Flippin’ Eye Ball

Made it to 2021. I keep typing and deleting. Ugh. Guess this is why I haven’t posted in a while. I did binge a lot of shows. Queen’s Gambit (so good), The Crown (why did I never watch this), Cobra Kai (I don’t know why, but now feel an obligation to watch Season 3), Virgin River (good lord I am avoiding life), Manhunt UnaBom (I am a crime junkie), plus many episodes of Schitt’s Creek again, hours and hours of Guys Grocery Games and so many episodes of Law and Order SVU. Very productive days sitting next to Sam on the couch day after day.

More deleting. It’s been 10 years since Samantha had surgery to remove a painful blind eye. I think it was surgery #21. The circumstances that caused her to lose her eye have been on my mind a lot lately because of why she lost her eye. You’d think once you read this that I would be against vaccinations, but the exact opposite is true.

Sam never did well with vaccinations. She had her first seizure after first DPT shot and reactions from other vaccinations that by around age 6 she was vaccinated enough that we stopped any more. Then there was a really bad flu season. So, we decided it would be best for Sam to get the flu shot. Oh my. Sam got so sick from it that she couldn’t stop vomiting. She was so violently ill that she hemorrhaged her eye. Her little blue eye was brown. This eye, her right, had already been through so much because of retinopathy of prematurity(ROP). She had multiple surgeries because of ROP when she was in the NICU and then two major surgeries in Michigan. Technically it was a blind eye, but it was hers.

A few months after the hemorrhage, Sam started holding her head and crying. Sam crying from pain means it is really, really bad. It was bad. She had scar tissue around her cornea and apparently that is extremely painful. Many appointments later, it was determined the eye needed to be removed.

Eyeballs gross me out. It’s a ball of goop. Listening to what the surgeon was going to do was disgusting to me and fascinating to Darren. Vitrectomy. My summation in not very medical terms – what they did was like scooping out an egg while leaving the shell intact. Gross right? Then they put a silicon ball in that shell, put a skin graft over the ball and attach some muscles so it will move. Still with me? Sounded so invasive that I thought we would be at the hospital for days. Boy was I wrong about that. We drove to UCLA (90 minutes away), Sam had her surgery at 8 am and we were back home by 1 pm minus one eyeball.

Months later, Sam was fit with a prosthetic to cover the silicon, skin graft ball. It’s like a very bulky contact. It is a piece of art. It is a piece of art with its own stories. Sam has handed it to people, freaked people out when it flips upside down, and made me scream when she took it out and it fell on the bathroom floor. I’ve had to go to her school to pick it up. Eyeball in Prada bag, no big deal. Sam has instructed me “wear two eyeballs on Screamin”(her favorite ride in Disney California Adventure). She has demanded that it be washed and then demands it to be put back in. I’ve been seen in public flipping it around so she has two eyes going the same direction. Flippin’ eye ball, new adventures coming soon.

Now why I’ve been thinking about this so much lately. I’ve told myself for years that when Sam got to the point where she is now with her health I would take her to Disneyland everyday. Let those two eyeballs ride all the coasters they want. Not happening until there is a vast amount of vaccinations. Will we risk Sam getting the vaccine? Don’t know yet. I know me, Darren and our boys will. We all, including the child who is terrified of needles, get the flu shot every year to protect Sam. I’d love to think that everyone who doesn’t have known medical reactions to vaccines will all get vaccinated but that is just fucking stupid to think.

Try and be nice to someone. Get a flu shot. Get COVID shot when it’s your turn. If those are already on you list to do or done, it can be something as simple as letting your older sister win a game of words with friends.

Oh and if you think Donald Trump won the election and the events of this week are acceptable, what the fuck?

Cheers.

Nancy