July 2013 | I will see again…

Kirk, age 3

during a recent visit to the eye specialist

 

When I was three, my parents noticed my left eye was not moving in tandem with my right. After seeking out an eye doctor they found out that the back of my left eye had weak blood vessels that had burst—a disease called Cotes Disease. After a successful surgery to seal the vessels, I forever lost normal sight in that eye. I have very little memory of these events except the image of looking up from the surgery table with men and women moving around me. Since that time, I have never had complete sight in my left eye. I had some peripheral, but little else.

About a year ago, soon after Sarah’s surgery and about the time my kidney issues surfaced, my eye started exhibiting some problems. So, like any other wise person in distress I didn’t get it checked out. With all that was going on, Sarah’s surgery, my surgery, Dad wrestling through cancer, I just didn’t want to have one more thing to deal with—so, I ignored it. Every once in a while it would get sore and then a day or so later it would go back to normal. About a month ago, my eye got red and sore like it had before, only this time it didn’t go down. After some days, Sarah and I went to get it checked out.

My eye disease had morphed into neo-vascular glaucoma. Blood vessels were forming at the front of my eye and interfering with drainage and therefore causing my pain. There was no need to deal with restoring my sight since I haven’t known what it is like to see out of both eyes for years; the main thing to deal with was the pain. Before this, I’d only heard of glaucoma pain…experiencing it is unique. Right now the pain is minimal after a treatment of Avastin, a drug used to shrink tumors by shrinking blood vessels. The Avastin is used regularly for glaucoma patients to shrink the eyes blood vessels. The hope for me is that it will “unblock” the blocked drainage areas of my eye and reduce my pain.

My eye will never be the same this side of God intervening and healing my eye. (He is able and I ask Him, but whether He wants to is another question.) My blue iris is gone, and it is red all the time. I feel a little self-conscious about it, but I can work through that. As I have said, I have no memory of seeing out of both eyes, and I thank God for allowing me to see out of one. My broken eye is a daily reminder of this world’s brokenness, of the “First Curse”—the result of Adam’s Fall.

But there was a Second Adam, who endured this cursed world to set aright what was broken for so long; and He will come again. On that Day at the sound of a cosmic trumpet, the soldier who had his legs mangled in battle will dance a jig, and the little girl born with a cleft palate will taste of the Feast, running her tongue across the roof of her restored mouth. As for me…I will take in all the beauty of that Lamb on the throne with both my eyes.