Done?

Early this month I had my fourth and hopefully last eye surgery shortly after I returned from  Europe, removing the cataract in my affected eye and putting in a plastic lens that I will have for life.  It's pretty standard surgery but it's a little more tricky when the eye has suffered prior operations because the resulting trauma can damage the "platform" that house the lens.

I was more than apprehensive.  Not only did I have the after-effects of a cold which caused me to need to cough every few minutes to clear my chest congestion but my three prior eye operations were definitely a mixed bag.

The first operation was dreadful, it hurt and I felt every cut and was ordered by the doctor several times to "Lie still!" which I did to the best of my pain-wracked ability.  The second operation a week later after the first one failed, I was put to sleep, at my insistence, and they filled my eye with oil to keep the pressure up while I went through a week of dreadful face-down convalescence and while my retina slowly healed.  The third operation, to get the oil out, they insisted that I be alert with only a local anesthetic, just like the first operation, so I could cooperate with the surgeon if necessary.  I fell asleep on the table (or went out) so I only remember being wheeled in and waking up as I was wheeled out.

This time I had to cooperate with the surgeon again and I was awake throughout and did stare at certain lights upon command or moved my eye as directed.  I felt pressure but no pain and had no distress; it helped that I knew what they were going to do (smash the existing lens with ultrasound to liquify it, remove it, then drop in the artificial lens through the cut in the cornea where it would unfold like a blooming g flower) thanks to an hour-long class I was required to take.  I felt liquid, cold liquid, being splashed or washed over my eye several times and I was gripping the edge of the gurney in a death grip waiting for pain to intrude (sort of like when I'm in the dentist's chair) but it never came and then I heard the surgeon say, "It's finished," and I was wheeled out.  In a few weeks I'll go to the optometrist to get a new prescription for corrective lens and see how well I'll be able to see again.

Europe at last

I was a history major at the university, and I primarily read history now.  I force myself to read literature occasionally, although once I get into a great book, I can love it.  Like reading Great Expectations recently (apparently I didn't read it in ninth grade, although we spent a whole semester on it), the first 100 pages were bewildering, the last 400 pages were pure pleasure.

Coincidentally, this year I read a book on D-Day after finishing a book on the Second World War in Europe.  Then I got a call from my friend Eric, the husband of my first and best running buddy, Rhea.  He said, "Rhea and I are going to England for my Oxford reunion and then to France to go on a personally guided tour of the D-Day beaches, and Rhea insisted that I call you to invite you to join us."  Rhea and I used to take long runs on the Mall and the trails in Northern Virginia and talk about battles, before she and Eric moved back to California a decade ago.  Yeah, that's the way she is, and me too, I guess.

So I went with them, to Oxford and London and then to Normandy to visit the D-Day beaches and then to Paris.  They both have long known that I have never been outside of North America and this has always mystified them.  They were excellent traveling companions and the perfect travelogue hosts.

I spent twelve days in England and France, flying to London to meet them and flying home from Paris after spending the last two days there alone.  Oxford was charming and London was terrific, touring the D-Day beaches on this 75th anniversary of the battles in Normandy was memorable and providentially I toured Notre Dame barely two weeks before it burned so catastrophically.  I liked spending time on each of the five D-Day beaches the best, and the impressions of the days I spent in Paris are steadily growing in my memory.  I came back just in time, with a bad cold, for my fourth and hopefully last eye surgery; after being shown the wonders of Gay Paree, I suppose it's a wonder I ever came back.