata Man, who was indeed at the curb, and sending him home. It was to the better. L, who had dealt with the needs of her ill mother for a long time, was well-versed in hospital routine. She also had an SUV, a smoother ride for a post-surgical patient. While my head lolled and I fought nausea, she drove us to a pharmacy, went in and paid for my prescriptions, then drove me to my friends' place. I could not have stood on my feet long enough to get the scrips myself. My teeth chattered and I shivered uncontrollably thanks to the anesthesia.

Thus began my slow recovery. Two weeks of continuously lying on my left side in one position so the gas bubble in my eye could sit in the proper position and do its work. I could barely eat, I developed kinks in my neck from the position, and I had a lot of time to think about my past and future. Through the next four weeks I went from seeping bandage to metal eye guard to sexy black eye patch, all the while unable to drive or read.

During that time I received many solicitous, concerned phone calls. Which was great. But also scary, because I heard from friends and relatives I had not heard from in years. Was my mother telling people I was dying? Did my friends fear I'd be stricken blind? Was I now eternally housebound and frail? Was I soon to be relegated to the cane-and-dog set? Or was this eye operation so much more serious than I still failed to recognize?

It was strange. I'd had other more serious surgeries in the last five years, but this eye thing really got people fascinated, horrified, and engaged. The idea of not being able to see, however briefly, or of having the eyes handled in any way just geeks people out. There's a squeamishness there. Perfectly rational people who asked me to explain my surgery would turn ashen, gag, and stop me the minute I got to the details of the scleral buckle procedure. I admit that when I first heard what the doctors planned for me, I was freaked, but now that I've been through it I'm unaffected.

Anyway, it's four months since the surgery. I had to go back to the clinic a few times for laser work to repair retinal tears in my right eye, and that was easy (if you call the feeling of stinging, burning ants attacking the inside of your eye easy) compared with the severity of the surgical episode.

I'm up on my feet. I can drive. I'm back to work. Miracle of miracles, I found an apartment and moved in. I'm not blind. My abysmal failure at moving cross-country seems a blip on the screen.

I'm grateful for everything in my life right now. Because I can see it all.

2007: The Eyes Have It, Part 1

If I told you all that happened to me since January, you wouldn't believe it. OK, maybe you would -- it was ME having trouble believing, since I still have problems adapting to any sort of glitches in the life program.

I had spent most of January in New York, riding the subway and working out of the main office. It was .... not horrible, but definitely less comfortable than my LA routine. So I returned to the West Coast. My life is just easier to manage on the West Coast, despite it being far from my kith and kin, offering a shallow wading pool for dating, and growing ever more expensive.

So there I was in February, still living with friends in Cali after four months with most of my belongings in storage, trying to adjust to the stunning revelation that no, I was not going to be moving in glory and triumph to the East Coast after announcing this intention to all and sundry. I was looking desperately for a new LA apartment to get out of my friends' hair and re-establish my life here. Seems landlords these days are much more greedy about what they charge for rents, and much more discriminating about who they rent to. They can be, because every piece of decent property in the county is being bought up for condos, and rental units are scarce. If you choose to rent anywhere near the city center you pay through the nose, and not before doing a major ass-kissing dance beforehand. Despite all my credentials, the fact that I paid Macy's late three times in 2004 became a black spot on my credit report that potential landlords used to screen me out. Applications were rejected, doors slammed in my face, one old bee-yotch gave me a lecture about my spending habits and I wanted to kick her in her 80-year-old racist shins. Freakin' unbelievable!

On top of that, I had taken on a staggering amount of freelance work in order to further finance my move East, and now had editors and others burning up my phone lines, inquiring as to when they would receive their due. Yours truly was scampering about, burning the midnight oil, going without food or sleep in an attempt to complete projects, all the while juggling the full-time gig and the apartment hunt. By March--with no apartment in sight and pressure from all sides-- I was both desperate and despondent, convinced my relationship with my current hosts was ruined forever and that I'd never be independent again. February segued into March. Much hand-wringing, hyperventilation, and weight loss ensued. In hindsight, it's easy to see how a major breakdown was already in the pipeline.

After a late-February trip to celebrate the anniversary of the only black-owned hotel and casino in Las Vegas (it's Fitzgerald's, by the way), I noticed problems with my eyes. I've always been horribly nearsighted, and ten years ago postponed the inevitable decline with lasik surgery. My vision was improved by the procedure, though not perfected. I still wear glasses, just not the Coke-bottle kind. And if I take them off, I can still find my way around without assistance. But I do experience the halos and bad night vision side effects that come with the operation.

In mid March, I was in Pasadena to cover an awards show. I spent a miserable day constantly polishing my glasses, complaining that they were dirty. It soon occurred to me that it wasn't my glasses--it was my EYES that were cloudy. As I mentioned, problems with my eyes have always been a constant. But now I was developing lightning flashes at night, dark shadows during the day, squiggly floaters obscuring my vision round the clock--amazingly, stuff I ignored. Then I woke up with hundreds of tiny black dots floating around in my left eye. While I was surprised, this development still didn't alarm me. I figured I needed some eyewash and some sleep. I didn't have time to deal with it--I had deadlines.

A friend convinced me this was serious. I consulted the Internet and learned that these symptoms signaled a dire condition that required me to seek medical assistance immediately. I bolted from my desk at the office just after lunch and headed to nearby UCLA, where they have a highly regarded eye clinic. I was seen by no less than four specialists, who damn near popped my eyeballs out of my head and blinded me with ridiculously bright halogen torches through a series of lengthy examinations. They announced that I had detached the retinas in both eyes-- the left eye being worse than the right. "You need surgery immediately -- TONIGHT," intoned the retinal specialist. "Not tonight, I'll come back," I said. "No, TONIGHT," they said.

I freaked out. Majorly.

More in Part 2...