Looking Within

Literally.

Of all the different kinds of surgeries that I've had (about 8), eye surgeries, at least the kinds that I've had, are by far the least debilitation and the least painful. They are also the most fascinating because you can see to some extent what is happening to you from a unique and beautiful perspective. In the past ten months I've had three different surgical procedures on my right eye, and each one has shown me a mysterious little world within my eyeball that only people who have had these operations have ever see. Even the surgeon, unless he has had the operation himself, doesn't see what you are seeing. I've searched around the internet to see if anyone with more artistic ability than I has tried to draw what they have seen in there, but I've only found one picture which I'll link to below. I've thought about writing about this before, but now I'm glad I waited for the third immersion.

My first procedure was supposed to be routine cataract surgery, but there was a problem and what was supposed to last about ten minutes ended up taking about an hour. I was aware that something was going wrong, but I wasn't really concerned--I guess because of the anesthesia--and I was enjoying watching the colors. The first thing that the doctor does in cataract surgery is to destroy your lens, so you can't see any distinct images, just a white background with little clouds of different-colored pastel lights that would expand and contract, appear and disappear. They were blue, pink, green, and yellow, and it was all very shiny and pleasant to watch. It was short of like this image, except it the colors were more delicate and luminous and I didn't see that orange-y color. Also, I never saw the circular shape in the middle. Either I slept through that part, or it wasn't there because of the complications I was having. I don't know. 

After this operation was over, I was functionally blind in this eye. I could see, but the only thing I could see was a glowing whte mass with some floaters in it. Later I could see shadows in bright light. Part of the cortex from my lens had "gotten fluffy" and was stuck behind my new lens and had to be removed, so on to surgery number two. This was the most beautiful and fascinating of the three. Whereas the first operation had been all light and almost airy, this one was dark and liquid. The peripheral area of my eye was a brown, tea color, that faded into a narrow band of yellow, and then green and then blue--almost indigo. They weren't neat, well-defined bands, but merged and faded in and out of one another. When the doctor squirted liquid (water?) inside my eye, I could see it swirling around in patterns. I could also see the little hectagonal shape of her microscope and the shape of an instrument that she was using. And then, there were these little translucent rectangular crystal floating around. They weren't regular in shape, but had irregular edges and textured surfaces. In my drugged condition, I had the idea that these were the enemy, but who knows? Then at the end, I could see the instrument that she was using to stitch up my eye, and although that sounds dreadful, it wasn't. 

Last Thursday's operation was for a retinal problem that didn't have anything to do with the other two, but was something they found when they were looking inside my eye to make sure things were healing correctly. I had a membrane over my macula which is the part of the retina where most of the photoreceptors are located, and it was causing me to have some distortion in my vision and my vision was also getting worse--20/20 to 20/40 in about 6 months. They had to peel the membrane off. Again, this sounds much worse than it is. By this time, I was pretty calm about having my eye worked on and I was really curious about what I would see this time around. It was a complete surprise. I had a local anesthetic for this operation, so I was completely awake the whole time, which was only about 10 minutes long. There was no color at all. It was like watching one of those old black-and-white movies where you see the action taking place on a window shade. I saw some kind of stick-shaped instrument, dark gray against a pale gray circular background. That moved around for a bit and then there were tweezers that came and pulled the membrane away from retina. I could actually see it plucking at the membrane. It didn't come away in one piece, like I expected, but had to be pulled several times. Then that was over and there was another stick to put an air bubble in my eye, and that was that. This all looked fairly large, but in reality, the instruments must have been tiny. There isn't even a visible mark on my eye.

So, there you have it. I'm continually amazed by the incredible science behind all this, both biological and technological. I'm even more awestruck at a God Who fashioned a creation that is beautiful, not only on the outside, but in the inmost recesses of our bodies where they are for the most part invisible. 

I really want to get this posted today and there is no way I can look at it long enough to proofread, so please forgive my mistakes. I hope there is nothing egregiously rude and embarrassing.. 

AMDG