When Your Eyeball Falls Out

If that didn't pike some interest, what kind of title would?  

To appreciate the heart of the dialogue that took ten seconds on a dog-walk last fall, you have to know the background.  So, for those who aren't familiar with eyeball history O'Neill style, a synopsis:

With Camille's micro prematurity came her Retinopathy of Prematurity, an eye disease that caused her vision loss.  ROP doesn't always rear its head in preemies, but the earlier in preemie, the more likely it will.  Severe forms of ROP that are unresponsive to a little laser therapy are rare.  Camille was among the chosen few.  

I liken ROP in it's worst form to a natural disaster such a tornado, a typhoon, a tsunami, a hurricane…take your pick.  The disease explodes in the eyes, wreaks havoc, creates a bunch of damage in a short amount of time, and then leaves, never to be seen again.   If you are lucky, a very proactive retinal specialist is on board from the beginning.  If not, you may be fortunate enough to find a good one to try to rebuild the eye after the damage has been done.  

We were fortunate enough to find Camille's amazing retinal specialist, Dr. Michael Trese, after much damage had occurred.  He did repair as much as he could, and his career passion affords the vision that she has today in her left eye.  Unfortunately, for her right eye, by the time we got to him, it was too late.  After the disease hit, she never regained any vision in her right eye.  Though he tried to provide "palliative care" for it, the anatomy inside was…well…a mess.  Between 18 months and 3 years of age, this led to increased pressure, struggles with the pain of glaucoma, and eventual enucleation (removal) of the right eye at the University of Iowa.  The oculoplastic surgeon there implanted a super cool acrylic ball which got sewn into her eye muscles to allow synchronicity of movement between her prosthetic eye and her real eye.  Six months post-enucleation, we met Vaugn, the master eye-maker extraordinaire, who has since been creating very intricate pieces of artwork disguised as eyeballs that have fooled many an ophthalmologist.  This removable piece is essentially shaped like a quarter moon.   Every couple of years as Camille grows, she gets a new one crafted.  It can be taken out, but we don't ever do it on purpose, unless for some reason it becomes irritated and needs to be washed off.  

It would follow, however, according to Murphy's law, that at least once every year during her youngest elementary school years, it would somehow work its way out of her head and into the middle of the floor when the class was gathered around for circle time.  It then followed that the teacher would have to conduct a debriefing session about why it wasn't bleeding as Camille plodded up to the nurses station, I would get a call to come slide it back in, and life would go back to normal…if that's what you call it.  Not kidding…this happened three years in a row.  

I'm getting there…the heart of the tale. 

Fast forward to Camille at age 10.  We are really fortunate to be at a great school, and Camille is really fortunate to have a lot of friends who don't really "see" her obvious differences.  To give her some credit, she's an easy kid to be around---generally fun, kind, bright, and easy-going.  However, there is one guy in particular who I just love.  I won't call him out, though his mom probably wouldn't care if I did.  Even when she was still physically less stable and pretty slow when she was 6-7, he would see her out on Halloween and shout, "Camille!!!  Wanna come with us??"  

Sometime last fall, when the weather was still nice, Camille and I had taken Vinny out for a short jaunt after dinner.  This friend of whom I speak doesn't live too far from us, and as we were walking by his house, I heard the door to his house burst open, and he ran out, joining Camille ahead of me for a bit.  They were chatting about their dogs, something about school--I guess 10-year-old things--when without even pausing, he said to her, "Hey, Camille, do you remember that time in school when your eye fell out and rolled onto the floor?"  She replied without pause, "YES!  That was HIL-ar-ious!" To which he said, "Yeah, that was so cool."  

And then they just kept talking about the rest of their night. 

Oh, that we all have friends who love our idiosyncrasies, and tell us that the things that make us so unique are, in fact, very cool.  

I'm happy to say that, as an adult, I have found friends who love me when, metaphorically, my eyeball falls out.  I wish this for all of my children as they grow in life.  The unique ability to be transparent is a true gift in a society where we often feel the pressure to hide our flaws, which can, in fact, be the things that make us beautiful.    

A little ditty about bravery….

