Journal Entry: Seeing-Eye Aaron

I wrote Bruce yesterday and got him caught up on my surgery and follow-up, and it ended up being a long email. Occurred to me that some of you might be interested, too, so here's a quick edit of the email I sent him.

Thursday I got to the Center at 2:30. They took me to the surgery area in the back (which is basically just a doctor's office built onto the side of the consulting center). I sat in a...dentist's chair, sort of thing, and took 2 little white anti-anxiety pills. I guess they worked pretty well. I'm a pretty laid-back dude anyway, but these things overcame even my boredom. It was like hypnosis. I just sat there, waiting to see what would happen next (and idly curious).

What happened next was a LOT of waiting. I sat in that chair for about an hour (during which time a nurse administered 2 sets of numbing eye drops). Then they took me in a little room with a laser to cut the corneal flap. Yeah, gross, but I wasn't worried about it, and it really wasn't bad at all. It's HORRIBLE to think about, but actually doing it is no big deal. After the flap was cut I walked back to my chair (my vision was blurry, but my eyes still worked and all) where I was supposed to sit with my eyes closed for thirty minutes. Twenty-five minutes into that they called Trish to tell her I'd be done soon. An hour after THAT they finally took me back to the OTHER room with a laser where I would get the actual LASIK (that is, the shaving of cells off my cornea).

They put an orange dye in my eyes, to help the doctor see something more clearly. Everything got a LITTLE bit orangey, but other than that it wasn't noticeable. I went in and sat in the chair and stared at a blinking red light for a little less than one minute per eye. Then I was done. Walked out into the front sitting area, where Trish was waiting, and she FREAKED out. No one had told her about the orange dye. She thought my eyes were maimed or something. I watched her reaction, knew immediately what she was reacting to, but thanks to the little white pills, it just seemed idly curious to me. After the fact, I laughed and laughed at the horror on her face (which she was bravely trying to hide, for my sake), and the fact that, at the time, I recognized it but didn't say a word. A couple minutes later the nurse mentioned something in passing that clarified things for Trish, so she was able to relax.

Anyway, the actual surgeries (that is, the two parts where I interacted with lasers) took about 10 minutes, total, combined. In between, I had to wait 30 minutes, and it probably needed about 30 minutes beforehand between taking the pills and going in for the first laser, to let the medicines take effect. So, all told, the actual procedure probably takes about an hour and fifteen minutes. It could easily be done in an hour and a half.

I got there at 2:30 and left right at 6:00. It seemed to me like they'd just overbooked. That was pretty frustrating to me at times, but whatcha gonna do? At every step along the way, anyway, the doctor told me that things were going very well. By the time we left the office, Thursday evening, I was telling people on the phone that I could see about halfway between where I'd been with glasses, and where I'd been without.

Thursday night was a strict "No computers, no video games, no books" rule, which just totally crushed my social life. We went home and Trish and I watched Alias (they specifically said TV was okay), but thanks to the drugs I kept dozing off. I couldn't really see that clearly anyway, but I could follow what was going on. We watched one episode, started a second, and I fell asleep halfway through. When it went off I woke up and went to bed (about 9:30). Trish came to bed sometime later.

Friday morning's post-op was, as I said, at 8:30. I actually woke up around 6:00, because I'd gone to bed so early and I'm pretty accustomed to 6 hours' sleep at this point. So I got up at 6:00, stumbled into my office, and decided to run my auctions in World of Warcraft. No big deal -- it involves loading the game and then typing a couple commands that I've got long memorized. I figured I could do that if I couldn't see at all.

So I get in the game, and I can see everything crystal clear. I mean, yeah, maybe it takes a few minutes for me to focus, but once I do, everything stays focused and I can see everything in game. I run my auctions, and then start just playing (because I've got an hour and a half to kill). Mom logged on and I chatted with her for about half an hour (which meant a lot of reading tiny font). And all of this is SO much habit that I kept forgetting how big of a deal it was. Then suddenly it strikes me -- the morning after, and I already have PERFECT vision! Right about then, I hear the door swing open as Trish walks in. I look up to tell her the good news--

And that whole end of the room is just a huge blur. I actually said, "Never mind." Which just confused her. I guess the huge, bright monitor that I've got was positioned in just the perfect position for my early focusing. I learned over the next hour or so that I had to focus on a given distance before it would resolve, but I could focus pretty well on just about anything. There was a little blurriness around everything, but I could definitely see.

