For your eyes

Dan had cataract surgery on his right eye yesterday. Today he had an early-morning check-up at his surgeon’s office in Gloucester. The whole coast was enveloped in a heavy fog, so I drove. We took Liberty, who didn’t get to go to her Agility class today. After Dan’s appointment, I drove us up and down the curvy, hilly roads to Wingaersheek Beach, now open to dogs since the season has ended. Only 0.6 miles long, lying along the Annisquam River facing Ipswich Bay, the beach has smooth pale sand studded with huge half-buried brownish boulders which look like giant potatoes. When the tide is out (which it happened to be) one can walk way out on the sand. The land is flat here, and the depth of the water increases gradually; a perfect beach for families with little kids in summer, as well as for dogs and their human companions off-season. 

Dan takes out the ball flinger, loads it with an orange rubber ball and lets it fly. Legally off-leash here, Liberty looks like a lead bullet streaking across the sand. With her silver, white and black Blue Merle coloring, the little dog fades in and out of the fog like a phantom. Other people appear with dogs. I watch the dogs playing, tails held high, splashing in the water. “It’s a miracle that we can see this,” I think to myself.

Dan’s eye is still bruised from yesterday’s surgery, but his sight is better already. He has worn thick glasses to correct his bad vision since he was a child. “You have no idea!” he would say when I complained of needing glasses in my sixties. But ten years ago I was diagnosed with Fuch’s Dystrophy, a somewhat rare genetic disease that causes one’s corneal cells to burst, eventually causing blindness. I began seeing a Fuchs specialist at Mass Eye & Ear Hospital. 

Each year, my specialist would say, “There’s not much change; let’s see you in a year.” This year, I was shocked when she said, “It’s time to do corneal transplants.” Both surgeries were accomplished over a three-month period. I was astounded at how much my vision improved.

“It really is a miracle, don’t you think,” I whisper as I look into the foamy shallows at the scores of tiny mollusk and crab shells. “And I have you two and your families to thank for it,” I say, out loud to the people whose healthy corneas are enabling me to see. I wrote both donor’s families, thanking them. “Your loved one lives on in me. I’m an artist, a musician and a writer. Each time I draw or tune my harp or write my blog, your beloved person does it with me. Without the gift of their cornea, I would have lost my sight. So every day, I thank them for being part of me and everything I do. I think of us as a team.”

Liberty would run until she fell over. Dan hitches the leash to her collar. Her one blue eye is the color of the water. Her other eye is a warm, dark brown with a blue area at the top, as if she couldn’t decide which color she wanted. She has a hot pink tongue which, at the present, extends over the side of her jaw, making a clicking sound as she pants that sounds like she is saying, “cake, cake, cake, cake, cake.” With a great deal of noise, she drinks a bowl of water.

It is time to drive home. The fog has barely lifted at all. “Are you sure you want to drive my car? I mean, I really can see all right,” Dan says.

“Nope. We’re good. We can see just fine,” I reply.