My eyesight has sucked most of my life.  Back when I was nine, my teacher shipped me off to the school nurse to get my vision checked when it looked like I wasn’t seeing the blackboard.  The nurse asked me to read the top line of the chart.  “What chart?” I said.

“What are you, a wise guy?” she asked.  When she was sure I wasn’t faking blindness, she sent me home with a note instructing my parents to get me to an eye doctor, pronto.  I ended up in little fish-shaped glasses. By the time I was twelve, it was clear that my vision was taking a deep dive.  My eyes were growing out of control, and not in a good way.  My myopia was epic.  And I had a little astigmatism, to boot.

So my father carted me off to his eye doctor.  Dr. Gottlieb was roughly the size of a barn and he had fingers that matched his height and girth.  Having those fingers violate my tiny eyes with hard contact lenses was not a day at the park for me. After he crammed those little plastic pieces of torture into my assaulted orbs, he remarked, “You’re going to have to wear these for the rest of your life.”  “Holy fuck,” I was thinking.  Out loud, I just broke down and cried.

Dr. Gottlieb’s office was located under an elevated railroad in Jamaica, Queens, which made the experience a little more Dante’s Inferno-esque.  As soon as we got out in the street, I got soot in my eyes and proceeded to rub a lens into some unreachable part of my brain.  At least, that’s what it felt like.  My father, who had very recently started wearing contacts himself, thought that yelling at me would somehow get the lens back in place.  I poked around in my eye for a while and the lens managed to re-position itself over my pale green iris.  And then, we went home so I could face the rest of my life in hell.

That sounds a little melodramatic, I realize.  The lenses did stop my eyes from growing and I didn’t have to spend my teenaged dating years in glasses with Coke-bottle lenses hanging on my face and bending my nose. I never did get used to the discomfort but I did learn how to put them in and take them out fairly quickly.  My night vision wasn’t any good.  Even at sixteen, I was looking for a boyfriend who could drive in the dark.  But the years passed, as years do, and I just sucked it up and at least enjoyed my eye color and a visual acuity I wouldn’t have been able to achieve with mere spectacles.

Fast-forward a few decades.  I am approaching senility (well, not really) and I’m still wearing hard contacts.  At least, these are gas-permeable, but they’re still terribly uncomfortable. My latest eye doctor marvels at my cornea’s ability to still be able to endure a hard contact.  And I don’t complain because I still don’t want to go out on a date with glasses that make me look like Marion the Librarian.  No offense to women who wear glasses.  Most of you look great in glasses.  My face is the size of a newborn anteater’s face so glasses don’t look so hot on me.  And they don’t do much to correct my vision. 

Some years back, my father told me he felt responsible for my lousy vision and he offered to buy me Lasik surgery.  My ophthalmologist told me my vision was too far gone for Lasik so my father was off the hook. 

Then, a couple of years ago, my husband and I were enjoying a ride with friends on one of New Mexico’s many wash-boarded roads when I suddenly saw a big flash of light and an armada of battle ships drifting across my field of vision.  Turns out, I had a posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) in my left eye – and it left a small hole in my retina. 

I went running off to a retina specialist. He asked me if I had any Valium and I asked, “Why?  Do you need one?”  And he told me he was going to have to laser up my retina then and there and that the procedure was short but intense – sort of like the retina specialist.  He also told me to take some Advil, if I had it.  Too bad I didn’t have any heroin in my purse because, as it turns out, I – and the doctor – probably could have used it.

My regular eye doctor told me it was a fluke for my vitreous to go to hell so early in life and that the other eye would probably be fine for decades.  Wrong.  A couple of months later, my husband and I were sitting in a lecture hall listening to a couple of physicists drone on about whatever physicists drone on about.  Suddenly, I saw battle ships again.  I turned toward my husband and said, “Either my right eye has just snapped like my left or I’ve been bored blind.”

So, off I ran to the retina man again.  Yep – another PVD – no retina tear this time, thank God.  He asked me if I had gone mad from the PVD in the left eye yet because, when you have PVDs, you have massive numbers of floaters flying around in your head like bats.  “Is insanity part of this?” I asked.  “Some people do go crazy,” he said, looking a little maniacal himself.  “I’m not there yet,” I said, offering him a Valium.  

So, now it’s a couple of years later.  The floaters have, indeed, made me a little testy.  I think the retina specialist is in a padded cell somewhere – very high-strung individual.  I have found another retina doctor who is like Joe Cool and informs me that my floaters don’t look that bad.  He should see them from my perspective.

I noticed in the past year that I wasn’t able to see dick, even with my contact lenses on.  I started listening to the tv instead of watching it.  At my latest annual exam, my optometrist told me I needed cataract surgery in both eyes. 