So we go to the post-op exam, and the first thing they do is a Reading Chart test. Everything was blurry, but at the center of the blur I could still see the dark outlines of the characters pretty clearly, so when they asked me to read the smallest line I could....

20/25 for each eye individually, and 20/20 for both together. That is just phenomenal for the morning after the surgery, and indicates there's a pretty good chance that I'll end up considerably better than that.

The blurriness was gone by 5:00 that afternoon. Unfortunately, there was still the discomfort.

Okay, after the surgery you have to listen to this little 10-minute speech on what you can and can't do, and what you should and shouldn't do for the recovery period (which is three stages long, from tonight, then next four days, and then the next three weeks). While I was sitting in the surgery area on Thursday, I'd heard seven different people get that speech, so I pretty much had it memorized. The thing that kinda stuck me was, "There will be some discomfort -- that's normal" matched with "if you feel any pain at all, call us immediately." I was kinda dreading trying to make the distinction.

Friday morning it made perfect sense. When I woke up, it felt like I had slept in my contacts. That's a very uncomfortable experience, but one I was pretty dang familiar with, so I was like, "Ah! I get it."

Well, that discomfort has persisted. Sometime late Saturday I complained about it in my left eye, which indicated to me that it had faded from my right eye by then. At this point my right eye is perfect, I'd say. Very clear vision, very little discomfort. But my left eye is STILL irritated. It's probably also still just that "regular discomfort," rather than pain, but it's been so persistent and (like any eye discomfort) it's so distracting that it has me pretty concerned.

When Nicki got her surgery they sent her home with four different bottles of eye drops to use four times daily: antibiotic, steroid, numbing, and moisturizing. They sent me home with three (left out the numbing). I'm really wishing I'd gotten all four. Nicki said that they probably discontinued use of the numbing drops because it would make you more likely to touch your eye post-op, and less likely to keep it moisturized (and those are the two most important steps to recovery). That makes sense, but I'm really wishing I had some of those numbing drops.

Instead, though, I just called the doctor. This would be Monday night. He suggested a couple things I could do that might help, and said that if it was still hurting on Tuesday at noon, I should call back and schedule an afternoon appointment. It was, and I did. My boss here had LASIK five years ago, so he's been very understanding and encouraging.

So, I went in to see the doctor, and he looked really closely at both eyes, and told me that I had a little bit of inflammation still on the left eye, that wasn't on the right. Nothing very serious (and I hadn't damaged the cornea, which was my concern), but he gave me a stronger steroid drop to use in the left eye for the next couple of days. I used it all evening yesterday, and my eye is definitely feeling better. I've also been trying to take longer and more frequent breaks from computer use, but you can probably guess how well that's going.

Anyway, that's the situation. My vision is incredible. Far better than it ever was with glasses or contacts. I get to wear sunglasses when I go outside. I can see everything in the room the moment I wake up. It's just, all around, in every way, awesome. I keep having to remind myself to be excited, though, because it worked so well that I keep forgetting it hasn't always been this way. As much as I hate change, I really adjust to it pretty quickly, I guess.

So, there's my story. I know I've typed a friggin' book, here, but I've really been wanting to share this with you all along. Sorry it took so long to get around to it. I do think I'm doing very, very well. The irritation is probably a fairly insignificant issue, so I wouldn't worry about it. Just about everything else has gone as well as it possibly could. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

God and Government: The Cartoon Thing

Have you heard about the whole Muhammed cartoon controversy? Every other blog in the world is talking about it as though everyone is entirely up to speed, but I can't really trust you people to read the news, so let me summarize.

Islamic tradition (law?) holds that it is wrong to draw images -- particularly cartoons -- of the Prophet. This seems to be akin to the "using the lord's name in vain" thing, but I'm no expert on Islamic tradition (law?). No, really.

Well, anyway, last December a small Danish newspaper printed a series of comics depicting the prophet, the most notable one featuring him wearing a turban that looked like a bomb. For some reason, it took a long time for anyone to notice, but sometime last week a lot of Muslim nations and organizations began creating a huge stir over it, demanding an apology and organizing a widespread boycott of Danish projects (that actually severely hurt several Danish organizations in a very short period of time). The government and the editor of that paper both offered a...sort of restricted apology, but then newspapers throughout Europe picked up the cartoons and started to run them in a show of solidarity for the little Danish paper, and for freedom of speech in general.

