What Are You Looking At?

It was my fault if anyone was to blame. I didn't wear safety glasses. The racquetball hit my left eye and left me wondering what would happen.

"You better get that checked," someone said. So I headed for the hospital. Not too concerned, I waited my turn, got two stitches, and asked the doctor, "When will I be able to see again?"

"What? Open your eye." One glance told him what neither of us knew. He'd only seen the outside of my eye. I thought blood from the cut covered the outside. But the impact had crushed capillaries and filled the inside of my eyeball with blood. I couldn't see anything. I could tell if the light in the room was on or off, but that's all. I was blind. "I'll be right back," the intern said.

The specialist examined me and gave me the bad news. "You've lost half your eyesight." She said there was no surgery, no medication, that could change that fact. Then she told me what to expect. "There's a 70% chance of glaucoma in the other eye."

She admitted me to the hospital "for observation." I don't know if I misunderstood or simply didn't believe what she'd said. But I spent the next hour or more lifting the patch, curious about whether or not I could see yet.

Then I fell asleep, woke the next morning, and read the eye chart 20/20.

I don't know why we wait for some miracles and others happen overnight. And I don't understand how some people who can't see have incredible vision.