Sunrise And Sunsets: Finale 2012 - Sabbatical

I certainly don't want this to be my last blog post, but I'm certain if nothing changes this week, it will be my last for 2012 at least.

What's special about this week is the same thing that has been of vast importance seven other times this year. It's surgery time! Never routine, never the same... This procedure will have a lens removal and implant in my right eye, election day saw a simpler, quicker albeit the same surgery on the left.

For some strange reason, this one is much different in the amount of drugs as well as the seriousness that has been placed on my other medical conditions. Whereas my first eye surgery to re-attach my retina in the left eye in March, I went in drug free, but heavily sedated, my most recent (number seven in total but number four on the left) I was heavily drugged and had to go thru the wretched thing with no anesthesia.

Don't ever have a surgical procedure without anesthesia.

I am not brave. I an not strong. I do not need to be congratulated for being a trooper. I am not built for this kind of pain and suffering. I have not miraculously recieved all of my vision back even with all of the procedures. I will not be able to articulate to you how dark, life threatening scary, mortality recognizing and life changingly bleak and painful this process really is.

I wouldn't wish this life on my worst enemy. I only do this because 'they' said that it would help. I have not registered a single complaint but for the blood curdling cries I let out at home various times throughout the day in what seems to be slow cooked torture.

I haven't worked since the summer of 2011. Things haven't been pain free and normal since January 8th of last year. That was almost two years ago. I haven't had control of my life since I slipped, and as I fell I saw my feet and legs in front of me and landed my then 240 pound frame on the back of my head in a thud-crunch flash of the whitest light on an auto dealership show room floor.

It's been kind of dark ever since.

I realize now as I write this that I have never cried about it. Never thought long and hard about the after effects. Never stopped during rehab and litigation to think about where I would be now. I had no idea I would be blind... A disabled vet living alone, handling all of this alone. Not on December 10th, less than 3 weeks away from being two years removed.

I'm still very numb about things.

I hate the fact that surgery number eight, the one that will put me over one million dollars in total medical costs spent will be the most dangerous one.

I hate that I'm responsible for ten percent of that.

I hate that although I can talk as the software types, I will never be fully able to explain to you exactly how this feels.

I hate that I've lost a bit of equilibrium, direction and may have lost the ability to drive. As a former over the road trucker, I've seen some wonderful things.

I hate this feeling of trepidation and woeful anticipation before surgery.

I still cannot explain to you how I make it to the hospital. My SisterFriend Ann took me there on my last procedure. The other six times I had no one and had to get myself to the OR and back home post op. I cannot explain to you how I did that.

Reggie took me for my first set of eye injections.
Donna picked me up from an intense laser session had on both eyes.

I cannot tell you how I made it to and from the other injection sessions and the subsequent laser sessions.

I don't have the courage nor the stregnth to do this again... Or to keep doing this.

But I want the ability to see...

Remember sunrises and sunsets?