Curses, Veronica Roth!!  

Before you get all judgy on me for reading a book series marketed towards teens, hear me out.  Over the holiday, I finished the third book in the Divergent series, Allegiant.  (Finishing the series cemented my recent feeling that there are some current "teen" writers who are so very wise in the life lessons they have to share; my hope is that the teenage population reading them has the wisdom to really discover the lessons, or at least tuck them away, albeit unknowingly, until life beckons them to surface later.)  

So a bit of background…  One of my little known secrets is that if I had been less practical in my late teens and early twenties, I probably would have majored in English.  One of my favorite classes of all time was an Honors English class I took at UNL called "Stories and Human Experience," taught by Debbie Minter, which was, in a nutshell, a whole semester of exploring why we connect to what we read.  We examined what others said about the topic, we wrote about the topic, we did a capstone project on the topic..you name it.  The verdict:  we likely love the books that we love because we forge connections with the content or the characters.  That class changed my relationship with books, or at least matured it and magnified it.  The books I love the most-- my "bookshelf" status books---are those that have become meaningful to me because of my connection to them.  They make it off of the Kindle app into print or out of the donation pile and onto the mantle to forever remind me that there is great wisdom within the pages.  

So, yes, the Divergent series has made it onto the bookshelf.  As I read the last few chapters of the third book in the series, I thought a big part of me really wanted things to wrap up nicely and neatly with the metaphorical hard-fought, fairy-tale, happily-ever-after, predictable ending.  Spoiler alert:  that is not what happened, and I was REALLY irritated.  I cried.  After three books worth of very well-done character development which left me in Tobias's corner (one of the protagonists), cheering for and anticipating his happy ending, my hopes were shattered along with his.  In one fell swoop, Veronica Roth smashed his dreams, his happiness slipped away, intense grief washed over him, life as he knew it was gone, and he found himself face-to-face with the dystopian-world, futuristic version of suicide.  Yet, he chose bravery.  True bravery.  In his voice, Veronica Roth speaks this wisdom:

"There are so many ways to be brave in this world.  Sometimes, bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else.  Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.  But sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.  That is the sort of bravery I must have now."  

Just like that, the connection became monumental and the Divergent series became bookshelf status.  Had it wrapped up in a nice bow with a predictable happy ending, it would have been good, but not great and bookshelf-worthy.  At the risk of getting overly dramatic, I connected to Tobias's words in a big way, as I'm sure many do for a variety of reasons.  I have felt the intense pain of loss so deep that waking up to face the day seems insurmountable in itself.  I have been engrossed in moments where I've found myself, like him, consciously thinking that it seems impossible for grief to subside.  I've had days in my past where my life doesn't even seem like my life, as the circumstances were so different from what I had dreamed they would be.  I've had moments where I have wanted to run, but knew that I could never outrun the fear, the pain, the unknown, and the questions.  I remember looking at pictures of myself from the past, feeling so disconnected from the person smiling back at me.  I felt physically, mentally, and emotionally weak and vulnerable.  

With this several years behind me now, I can look back and see that I may have felt weak, but I have never been braver.  Getting up and facing those days, finding a way to work through the grief, rewriting our family's future and being there to learn from my amazing children and the siblings who have come after them was brave.  I felt weak, but in my weakness, I was brave.  

I know amazing people who have never thrown themselves into a burning building, taken a bullet in place of someone else, been a part of a takedown mission in a foreign land, or fought off a lion with a toothpick…but they are people who I admire for being extremely brave.  They are the patients I see who are facing a new, chronic diagnosis.  They are mothers and fathers who have lost their children, people who are struggling in their marriages or facing divorce, people who have lost their jobs and their livelihood and don't know how to restart.  They are people who have sick children…really sick children.  They are people who have just lost their way.  They are people who are picking up the phone to call a counselor to start fighting the good fight.  

They feel week, but they are gritting their teeth through pain and the work of everyday, the slow walk toward a better life.  They are not weak; they are brave.  

Thanks, Veronica Roth.  The real fairy tales are the ones of which you write.  There are happy endings to be found, and the hard-fought battles can have the sweetest endings.