Smiling Eyes

The eyes have been called " a window to the soul".   We see truth or lies, happiness and sorrow in those orbs.

My eyes are my best feature, or so I've been told.  Mellowing from the chocolate brown of my youth, they have become a soft hazel rimmed with amber.  Some say my eyes twinkle. It is likely the new cataract lenses.  Then again, maybe not.

My vision is another matter.  I have been legally blind without my glasses since my twenties; fortunately, good eye doctors have been able to give me near normal eyesight with corrective lenses.  The thick spectacles have been the first thing I donned and the last thing I've doffed since I was eight.  I tried wearing contacts in my twenties, no-line bifocals (ah, vanity) in my forties.  The diabetes, diagnosed in the 1990's, took its toll in my fifties.

What began as a simple eye exam has since become a source of constant worry and prayer, in spite of outward confidence.  Straight lines have bends and breaks; the printed word does not flow, but has blind spots and folds in each sentence.  I suspected macular degeneration, a disease that afflicted my mother.  Not so, says the doc.  It was retinal hemorrhage, probably aggravated by diabetes.  Two tears in one eye, one in the other.  I was sent to a specialist.

The eye surgeon verified the diagnosis and added something else--cataracts were forming.  No wonder I couldn't drive at night anymore!  Plagued by "halos" and blind spots, with crooked lines and waxed-paper sight, it's a miracle I could drive at all.  Less than a year later, they were ready to be removed.  I was petrified.

The surgery itself went well. The second eye was postponed twice due to more bleeding, and I lived with several kinds of eye drops and lop-sided vision for many weeks.

Now I have something else still.  Streaks of light, like a laser beam, followed by a sharp pain come from nowhere.  This is an "ocular migraine", rarely followed by a headache. The Vaseline-like film continues on mostly my left eye, this due to something he called "pavement scarring" at the surgical site.  This will have  to be removed by laser.  There is still more bleeding.  He said I should be aware of the "veil effect" where it looks like a curtain in front of my eyes.

I value my sight more than any other of my senses.  I love to read, blog and play Scrabble.  I like to look in peoples' eyes when we talk.  I like the sky and the lake and the view from the rest stop on I-86.  I want to see colors and flowers and the faces of my grandchildren.  Losing my eyesight scares me more than losing my life.

So far, I have almost full vision.  Modern medicine and the skill of my eye surgeon will help me to keep it as long as possible.  My blood sugar is under good control, which helps.  Macular degeneration hangs over me like the Sword of Damocles.  I take in every sight, relishing each one and committing  it to memory.

The love of my life has eyes that have crinkles from years of smiling.  The color chameleons with the brightness of joy and darkens like Lake Erie in November when he is miffed.  They change with the hue of his shirt and the mood of the moment.

Not being able to look in those eyes again is the most terrifying thought of all.