The River

I found your heart today close to mine,
heartbeat in time with yours
one dancing as two.

The pain apart from life times lost
felt anew in the plucked chord
bound one another.

Last visions of passing bonding us,
In heat and snow with bitter loss
crossing time's song.

Lonely years and an empty heart
Dreams of memories call out!
Bid time return!

But empty march the years, agony keeping tempo
Darkness seeking its past dues
take me not!

Long shadows cast into morning dawn
Beneath the earth lying locked
your memory calls.

Gods and Fates mock mortals and fae
casting lovers back onto the stage
Love is undeniable.

Spin and pass, chase and run,
The moment arrives
"is it you?"

Yes, death deferred but not denied
None can pull apart the seal
Crafted by love.

For as long as the clock unwinds.
Strong as fae blood and hearts
Time's endless circle.

Last Surgery

So this phase of my life has nearly ended and my eyesight is what it will be(almost) until I die. No more cataracts, no more occlusions, no more astigmatism. And let me tell you that last surgery was the worst. Describing it really doesn't do it justice, but I'll do it for you here as best I can.


First surgeries were to removed the traumatized lenses. In my case it was many parts trauma and damage to my head and eyes, and one part metaphyical assault by a creature bent on revenge from the time I was 5. I've already described the event in another blog post and have yet to complete the final attack when I was rid of it...at least for the time being.

According to Doctor Sampson, my left eye looked like a space station or old SkyLab outline and my right looked like it was a rising cloud of haze as if kicked up by a car wheel throwing just in the air. These cataracts do not affect the INSIDE of the lens but instead form on the back of the lens and require a much more invasive surgery to excise from the eye. As I am young and the cataracts were trauma induced I was not given just one incision to move the cataracts, but 2. One above the eye and one below.

Once the incisions are made a solution is injected, a vibrating tool is inserted and the lens is shattered and sucked up....taking away the lens I was given at birth by my mother and father. And believe this now as I say this, I resent the need caused by them and the creature and all who did this to me that I was robbed of a part of my body. In its way it's as horrifying as circumcision though it can be argued THIS was necessary. Once the chamber where my lenses once resided was mostly cleared of the ned and darkened tissue an implant is inserted and unfolds itself and embeds itself into the remaining dark tissue and anchors tot he ball and socket muscles my lens once attached to.

The ones I have are the ones on the left, they give full range of vision but do not correct astigmatism.

So that's the first two surgeries, to remove the lens and implant the new ones so i can get used to them. And believe that it does take getting used to as your eyes will see an illusion as you get used to focusing with them that appears like water running on glass like rain int he corners of your field of vision. I'm not sure what causes that but it does fade away with time and the focusing becomes sharper, though still not perfect.

Next surgeries were the YAG laser capsulotomy to clear the remaining dark cataracts left by the trauma that had to act as the seat of the new lenses until the tissue around it healed. The YAG laser is a focused beam that hoes past the lens without damaging it and explodes the remaining tissue so the eye can pick out the debris and remove it for good. In my case it was a mandatory event since all the cataracts were at the back of the lens and could not be removed completely. This is normally done to older folks after they have had their cataracts for a few years and the tissue starts to darken behind it. In my case it was removed after 6 months because I was still looking at a darkened world. With this tissue gone I was finally seeing an undarkened world at last for the first time in 39 years. If I thought the world had brightened when the implants went in I was sorely mistaken. 

After the Capsulotomy I was walking into things and holding my eyes in pain when I saw flashes. it's strange to note that when you have cataracts you're light sensitive as well because your eyes cannot function normally to close out light AND see normally as they become problematic to accomplish one task since it confounds the other. Once the cataracts were gone my eyes were getting the world and all the glorious light it was supposed to see...and it was as if I had just left my own personal cave and was walking in the sun for the first time in a lifetime. 

Now, with no more occlusions to block my sight my astigmatism became spectacular! Rays of light at night and in the dark from headlights, streetlights, hell even the TV reached for my right eye.

Since I no longer had glasses to correct this, the rays were far more dramatic and terrifying to my inexperienced eye. I would literally have to close my right eye against the glare to get some level of perspective as it would feel as if the light was climbing in to grab me with longs rays. That brings us to the final surgery....PRK Laser.

Now if the prior surgeries sounded painful, understand that they were uncomfortable at worst, and the YAG lasers left me with no ill effects and indeed, I felt lighter for having lost the last remnants of the darkness that had chased me from my youth. The worst pain I had suffered from in all the surgeries so far had been a scratched lens of my right eye that happened after I'd been bandaged and left the office...my right eye kicked off the anesthetic as I do and popped wide open without my consent. It's a strange genetic quirk I inherited along with my red hair from my Scottish ancestry.

Well LASIK was not viable as I'd already had massive cuts done around my cornea and all that needed to be treated was the astigmatism and not really much of a change to my prescription at all. That kind of fine work demanded the less invasive, fare more painful, PRK.

First they numb the eye, which in my case just makes it ACHE because I throw off lidocaine with ease. So the doctor adds 4-6 time more so he has time! Believe me...it's not much more time. He then tapes my eyelids open, packs the eye lids top and bottom with betadyne covered wads of cotton to help immobilize it. Then the gruesome shit begins.

Out comes the tool and they abrade and scour the area of the eye that needs to have cells removed in order to accept the reshaping of the cornea. Two passes of the tool and the sensation of someone sanding my eyeball and I have to keep quiet(be thankful you all don't have this ability to kick off poison and pain medications, it's not all candy and flowers) so that the doctor doesn't pause in his work. Then comes the laser and of all of them so far, this one is less a fine tool the YAG laser is and it instead a violent sounding turbo laser! It comes on loudly, starts reshaping the cornea and I see violet light and smell nitrogen gas and groaned at the pain. 

Following this they unpack, untape, rinse and remove everything then fit a special contact lens similar to the one in the picture but larger to cover and protect the cornea, helping it to retain the shape the laser gave.

The first nights are hell, it feels so light sensitive and so sickeningly abraded sleep is near impossible. Pills don't help, willpower goes only so far. My natural healing factor that is faster than most peoples didn't help me much here as the contact lens was always irritating my eye. I would wake up and open my right eye only to have white hot tears gush forth onto my face and remind me of the monster that attacked me and gave me these eyes. Drops don't help, medicine barely works, and my will was shattering fast. 

I'm sorry to anyone I was short with as this healing was happening. I'm sorry to all of you whom I love that might have been slighted by this, and those of you who did not hang on as the world was darkening and brightening for me. It's nearly over now.

Monday I get the contact lens removed and the healing process begins to finalize. Over the course of a year my right eye will heal and become about 20/20, I'll be able to do archery again which I missed very much when I could no longer go into he sunlight and shoot the targets.

If somehow I have been short with you, I am sorry. I'm trying to be a better man than I was. I thought I was brave and found fear at the darkening of my life. 

I thought I was accepting of change but rebelled at the disregard and abandonment of friends.

I thought I was strong but found that I was nothing before the last stab of this monster.

I don't know if I was proud before but I am definitely humbled by this experience.

May you never have to face such a trial in your life.