The argument seems to be this: that the Western world is not subject to Islamic law, and shouldn't be expected to operate under it. Furthermore, that the Western media has long used political cartoons to attack Western political and cultural icons, as well as (of course) Christianity and Judaism. When "they" start to cause a ruckus over this, try to tell our media what it can and can't print based on their religious doctrines, we have to remind them that most of what makes us separate from them is the sort of freedom that allows our media to print stupid political cartoons.

(That is, as I understand it, the basic argument in favor of the cartoons -- not necessarily mine.)

And then, on the other hand, the big point is, simply, "Well, yes, sure, you can print anything you want in your papers, but why would you choose to print something viciously offensive to millions and millions of people?"

And whoever is asking that question has never really paid any attention to Western media....

But all of that is background. As I was driving to lunch yesterday, I was listening to a story on the topic, and I was thinking, "If I were a cartoonist, I would draw one showing Mohammed rolling his eyes, with a little chat bubble that said, 'Stop killing people!'" And I thought about it a little and decided that, for historical reasons, I'd probably go ahead and throw in Jesus there next to him, and the two of them together reprimanding their audience.

So that got me thinking that, really, it sounded kind of like a message incompatible with my own beliefs. The actual line running through my head was, "No religion has any good reason to go killing people." That's the line that got Jesus added in, actually. But, then, it comes across as kinda pacifist, which I obviously am not.

So, pondering these things, I came to this conclusion. "Every government has good reason to kill people." It goes without saying, really. Doesn't necessarily mean they will, or should (after all, there may very well be better reasons not to), but they've got a vested interest in making some people dead. Religions don't. Religions benefit most from living people, although all of their offered rewards tend to be for the dead. It's an odd situation.

But here's what I'm saying: if the United States is in a war because of Christianity...that's an atrocity. If the United States is in a war for territory or resources, well, that's a practicality. Such wars have been the foundation of most every nation you could name today, the United States very much included. If it's in a war to protect its citizens from an external aggressor (even, yes, preemptively), then it's serving the interests of the citizens which is, in fact, a state's first responsibility. States have good reasons to go to war, but religions don't.

So, yeah, I stand behind my cartoon. Any decent Prophet would stand up in front of his followers, and roll his eyes, and just shout in exasperation, "Stop killing people!" He'd be right, too.

God and Greatness: A Maxim

When it comes to religion, your average scientist is a person who can ask "Why?" a thousand times, but call someone a superstitious fool for asking it a thousand and one.

Looking Ahead

These are some topics I'd like to write about at some point in the future. I'm mostly posting them here as a reminder to me (in case I lose the little scrap of paper I scribbled them down on), but if any of the titles particularly piques your interest, I suppose you could vote for it in the Comments. Or, y'know, beg me to please not drone on about one of them, if you'd prefer that....

The Meaning of Life - The Dynasties - paradise without Construction
Absolute Time
Meeting God
Negotiating with God (Sodom and Gomorrah)
Defining Magic - Technology as Magic
Science vs. Scientific Culture
Christian Education
Cannibalistic Science
Reality vs Imagination
Keynotes (I don't know what I meant by this phrase, but it was on the list)

Journal Entry: Home Again

I wanted to have a thoughtful, serious essay for you today, but I just can't seem to find it. I figure, anyway, that the least I can do is provide some details on my trip, from which I am safely returned.

Seattle is very cool. I liked it quite a lot. I really love big cities on big bodies of water, because it's fascinating the way the cities pile up right next to the shoreline, whatever it is, until it seems like the city itself was built out of the water, or the shore carved out with a knife.... It's a blind watchmaker thing, where you can easily mistake the effect for the cause, and it creates an incredible mental image.

The city put me in mind of New York City nestled in remote English countryside, with the cultural reflections in both directions that such a situation would engender. I liked NYC much more than I expected to. Seattle, I think, excels far beyond that, although (as part of that very excellence) it lacks the pungent vulgarity of NYC which, you must admit, is a significant part of the flavor.

I made a new friend. Not generally something I do, and not often something I'm excited about, but I like Irene. She's cool.

I came back from Travel to find Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium waiting at my desk. It's a software package I requested immediately after I got here. The wheels of time grind slow, in government work, but they grind exceedingly fine. Which is to say that Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium is exceedingly fine. Y'know, like a hot lady. Good stuff.

