The scary thing about eyes...

. . . is all the stuff you could not do without them. Even scarier is the thought of losing control of your vision.

A little over a year ago I had to have surgery on the muscles in the inner corners of both my eyes to correct crossed eyes. Last week I had to do it again. Although the first surgery worked and corrected my cross-eyedness, it didn't last. So here I am again. This time the surgery was only on the outside of the right eye--the one with the most issues. Like last time, I had to go into the hospital, have a general anesthesia, only this time the stitches are in the outer corner. Last time my doctor cut some eye muscles to loosen the direction of my focus. This time he tightened the muscles on the outer edge of my right eye.  This time was even less fun.

I planned this surgery to take place over Spring Break. That way there would be no classes missed--not that my students wouldn't have liked that. It was supposed to happen toward the end of Spring Break, I thought I might be able to take the early part of that week to visit my son in Arizona (something I haven't been able to do in several years), but then my surgery got pushed up to Monday of Spring Break (my son, though disappointed, is fortunately very understanding). However a couple weeks before the surgery I got invaded by "The Cold" (cue spooky music).

This has been, bar none, the worst flu / cold season ever. In early March I was at a conference in Boston where several colleagues and friend got sick. Coughing, blocked sinuses, sore throats, headache, stomach upsets, all the symptoms of cold viruses or flu or maybe food poisoning? No one knew. One friend was out sick for the week after the conference. Then it started floating around the Department. Then I got it.  Mind you the grandkids had the sniffles, too, as did my daughter and her husband, so I could have gotten it there. But by mid-March I had The Cold That Will Not Die. Dutifully I told my surgery scheduler. She said as long as I had no fever we could still do my surgery. Probably did not help that there was family stress, either.

March 18th, the week before my surgery, I went for pretesting. Blood work. Poked and prodded. Measured. Weighed. And I still had the cold. No fever, I tell them, but I have been stumbling through my days and coming home to fall exhausted on the couch. Weekends I have been sleeping all day, sometimes napping again in mid-afternoon. I have horrible wracking coughs, blocked sinuses, killer headaches. My Grandmother always said sleep is  the best medicine,  but this was ridiculous--I was sleeping all the time. Damn cold was kicking my ass. And I was falling behind on everything. As that last week before Spring Break ran its course, I was far behind. I had email stacking up, papers piled on my desk, prep still needing to be done for events I am running, prep for exams I need to give, writing unfinished, committee meetings missed. Family demands I couldn't meet. Stress in the office. The dilemma: cancel the surgery? or go ahead and let them do it with all its attendant stress on top of all the stress I was already feeling?

The thing that made me go for it was the need to see. All that stuff piling up has been piling up because it has been so painful to read. To look at a computer screen. I need to be able to read to do my job. I need these eyes to function correctly.

Morning of surgery was another stress--family fight that I did not need.  Same issues. My friend Lisa took me to the hospital. Steve had used up his last personal day the week before when he got sick with the same cold. He did take off early to come pick me up, though. Then my doctor ran late. And the surgery ran long. I am beginning to think March was a cursed month. In the end the surgery worked, but it is taking longer to heal than last time. I finally needed antibiotics and a corticosteroid to get over the cold--the cough still lingers. The eye has been three weeks healing and, though the doctor says it is doing fine,  I still can't look at a computer screen or read for over an hour without pain, or headaches. This delays grading my student's papers, means writing and work is still falling behind. And I have less than 3 weeks left in the semester. And bright light outside hurts a lot. And I am still sleeping too much.

But my eyes are not crossed . . . most of the time. When tired, they will sometimes still cross. It takes an huge effort of will to uncross them, and sleep to really fix the problem. It does seem to be getting better. Slowly. I'm just crossing my fingers (no pun intended) that this will continue to improve. Because if it doesn't there are no more chances for more surgery.