A true blessing whipped through my household this past week when my daughter, who has been fighting with going blind in her left eye, was able to wear a special contact that worked to help her see. This has been a long two-year fight for our family. First a virus attacks her eye and creates a scar that moves across her pupil in a manner that made her unable to see.
Then she started seeing three of everything with that eye, then add in your other eye and you have four things you see when you look at anything. Think about how hard it is to know which lines on the road are the right ones when you drive. Think about how difficult it is to draw when you are an artist when the line is in the wrong place and you don’t know which one to erase. Think about helping someone put on a necklace and you can’t figure out which clasp is the right one to fasten. How about reaching for something and it’s not the one you thought. It would be a great challenge to see day to day doing the basics of life.
The doctor prescribed medications after medications and many months of this therapy with regular visits to see if there was any progress. The virus was gone but the scar tissue it left over her eye became the new challenge and it looked as if the only option she had available to her was a cornea transplant. When they tell you that this transplant is similar to getting a heart or a kidney and that your body could reject it even if you get it, and it is likely that you will have to have another one a few years later, you know you are dealing with something quite severe.
This was the option given to our daughter after a year and a half of following the doctor’s directions and doing everything he said to do in hopes to save her eye from losing sight. She even avoided going to hang out with friends so that she wouldn’t catch anything that could make her eye worse. That causes you to become secluded from others, not willing to take risks, question what you want to do with your life and so forth.
As the last alternative we of course went for a second opinion, not because he wasn’t a great doctor, but we wanted to make sure that was all the options she had left to choose from at the current stage of her eye. Once we received the option of a special contact over a transplant we of course jumped at the chance to give it a try. The blessing that allowed this as an option was a tiny little dot that had formed in the scar tissue as a horseshoe shape. It caused her to see three of everything through that eye but it was a dot of vision that gave hope. Sometimes hope is all you really need.
This process took another eight months. Being patient and waiting for insurance approvals wasn’t easy. Being denied approval was also very frustrating. In the end she was finally approved for the first step, which was getting the kit that created a mold of her eye for the contact to be made. Then it was another wait for the contact to be approved and for that to come in.
Time seemed to drag on but finally she was able to go last week and have the contact put into her eye. Not only did she no longer see three of everything, she also was able to change her vision from 20/200 to 20/75 with that contact. At first it was difficult because my daughter does not like things coming at her eye, or being put into her eye at all. This was a giant fear for her.
Once she sat in the room for a while and the doctor checked to make sure it was fitting correctly and there was no problems with the contact, my daughter got to go outside wearing special glasses that would be the new prescription she would get when glasses were ordered. Her smile was so wonderful to see when she said I can see the tree clearly now. I can see the branches and the twigs not just a blob of mess due to seeing three of everything.
As a mother you just want to take away any pain, fix any hurts, repair any damage and make that child’s life better even if you take it on yourself so they don’t have to experience it. To see that beautiful smile appear on her face made my heart sing for joy, because this long journey for her was nearly over. Yes, we have to get her glasses in, which she will wear with the contact to get 20/50 visions but considering where she has come that is a great blessing.
Do you get impatient when the answers you seek don’t seem to come as quickly as you would like? Do you have to overcome a major fear in order to change your life for the better? Are you not good at waiting for others to do their jobs so that you can have something you need? Are you not making progress on something you want to do fast enough and you feel frustrated? Did something you desire fall through and you now have to change your plans? Are you dealing with something that is taking a long time to see if it works, perhaps a treatment for an illness?
We all feel these things. We all have moments where we want it now but you are forced to wait. Waiting is sometimes the hardest thing there is to do. You must remember that even one step forward is still progress. Are you keeping your eyes open (pun intended) to the blessings that are taking place in this time of waiting? What are you learning? Is it bringing you close to another? Is it allowing you to enjoy the more simple things of life?
I sincerely hope that you are Blessed with Sight on your journey through life. You are learning new things about others and yourself. You are making progress even if it is slow. That you are thankful for what you have in your life right now and what is to come.
Have a blessed week.
