Well it's been an idea kicking in my head. I finally got the inspiration to go ahead and do it. So, well, there it is:


As I noted in the piece, it's related to another piece title OEB (One Eye Bastard):


There was a time I was squeamish when it came to my eyes. Well that all changed when I caught an elbow in the eye during soccer. There was a snap, a shower of stars, and the world went back. I came too face down in the grass, and I couldn't see. My left eye felt like it was a gaping bleeding hole, and I was sure that I lost my eye. I let out a scream. The rest of the players were hovering over me trying to figure out what to do.

After a minute, I felt blood running down my face, and I calmly stated "I'm bleeding." They turned me over and I heard the ooohs and "yeah you are." I was dazed and wondering if my eye was hanging out of the socket. But no one mentioned that so I figured that part was ok. They got me to my feet and walked me over the athletic facility - I could not walk straight on my own. I was that woozy.

They got me in and sat me down. A staff member started to clean me up - there was a lot of blood. I still could not see out my left eye. Needless to say, I was a bit worried. Finally he got me to a point where they could see that I was cut under the eye, but everything else seemed ok.

I made it to the hospital, where they were blasé about my injury. They didn't seem to think it was anything serious. They glued my cut shut, without warning how badly that would sting. "Ow ^&%$$%^$@!" ... "oh yeah that's going to sting a bit" the doctor stated in a bored tone. On top of that , I had a really bad headache. Probably a concussion as well. They call in an ophthalmologist since they didn't have one on staff, and he turned out to be a really nice older gentlemen. Right off the bat he was concerned. He took a tissue, twisted it into a point, and ran it down my cheek. "Did you feel that?" he asked. "Um no I didn't" I replied - that was wierd. "That's not good. We need to do CT scans on you." "Oh" was all that I could muster.

So they did the scans, and after being in the emergency room for more that 8 hours, they realized that my injury was serious. The doctor looked at the scans and then said "wow you must be in a lot of pain." I didn't bother to reply.

Massive Orbital Blowout Fracture. My eye had blown out through the back of my eye socket. It turns out its designed to do that in case of severe trauma. The eye was caught in the fracture, so my me left eye had only limited movement. The options were surgery, or live with it. I chose surgery.

My eye and vision will never be the same, but at least I can see. My soccer career is over. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I choose to look at it from that point of view. A lot of people will reply "OMG!" when they hear the story, but I simply shrug and ask about their lives or kids or whatever.

So, about the piece. I still can't visualize how the surgery went. The doctor pulled down the bottom eyelid and made the cut there. From there he went it and pulled the eye from the fracture and inserted two plates to cover the hole. I kept asking him "Yeah I understand what you did, but how?' He just smiled at me. For some reason, the eye in hand is one of the images that comes to mind.

Oh, I'm not squeamish about my eyes anymore.