All Too Familiar...

I had no intentions of writing this post. I was going to talk about cakes and books and Friday Favorites. I wasn't going to talk about this kind of stuff here. This part of my life wasn't made for this blog - those were discussed here; this blog was made for my happy life. 

But we're all real here and life is made of the good, and the not so good.

I had an eye appointment yesterday. Just like any other 3-month appointment I've had for the past 4 years, and I put it in my calendar and expected a regular, routine, six-minute eye exam. 

Then the words "your next big surgery" were uttered. 

And I'll be honest -  I knew I was at least going to have a third surgery. But quite frankly I thought I'd be married with kids and on the up-side to 40 when I had it. My 27-year old self found out that might not be the case. 

I don't know anything definite, but I know my eye isn't holding up. The part of my cornea that is at 10% thickness isn't growing back like they thought, and hoped, it would. So, my "next big surgery" would involve a cataract surgery (so I could see again) and a simultaneous corneal transplant (because my eye won't be able to handle another surgery without one).

Vision and a new cornea - sounds like a win win right? Well - the protons that were sewn into my eye back in 2010 and radiated to kill the tumor still have their charge. And no corneal transplant will "take" with the charged protons still doing their thing. So for now, we're not sure what that means. We'll know more when we go to Boston. But I'm not stupid. I know very well I could go under for that surgery, and wake up with people telling me there was nothing that they could do, so they had to remove my eye completely. I get it. I know that's an option.

What I will say, is that this whole process has emotionally affected me much more than I imagined. The doctor told me his thoughts, I smiled and joked with him about outcomes, paid my copay, and then left the building. 

Then I called my dad in the car and told him the news while choking back tears. 

All too familiar. 

Then I got home, saw my puppy trotting towards me, and slid down the hallway wall crying while he licked my tears.

 All too familiar. 

Then I went back to work, put on my game face, and lived life like I was just any ole person and put the thought of another surgery as far back in my mind as I possibly could. Compartmentalization. 

All too familiar. 

I joked with my sister and told her I've gotten "soft" over the years, but quite frankly, I'm just not ready to go through all this again. I enjoyed being normal. I've gotten used to being half blind. I'm finally ready to write my book on this experience from 5 years ago - I'm not ready for volume two. 

Why I'm writing this, on this blog, I'm not sure. But I got home last night and completely fell apart. Yesterday afternoon knocked the wind right out of me, and while I've been through much worse, I wasn't ready for the feeling. Yes, the plus side is that I'm still riding the stable wave and nothing urgent has to be done, but my eye is not healing, and in the words of my doctor we're "playing the waiting game." 

I know I'll be okay. I know this will be fine. But I just wasn't ready to go back. I wasn't ready to give up normalcy. I wasn't ready to have eye appointments and eye-centered blog posts be the front-runner of my life. But I don't make the plan. And I don't necessarily get the road map. All I know is that the next stepping stone is to pray. 

Yesterday was just all too familiar. 

 ____

Until next time,
Katy