“Already?” I said.

“Yep,” he said.

So, I let people know about it because that’s what I do. 

“Oh, you’re going to love it!!” they all exclaimed.  “It’s a piece of cake!” I heard more than once.  “You’re going to see better than you’ve ever seen in your life!” others said.  Now that I was able to believe – because how could I possibly see worse?  I approached the surgery with both eyes open, as the saying goes.  I found a doctor with the best reputation in town and off I went with impunity.  The surgeries were scheduled for about two weeks apart, one in Santa Fe and one in Albuquerque.  Same surgeon.

The first one went pretty well.  I had plenty of pain in the periphery of my eye and a screaming reflex every time I was exposed to light.  The many drops I had to instill were also a little deeply painful. But I was 20-20 by the next morning – and how can you complain about 20-20 vision?  Unfortunately, the left eye was still terrible and my former contact lenses and glasses were useless so I spent the next couple of weeks half-blind. 

“Can I drive like this?” I asked my optometrist.  “Sure,” he said.  “In the state of New Mexico, as long as you can see 20-40 in one eye, you’re allowed to drive.”  No wonder there are so many crack-ups around here, along with so many crack addicts. But that’s another story.

I was nervous about the second surgery because I was told my left eye was longer than my right eye and that’s where I had had my retina surgery.  I was also getting a specialty lens installed in my left eye – something that was supposed to correct my moderate astigmatism. “Okay,” I said to myself.  “Have a little faith – your surgeon has been practicing this surgery since the Civil War. You’ll be all right.”

So, off I went to Albuquerque, where I felt queasy and cold before the Versed drip began.  Then, I sort of schmoozed with the doctor while he performed my eight-minute surgery.  All went well – we all thought. 

You’re usually shipped off to lunch after these surgeries.  You’re not wearing anything on your eyes except for big dark sunglasses that make you look like Ray Charles (or Stevie Wonder – take your pick).  In the middle of lunch, my eye-numbing drops wore off and I realized I was in excruciating pain, couldn’t open my left eye and had to wear the Shroud of Turin over my head, just to take the trip home.  I probably should have returned to the surgery center because something was for-damn-sure wrong.

Somehow, I had sustained a corneal abrasion during surgery.  For those of you who have never had the pleasure, a corneal abrasion feels like your eye has been rubbed raw with sandpaper, pierced with toothpicks and set on fire.  I calmly lay, moaning and groaning, on the living room couch – the only room in the house where the sun doesn’t shine – and called the surgery center.  A technician got back to me and told me to put on a piece of tape on my eyelid where my eye shadow goes.  “Who the hell wears eye shadow?” I said. “I’ve been in hard contacts for over a hundred years.”  Actually, I do wear a little shadow now and then but eye makeup was never really a happening thing for me. And I didn’t feel like making her life easier.

Nevertheless, I slapped on the piece of tape to keep my eye half-closed and ajar enough to instill a vast line-up of drops that felt roughly like Kick Ass Jalapeno Hot Sauce. Jesus!  My husband attempted to help me out by cutting off a little piece of tape that was close to my eyelashes with cosmetic scissors.  I thought, for sure, I was going to lose my eyelid.  But he did a good job, considering I was yelling obscenities and threatening to kill myself. And him.

What’s worse, I was basically blind in my left eye the next morning.  I couldn’t see close and I couldn’t see far. And I had bags under my eyes – especially the left one.  I was told that this was the world’s safest surgery and I was feeling betrayed.  I called the surgery center again.  Several hours later, I received a call back from the same technician who impatiently told me that it might take weeks before I could see through that eye again – if ever!  I went into freak-out mode, until I went to my optometrist who told me my abrasion was already on the mend and that I would see better within a couple of days – which was the truth.  But I’m still considering kicking the technician’s ass for her spectacular lack of sensitivity.

At this point, I’m seeing quite well, although I have not yet achieved the perfection that people rave about.  Because I have thousands of floaters in both eyes, I will never achieve that level of perfection.  But I may be more particular than most after a lifetime of suffering with my eyes.

Plus, have you ever noticed how much crap you put on – and in! – your face before you leave the house?  Well, nowadays, in addition to everything else I spray, cleanse, brush, rub, drip, dab, roll and insert in my face, I now instill a lineup of drops – artificial tears, antibiotics, prednisone, liquid ibuprofen and one antibacterial gel that my eye just wouldn’t abide so I stopped taking it (with the doctor’s blessing).  I am hoping this will all stop by mid-October of this year and that my toric lens for astigmatism doesn’t rotate, which would require yet one more procedure.   

And if I’m really lucky, I will never need lenses (outside of readers) ever again! 

Et tu, Dr. Gottlieb?