Oh! I spoke with Josh on my trip. In spite of the entirety of the contents of the call, it was awesome to actually talk with him. It's been too long, and it probably will be again, but I enjoyed being in touch.

And, for reading material on my journey, I took along a book that Toby had gotten me for my birthday more than a year ago, Fluke by Christopher Moore. Christopher Moore is the one who wrote Lamb (which you should read, if you haven't, or read again, if you have), and Toby and Gwyn liked his writing so much that, as far as I can tell, they bought and read everything he's ever written. And, shortly after, what should show up in my birthday present wrappings but Fluke. I just assumed it was another funny story, which they enjoy sharing -- I didn't realize it would be tailor-written to me. Err...in a way. Anyway: hilarious, incisive, insightful, just like Lamb, but without all the heresy. Just finished it over lunch today.

I had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Denver airport. I had Trish's laptop with me. I discovered I could buy high-speed wireless access for $10. You bet I did! I spent the entire layover playing Alterac Valley. So there's how much of a nerd I am. We won the battleground (only my third win in hundreds of games), and I actually shouted out, "Yay!" in the middle of a crowded gate. So there's how much of a dork I am.

Hope you had a good week. I'll try to write something useful soon....

Journal Entry: Hiatus

These are things in my life:
This morning I went by the ClearSight Center for a preliminary exam, in the hopes of getting LASIK sometime soon.

Tomorrow morning (early) I'm heading to Seattle for a business trip. Not the fun kind. I'll be there through Friday evening. Trish is letting me use her laptop, so that's something, but I'll probably be fairly out of touch. Sorry about that. Trish has suggested that I travelblog on my trip, and I may do that. Probably depends whether it's any fun at all, or just boring....

The week after I get back (first week of February) I've got 2 all-day meetings at work. Never any fun. They're 8-hour days, though, so that'll be nice.

The week after that, on Wednesday the 9th, I have a follow-up pre-surgery exam in the morning. On Thursday the 10th I have the surgery (2:30 in the afternoon), and then I'm going to be pretty much out of operation for 24-48 hours.

So, this time next month I could be seeing on my own, for the first time since I was, I dunno, 6-ish. That's a crazy thought.

Wish me luck. It's scary, and quite expensive.

Greatness: Biography (Part I)

There's a very ancient custom (tradition, superstition, whatever you wish to call it), that orphans and foundlings must be treated with a special dignity. The story goes (or went, if you will) that the gods, whatever their names, have a surprising predilection for going disguised as men, and they certainly tend to get about a bit, and so you never quite know whether the adopted baby's biological father is, in fact, biological. If you get my drift....

(Yes, I've been reading some Pratchett recently, for those who've read enough of his stuff to recognize the influence there....)

Ack. There's something I want to write, something I need to say, and I'm quite sure that I'm not up to the task of saying it. I felt this way, several years ago, when I had to give a toast at his wedding.....

Listen, I have a lot to say about Human Greatness, and this glorious world crafted by God for the sake of humanity, and how even the bad comes out to good, in the end....

But it hurts when it's someone you know, y'know? It's painful and it's scary and it's really, really, really, bitterly unfair. And you want to scream and you want to cry at the same time. That's what it's like when Life happens. A baby is born crying, and for good reason.

(That last sentence is just about the most cynical line I've ever written....)

Look, Life is like this: it's Man-made. It seems like a good idea, it mostly works, all the pieces fit together, and those who know how it works can really get it to do some amazing things. And other people have an astonishing tendency to just push the buttons, without really reading the manual, and it just works for them. They've got a knack. But with anything Man-made, you're going to have some people who, no matter how they try, just can't quite understand what's going on at all....

I imagine that's what the world looks like to angels. It's fascinating. It's beautiful. It's just this overwhelming experience, full of boundless possibilities. But when you get down to the joints, down to the bendy parts, it's gritty, and it breaks down just when you really need it to go....

I heard this morning that one of my oldest friends (or, in fact, one of my youngest friends, depending how you're counting) has cancer. That's the impetus for a thousand blog posts, I suppose. I don't care. Let me join in the caterwauling. I need to talk about him.

I've known Josh for as long as I've been me, for any but the most general definition of "me." I met him when I was six, in Claremore, among that great cloud of my-age friends that I stumbled upon when my family moved there. By the time I was seven, at the latest, he was my best friend.

