Where It All Began

Well, here it goes. I have never been a blogger. Even though I grew up in the era when it became the popular thing to do; it wasn't something I was really interested in. The happenings in my life have changed this in me. I have found that I want to tell my story and let you see a few things through my eyes.
This journey I mentioned has been my journey to sight. I know, that seems silly for most people :) but it has been anything but silly for me. Some of you already know my story, but for those of you who don't, where better to start than the beginning. I was born with Congenital Cataracts. For those smiling and nodding because those two words mean nothing to you, let me break it down.  A cataract is "a cloudiness or opacity in the normally transparent crystalline lens of the eye. This cloudiness can cause a decrease in vision and may lead to eventual blindness." Congenital simply means to present at birth. So for those playing at home, this means I was born with opacity or clouds in the center of my lenses. If it was not treated it would lead to almost complete loss of vision in both of my eyes. Though they haven't found a cause for cataracts or found a specific genetic tie, I received my cataracts from my father who was also born with it.
The day they told my parents I had the same disease as my father, he cried. After a few moments of anger, fear, sadness, they bucked up and were determined to give me the best vision they could. This meant surgeries, contacts, and lots and lots of appointments.

At six weeks old, I had my first surgery to remove the lens from one eye. A week later, the second lens was removed. I was immediately put in contact lenses for babies. The lens prescriptions were changed weekly to mimic the development of a normal child's eyes. For those of you going "... waaaaiit, contacts... who the heck put them in and took them out?" well, that would be my mother. Yes, a first time mother had to wrap her infant in a blanket and stick her fingers in her baby's eyes to remove a small clear lens. As I grew up, I had contacts as well as glasses because doctors literally had to create vision for me. Just imagine being a teacher and having a 4yr old walk up to you with her hand over her eye saying "my contact fell out, can you help get it back in?"
In second grade, we began to realize they my eyes were crossing. Not a slight cross, instead a 'keep doing that and your face is going to stick like that' kind of cross. My opthamologist had to cut, move, and sew my optical muscles to keep the eye from crossing. Now since it just wouldn't be fair for one eye to be tortured and not the other, fourth grade marked my next surgery.
By middle school, my mom was pretty much over the idea of strapping me down, dodging my kicking feet, and gagging me to silence the screaming. She pushed for me to learn to handle my contacts myself. O that was an adventure. No one really knows how to tell a blind child how to stick a foreign object in her eye. But by 12 yrs old, I had mastered putting in and taking my lenses out without using a mirror. Those of you who use contacts will find that impressive. The image that will always make me laugh is a stranger walking into the eye doctor office. They walk into the area designated specifically for contacts; mirrors, bowls, solution, tweezers placed at every station. Now imagine scanning the room, seeing a college kid getting frustrated as he drops the "stupid thing" for the third time, a grown woman trying contacts for the first time, her face two inches from the mirror as she tries to manage the slippery lens and fluttering eyelid. Then there is me, a 12 year old kid kicking her feet because she can't touch the floor, puts the lens on her finger and pop it directly in her eye in under 4 sec. Let's just say, I was an oddity.
Then again, I have always been a rare patient. Every doctor office I have been in don't really know how to handle me. They see my prescription strength (+9.00), or read my chart, or look at how dry my eyes are and they all do the same thing.... "oh, wow". I have had to explain my vision to so many people, explain what I see and what I can't, explain to kids why I have such massive glasses at sleepovers.  But now, after 26 years, this is going to all change. I have a surgery schedule to replace the lenses I lost at 6 weeks old. My surgery is in a little over two weeks; this is why I wanted to write this blog. I want to share my past, my present and my future during this life altering procedure. More to come :)