His special genius was singing....

No, that's not true. His special genius was smiling. He had so much fun, whatever we were doing. We used to laugh together at anything. Y'know how little kids play together? How they dream up an idea and together they go off into some other universe and just...play? Josh and I used to play for hours. I don't remember really playing before I met him (but, then, I don't remember much before I was six), and I don't really remember playing after then, except with him (or on my own).

We used to talk about starting a singing group. Josh and me, and the rest of that cloud of my-age friends there at the Church of Christ on Blue Starr Drive. Yeah, me. Yeah, singing. Josh was that convincing....

The last time I saw Josh, he was smiling. Every time I can remember, he's been smiling. And not because things were going great, when I happened to see him. He's always been able to end up smiling, though, no matter what was going on.... To see something in the world around him, the world that is just beating and bruising and bewildering him -- to see something in all that to laugh about, at least when he's around friends.

I imagine that's what the world looks like to angels. Life has not been nice to Josh. I missed all the pain, too. I haven't been anywhere near him for any of it. It's easy to feel guilty about that. He was my best friend when we were kids, without a care in the world, running through grassy pastures, pestering our siblings....

I moved to Kansas just months before everything went wrong with his parents.

Six years later, senior year in high school, I met up with him again. He came to live with us for a little while, and I got to know him again. Still smiling, still laughing, still this incredible boy. I was there when he met Julie. I made a very clumsy and (in its way) fairly rude rendition of his role in my life, by way of a toast at his wedding. I'm very concerned, writing this now, that I didn't learn a thing from that experience....

Because life hasn't worked right, for Josh. He's so enthusiastic, so determined, so alive -- so much more so than everyone I know -- and for every bit of force Josh has poured into Life, Life has pushed back with equal and opposite, as it were.

He's had an amazing life, already....

He made it on his own, when he needed to taste independence. He had a hard time of it, because he was young and, after all, making it on your own is a hard business. But he's managed it more than once.

He had a beautiful and brilliant wife. I know how proud he is of that. Even if only for a while, that was an accomplishment. He's got two beautiful sons.

He could sing like an angel. I tried a dozen times to come up with another way to phrase that, but it's the best I can do. He could sing like a drunk, at times. He could sing like a troubadour at times. He could sing like anyone in AVB or Acapella, and I'll fight anyone who'd say otherwise. He sang with passion, because he loved to sing. That he understood. Even when nothing else in the world made sense, when the Devil cheated and even God seemed to be up to something, music was straight and true. I remember how he poured all of himself into singing a single song....

He always wanted to sing for AVB or Acapella. That's why I mentioned them up there. Elementary through high school, I remember how cool he always thought that would be. I imagine it would rank as one of his life goals, no doubt.

I found out this morning that Josh has cancer on his vocal chords. I guess they're checking to see if it's elsewhere, and to see what else can be done (or needs to be done), but, really, the whole story of Josh's life is right there. He's got cancer on his vocal chords.

It's not fair.

Too often, when I think about Josh, I want to cry. I think of him as this big goofy smile, I think about all the happiness he has brought into my life, and when I think about how much pain has been in his, I want to cry, because life isn't fair.

But this is too much. It's like it's aimed at him. Everything else is just Life, in the big, faceless, heartless manner of it, but this....

This is what I'm talking about. This is how Life is tailor-made to us. This is how God writes us into precisely the one story where we won't be a bit part. No other promises but that one, it seems.

I hate to write this all, now, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I am writing this whole post on three short lines of information, a quick note from Mom. So I can't say whether he'll be well again. I can't say what will come of this. I don't know enough to make predictions, or guesses. I know just enough to absolutely hate it.

I was there at camp, when Josh sang for the talent show every year. I was there the year he found out Tony Brown had been hired by AVB, and Tony promised to mention Josh to them, keep Josh posted. I remember how excited he was, how much fun he had teaching me the bass line to "Keep Looking Up," by Free Indeed.

I can't believe how far away he is, now. I wish I could somehow be there for him. This is the third time I've felt that way, deep down in my heart, and each time it has been worse.

Say a prayer for him, if you can find it in you. Because he's got to be scared now. Because he's got to be angry now. Because it's just not fair.

"Dear Lord, my Father and my King. Be close to Josh today."